memoment editorial

One of the weirder corners of the paranormal is that of what are called “time slips.” These are instances in which individuals or even whole groups of people have seemed to pass through some veil between time and space, to find themselves flung back far back into the past to witness events there before being catapulted right back into the present, often confused and with no idea what has happened to them. Such cases tend to be rare, but when they do happen, they also tend to be very bizarre indeed. 
One such time slip allegedly happened to a small group of young men in England, which seems to have taken them back into the past of a small village and left a strange, unsolved mystery behind. It was the fall of 1957, when in October of that year, three cadets with the British Royal Navy went out into the English countryside in Suffolk for a simple map-reading training exercise. On this day, the cadets, named William Laing, Michael Crowley and Ray Baker, had the objective to simply follow a route through the scenic area, observe several assigned locations, map a route to a waypoint, make notes of what they found, and then return to report to their superiors. Considering that it was a clear, sunny day, it was more or less a pleasant walk through the picturesque countryside, and at first, that’s precisely what it was, but things were about to take a turn into the weird. 
Along their route, the men passed the small hamlet of Kersey, a charming little village of only a few hundred people known for its rustic streets and historical medieval buildings. As they looked out at the village, it seemed like just another normal, quiet day, the church bells ringing out to join the bird song in the air, wisps of smoke climbing out of chimneys. Since Kersey was an assigned location along their route, they approached the village to observe it, but as they did, things allegedly got very weird, indeed. It began with the silence. The church bells were no longer ringing, the birds stopped singing, and even the sound of the wind seemed muted, as if a wall of silence had descended on them. Everything seemed still, the leaves not stirring on the streets, the branches of trees paused, everything seemingly frozen in time, even some ducks in a nearby stream were standing motionless, and perhaps even weirder still was that there was no one out walking about, despite it being a pleasant sunny day. Even the smoke from the chimneys had stopped churning out smoke. Indeed, as they entered the village, it seemed entirely deserted, and one of the cadets would say of the unsettling, eerie scene:

“It was a ghost village, so to speak. It was almost as if we had walked back in time. I experienced an overwhelming feeling of sadness and depression in Kersey, but also a feeling of unfriendliness and unseen watchers which sent shivers up one’s back… I wondered if we’d knocked at a door to ask a question who might have answered it? It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Things got even stranger still as they began exploring the village. There were no cars anywhere to be seen, no phone wires, no bicycles, and the road itself seemed roughly cobbled and old-fashioned. Although there were many medieval buildings in Kersey, they also noticed that they could see absolutely no modern buildings around them. All of the houses were of a medieval-style, all hand-built and timber-framed, with greenish glass windows covered in a film of grime. Adding to the surreal quality was that even the season seemed to have changed. Whereas it had been autumn, one cadet would mention that now “it was verdant… and the trees were that magnificent green colour one finds in spring or early summer.” They decided to approach one of these quaint, seemingly deserted buildings and looked inside, where they were surprised to see that it was some kind of creepy butcher’s shop. One of the witnesses would say of the odd sight:

“There were no tables or counters, just two or three whole oxen carcasses which had been skinned and in places were quite green with age. There was a green-painted door and windows with smallish glass panes, one at the front and one at the side, rather dirty-looking. I remember that as we three looked through that window in disbelief at the green and mouldy green carcasses… the general feeling certainly was one of disbelief and unreality. Who would believe that in 1957 that the health authorities would allow such conditions?”

They looked into some other buildings to find that, although they seemed to be houses, there was nothing in there, no furniture and no sign of life at all, as if they had suddenly been abandoned by residents who had taken all of their possessions with them. It must have been quite sudden because the smoke from the chimneys that they had seen had also stopped. They went to look for the church tower because it was a major landmark where they thought they would be able to get their bearings, but were startled to find that it simply was not there anymore, as if it had vanished into thin air, even though they had clearly seen it from outside of the village and it was the most famous building there. Where had it gone? Where had everyone gone? At this point, the three men were feeling very unsettled and spooked. There was an ominous, vaguely menacing feeling of dread coming over them, and they decided to get out of there as quickly as possible. 
As soon as they left the village, they would report that everything abruptly went back to normal. The bells started again, the birds sang, the crisp wind of autumn hit them, leaves fell from trees, and the chimneys once again belched smoke. The church tower was also once again there, towering over the surrounding buildings, and the three astonished cadets could not account for any of it. Although their superiors confirmed that they had reached Kersey, the stranger details of the account were brushed off at the time, and they would just sort of swirl around in the back of the witnesses’ minds. 
It would not be until many years later when in the 1980s the case came to the attention of paranormal researcher Andrew MacKenzie, of the Society for Psychical Research, when he received a letter from Lang and Crowley. Intrigued, he went to meet with the men and even went to the village with them, and the more he learned, the more he became convinced something truly strange had happened here. One of the main things that impressed MacKenzie was that the account was very historically accurate; for instance, the building with the cow carcasses indeed had once been a butcher’s shop, although in 1957 it would have been a private residence. Other observations of the layout of the town also matched true historical records, which were information these cadets would not have likely known. MacKenzie concluded that not only had these men traveled through a time slip, but he even worked out just what era they had gone to. He surmised that because the village had been mostly deserted and the tower was not visible to them that it had been so before the tower had been completed and when the village had been ravaged by the Black Death, by his estimate sometime in the early 1400s. He was so impressed with the case that he would include it in his 1997 book on time slips titled “Adventures in Time.” 
Of course, there have been skeptics as well. For instance, it has been pointed out that glass windows would have been very expensive during that era and that it would be unlikely for a butcher shop with so many cow carcasses to be there in such a tiny village, as meat was a luxury product that would have been more common in larger towns. In the end, there seems to be no way to know for certain what these men experienced out there in that idyllic English countryside. Were they somehow transported temporarily to another time through means we may never fully understand? Or is there some other, more rational explanation? It remains unknown. 

Another very strange time slip happened back in the 19th century on the frontiers of Canada, and it is a very weird case, indeed. Sir Cecil Edward Denny emigrated from England to the United States at the age of just 19 and in 1874 joined Canada’s North-West Mounted Police, working his way up the ranks from constable to sub-inspector. Denny took part in the Long March west, and he remained at Fort Macleod during the winter of 1874-75, where he kept detailed journals and notes on his many adventures through this wild land. He would describe the land in his The Riders of the Plains: A Reminiscence of the Early and Exciting Days in the North West:

“For some years after the advent of the North West Mounted Police into the western portion of the then Prince Rupert’s land, and to-day known as the North West Territories, the newness, and also the strangeness, of the country, were a source of unfailing interest to us, who belonged to that force. Game of all kinds abounded throughout the country and as we came to the foot hills of the Rockies, bear, elk and moose were often to be seen. This class of game was little molested by the tribe of Blackfeet Indians, whose home was out on the plains, and who lived altogether on the buffalo, which animals supplied them not only with meat, but nearly everything, either directly or indirectly, that they required. The streams were full of fish of many kinds, trout being the most plentiful, and near the mountains salmon trout which often weighed fifteen to eighteen pounds were easily to be caught.”

During his various travels, they also had much contact with the local Blackfoot tribe of the region, who were friendly and inviting to these outsiders at the time and often went hunting or fishing with them, and Denny’s writings are full of many detailed accounts of their way of life and culture. Indeed, Denny’s accounts are among some of the more detailed writings there are on the people and animals of this land, but among the myriad reports and musings of the wildlife or the Blackfeet there are some reports that really stick out as odd and seem to jump right off the page to firmly lodge themselves into the world of the weird, and one of these seems to be the time Denny came across some sort of time slip out there in the remote wilds. 
In the summer of 1875, Denny made a trip from the fort on Old Man River to the foothills of the mountains, and up that river about 40 miles to do a bit of fishing and hunting. He took with him a pack horse, blankets, cooking utensils, an inflatable Indian rubber boat, and various other supplies, and accompanying him was a Native tribesman to act as both a guide and to help bring back any game they managed to bag, as well as two spare horses. At first, their expedition went off well, with each of them managing to shoot a deer, and that first evening, they set up a pleasant camp in good spirits and had a hearty dinner of venison and some trout they had caught in the river. It seemed as if it would be a fruitful trip that would go without a hitch until the following day, when they would run into some trouble and a threatening storm would seemingly spring up out of nowhere. Denny writes of this:

“On the following morning we packed the deer and our camp outfit on the two spare horses, and the Indian made an early start with them for the fort. I remained with the boat ready to go down by the river, keeping only my gun and a light overcoat, with a bite of cold meat and bread for lunch. I made good way down the river during the morning, which was fine and warm, only once having any trouble, at a rather nasty rapid, in the middle of which I stuck on a flat rock. In getting off the boat upset, and I got a thorough ducking before I could catch it again. The gun which was fastened by a cord to the side of the cushion, was not lost, although rendered useless for the time by water. I, therefore, camped early for dinner, eating the bread and meat, which, although rather sodden, was better than nothing. I got my clothes partially dried in the sun. All my matches were wet, and a fire was not to be had.
While camped about noon the weather began to look threatening, heavy banks of clouds gathering in the north, and now and then the growl of thunder in the distance could be heard. As I was not more than half way, I started again on my downward journey as soon as possible, but the farther I went the darker it grew, and I soon saw that I was in for a heavy storm, which, to say the least, was by no means pleasant. The thunderstorms along the mountains, although seldom of long duration, where often very severe while they lasted, and by the look of things, I was in for one of the worst. I however made my way steadily down the river, and after a while the storm came down with a vengeance. There was a heavy wind, with hail, rain, and perpetual lightning, followed by deafening peals of thunder, seemingly right overhead. I found it difficult with such a light boat to make any progress, as the heavy wind would drive me from one shore to the other, and the river was lashed into quite heavy waves, so that, although the boat could not sink, I was sitting in water up to my waist, and sometimes sheets of water would be blown right over me. As it was getting quite dark, although not more than four o’clock in the afternoon, I found it impossible to make my way, and I determined to land and wait until the storm was over.”

He managed to finally get to shore and take shelter in a stand of trees, and it was then that there was a lull in the storm just enough for him to make out over the slashing rain and crashing thunder the sound of drums thumping and beating from an Indian camp, accompanied by the sound of chanting. Considering that the Natives of the area were friendly, he tied up his boat securely and made his way towards the sounds of the camp, which became louder and clearer as he drew near. The storm chose that time to become even more intense than before, with lightning ominously flashing across the sky and the rumble of thunder shaking the earth, but he managed to make it within sight of the camp, and he says of what happened next:

“The storm had now come down worse than ever, and the lightning was almost blinding. I made my way through the timber as fast as possible, it not being any too safe in such close proximity to the trees, and coming out into an open glade of quite an extent, I saw before me the Indian camp not more than two hundred yards away. I could see men and women, and even children, moving about among the lodges, and what struck me as strange was the fact that the fires in the centre of many of the tents shone through the entrances, which were open. This surprised me, as you do not often find the Indians moving about in the wet if they can help it. They generally keep their lodges well closed during a thunder storm, of which they are very much afraid. They look upon thunder as being the noise made by one of their deities called the “Old Man,” while throwing great boulders from the mountains. There were, I should consider, about twenty lodges in the camp, and a band of horses could be seen grazing not far off on the other side of the camp.
I stood for a few seconds watching and considering which lodge to make for, and had taken a few steps towards the one nearest me, when I seemed to be surrounded by a blaze of lightning, and at the same time a crash of thunder followed that fairly stunned me for nearly a minute, and sent me on my back. A large tree not far off was struck. I could hear the rending of the wood, and it was afterwards found nearly riven in half. Some of the electric fluid had partly stunned and thrown me down. I was fortunate to have escaped with my life, and, as it was, it was a few minutes before I was able to rise and look around. I looked towards the place where the camp stood, but to my unutterable astonishment as well as terror, it was not there. It was quite light, although still storming heavily, and was not much after four o’clock. A few minutes before not only a large Indian camp had stood there, and the voices of the Indians could be distinctly heard, but now all had suddenly disappeared, even to the band of horses that were quietly grazing there only a few minutes before.
I stood for a moment almost dumb with astonishment, seeing and hearing nothing, when suddenly an overwhelming sense of terror seemed to seize me, and almost without knowing what I did, I ran towards the bank overlooking the river, which was about a quarter of a mile away, dropping my gun as I ran. I did not stop until I reached the top of the bank, and there I had to rest for want of breath. Here I managed to gather my wits together, and to think of what had taken place. The open place where the camp had stood was in plain sight from where I was, with the clump of trees behind towards the river, but it was empty, and not a tent or human being in sight. There was nothing but the trees tossed by the storm and the driving rain, and now and then a flash of lightning. I could even then hardly believe my eyes, but there was no doubt about it, and I did not remain long in sight of that spot, and being afraid to go down to my boat, I determined to walk down the river bank to the fort, which must have been a good fifteen miles away. It was one of the hardest journeys I ever undertook. What with the shock from being thrown down, and then the most astonishing and inexplicable disappearance of the camp, and also being soaked to the skin, I was in a most uncomfortable condition. The storm continued until night, when it cleared up, and I made my way into the fort at about midnight, completely fagged out, turning into bed at once, with no explanation to anyone.”

The following morning, Denny would tell some other officers in his regiment about what he had seen during that storm, but he was merely laughed at, and no one believed him. He was told it had all been in his head or that he was making up tall tales, but he knew what he had seen, and he could not explain it. He decided to travel back to the spot where the mysterious camp had been, taking one of the Indians and a Blackfoot interpreter with him, and they managed to find the spot fairly quickly, its spot hard to miss because of the unique bend of the river and rock formations nearby, but there was no sign of a camp there and they were met with an eerie quiet. Denny would write about what they found:

“We found the place without trouble, but it was vacant, and look as we could no sign of any recent camp was to be seen. A few rings of stone partly overgrown with grass showed where an old camp had been many years ago, and on questioning the Indian, he stated that the Blackfeet had surprised and slaughtered a camp of Cree Indians at that place many years ago, and in fact we came across two bleached skulls lying in the grass. The Indian did not seem to have any superstitions regarding that place. We found where a tree had been struck by lightning, and the boat and gun we brought away. I have, until now, but seldom mentioned this circumstance, but I am to-day as firmly convinced as ever that the Indian camp, together with the men, women, and the horses, was most certainly there, and that I suffered under no hallucination whatever, but account for it I cannot, and look upon it as one of those inexplicable riddles which cannot be solved.”

Were they somehow transported temporarily to another time through means we may never fully understand? Or is there some other, more rational explanation? Was this a case of another time somehow transposing itself onto the present? Was it some sort of mysterious interdimensional phenomenon? It remains unknown, and it goes to show just how far back weird time-slip stories go. 
A very strange and prolonged time slip case was uncovered by paranormal researcher Carl Grove, who found a witness on the forum for the Unexplained Mysteries site who had a very bizarre story to tell. The witness, a Native American who calls himself James Two Hats, engaged with Grove in a long correspondence, during which time he would weave a fantastic tale of a mystical cave, vision quests, spirits, a ghostly phantom storm, and travel through time. The witness’s testimony is as odd as it is engaging, with Jimmy claiming to have had visions and psychic abilities from a very young age. When he later served in the Vietnam War, he claims that these powers were recognized by his higher-ups, and that he was recruited into a “highly secret operation” that was using psychics to try and gain an advantage in the war, including remote viewers, clairvoyants, and any gifted person the military could get their hands on. Jimmy was one of these, although he says that his memories of his time with the program seem to have been mostly wiped, but that the vestiges of what he does remember are like nascent flashes from a half-remembered nightmare and are “confused and some of them are horrific.” 
After the war, he spent a long time trying to come to terms with post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as with his psychic abilities and what he had experienced during his time in the program. He had frequent, horrific nightmares that involved creatures dragging him away through the walls, and he developed a profound fear of the dark. He was getting very little sleep and it was deeply affecting his life, and it was at this time that he began feeling a powerful pull towards a place that he had known about since his childhood, a cave he calls Cob Cave, near Jasper, Arkansas, located next to a sacred lake in what is now Buffalo National Park. He explained to Grove about this cave:

“The place scared me. There was a place on the trail to it where I always felt the air change from warm to cold, it was like crossing a line I couldn’t see and it happened in any season. I tried to point out the spot to other people but I was the only one who felt it. The cave is a beautiful place with a creek and a waterfall on the open side, and it frightened me down to my bones. In 1990 I was going through some hard personal times and decided to take up some of the old Indian ways and get back into my meditation as well, to try to put my life on a better course. Part of what happened involved a resurgence of connection with that cave. I felt there was someplace I had to go, and that was how it started. Cob Cave rang up, felt like the place. I said to myself, Is it Cob Cave? and something else in my mind said, Yes.”

Over the next several weeks, he began having long conversations with these voices in his head, which he claimed were coming from outside of himself and were those of mysterious spirits. These voices told him that he was special, and that he had latent powers he could only dream of, but that to unlock them fully, he needed to make an overnight vision quest to that cave. Jimmy was told that there he would learn things, that he would be tested, and that his eyes would be opened, but that it would also be dangerous and that he only had about a 50% chance of surviving his coming ordeal. He was also told that if he were to refuse, then he would forget all of it and that his life would go back to normal as if nothing had happened. Curious as to what was at that cave and what would happen, he accepted, and says of what happened next:

“They gave me some advice about how to live for the next month, that being the amount of time I had to wait, and then they stopped talking. So for about a month I lived a very clean life, ate only the old foods, and wondered if I was crazy or not. When the time came, I had to go, or I would have lost all self-respect. I took portions of the old foods as offerings, took a bottle of ginger soda, and a book of matches. I drove down to the cave trailhead and sat in my car until after closing hours, and walked up to it as the sun went down, managing to avoid any late hikers or rangers by dodging behind trees and fading into the shadows here and there. When I was sure everyone else had gone I went into the cave, barely able to find my way to the ledge at the back, and then I knew I was there for the night no matter what because it was too dark to find my way out.”

He found a spot in that cold, dank darkness and sat down to wait for what was in store for him, wary of what the spirits had told him, but the voices in his head were silent for the time being. He waited there in the dark, and at first nothing happened, just silence, to the point that he began to think that he was perhaps losing his mind. After all, he had driven out to this remote cave on the whim of voices in his head telling him to go on a vision quest and wait alone in that cave for some sort of spiritual test, so perhaps his grip on reality was loosening. That was when it seemed the test began in spectacular fashion. He would explain of what he experienced:

“Ghostly apparitions confronted me and attacked me, and if I disregarded them as just illusion they elbowed me in the ribs or stabbed me with sharp objects. An unexplainable storm came up and focused directly on the valley and the mountain above me, and even blew through the cave itself. I thought at one point I might be in a tornado and lightning hit the mountain nine times. Each time I could hear the rocks behind me crackling and popping as the charge dissipated and it was like the lightning was looking for me, getting closer to me with each strike. I truly thought I was going to die and I was lying back to the wall as low as I could get, up until it all struck me as funny and I sat up and started laughing and cheering on the storm, things swirling around me in the wind, rocks falling from the cave roof, lightning flashing and thunder booming and the creek roaring past in full flood, and I felt completely in harmony with all of it. Within moments it all stopped, and I assumed it was all over, maybe I even passed the test.”

When the ordeal suddenly stopped as soon as it had begun, Jimmy was alone once more in that cave, cold, wet, and thirsty, with just an hour left before the approaching sunrise. He thought about trying to feel his way out of the cave, but deemed it too dangerous because it was still too dark, and so he felt around for a dry place to try and lie down for a rest. When he finally found a good spot and was about to take a nap, he then noticed a strange light filling the cave and lighting up the actual rocks, the cave walls glowing brighter and brighter as he wondered what was coming next after that first spiritual assault. He explains of the bizarre events that would transpire:

“What happened, happened instantly. Suddenly the rock around me wasn’t solid any longer, a circular area around me didn’t have rock in it anymore and I had been depending on that rock for support. I scrambled for a grip on something but started falling like I’d jumped out of a plane, straight down, going through hoops of light that now remind me of what Black Elk described as the Hoops of Nations, hoops within hoops within hoops and I was flashing through them with a whoosh. After what felt like a long fall with a sudden right turn, I found myself standing in the cave unharmed, but things were very different. It was the same place, but it was daytime, maybe early afternoon from the angle of the light. Late summer by the smell of things, a crispness already in the air. Across the hollow that borders the cave I saw a red clay slope dotted with huge widely spaced evergreen trees, where I should have seen rocky steps cut into the limestone by the CCC, second growth oak and hickory forest, and a stand of slender pawpaws. 
It was how things should have looked there, ten thousand years before, and I began to worry about how I was supposed to get home because I didn’t appear to be waking up. I pinched myself and it hurt a lot but accomplished nothing. Then I heard voices to my left, people talking in a language I did not know, and my first thought was that I’d somehow fallen back in time and now some Indian people were going to torture me to death. They turned out to be friendly, though, and I stayed with them for several weeks before they sent me back. When I came back, I was on that same stone I fell through, lying flat on my back and fully conscious, dry and warm even inside my boots.”

What was going on here? Did this man somehow travel through the walls of that cave and through time and space? If so, then how was this possible? Was it the doing of the spirits or some latent quality of his already innate psychic powers, somehow enhanced and focused by the cave? Jimmy himself believes that some places are inherently imbued with mysterious energies, and that anyone can access them and use them to travel through time and space if only they can harness their ability to do so and sharpen their perceptions. He says that shamans have long sought to achieve this through vision quests, although he admits that it would be rare for one such as him to do so without disciplined training. In his case, he claims that it was the fact that the cave was a potent example of one of these power points, plus his psychic abilities and perception and focus cleaned through meditation that had allowed him to do this without proper guidance and training. He says of his ideas on all of this:

“I’ve regularly practiced meditation nearly my entire life and I also practice chi gong and some of the Shaolin methods for generating and controlling energy. It’s fair to say that I have perceptions and consciousness at levels most other people do not… I believe that anyone has this potential but few of us use it. The test of the lake had that purpose, to separate out those who have a strong natural talent for this. Other people would not see the lake at all and perceiving a time slip event should be much that way, depending partly on the ability of the individual to release the dominant view of the world.
I’ve read that in the old times, and possibly even now, certain shamans were able to use these high energy places as physical transportation. It was a high level talent few people acquired, but those who achieved it could teleport from one place of high energy to another. Often these places were marked by circular structures, naturally occurring as trees or stone formations, but in some cases these energy vortexes were only specific places on a flat plain, for example marked by nothing but an odd sensation when you passed over them. People would mark these spots with circles of stones. A shaman could move instantly from one to another even when the two points were separated by hundreds of miles. 
To me this seems to be partly based on energy and partly on perception. the two different vortexes harmonize, overlapping in terms of force, and if you know the place you intend to go to, perceiving that place instead of yourstarting point puts you there… A similar effect might explain the timeslips, as harmonies of energy surges that occur in the same place but apart in time. Human perception might be essential to this, as a catalytic force. Houses might not appear if no one is there to see them. Without a mind present the energy might remain formless, a fog that comes and goes without incident.”

It is all a rather bizarre account, and one is left to wonder just what to do with it. Is this just hallucinations, drugs, or fantasy, or is there something more to it? Did this witness go out into the great beyond past what we think we know, or is he simply pulling our chain? 
So what are we to make of time slips? Are these people actually traveling through time? Are they merely viewing a past that has somehow been imprinted on reality as if images to film? Could it involve forays into parallel dimensions, perhaps pushing through some thin spot between realities? Whatever the case may be, these potentially provide very strange and bizarre accounts offering a peek into worlds and realities beyond what we know, and true or not are all damn strange tales all the same. 

The Bigfoot and the Yeti (or Abominable Snowman) are known to almost everyone, both inside and outside of the paranormal and anomalous world. Indeed, so well known are these creatures that to many, even those would not class themselves as “believers” in the weird and the wonderful perhaps would not be at all surprised if proof of their existence was discovered, with many people accepting there is a good chance that these creatures are very real and not just the stuff of legends, myths, and folklore.
These elusive creatures, though, would appear to be far more than an undiscovered primate or even hominid. Those who have researched, studied, and investigated these mysterious creatures suspect that rather than just being another animal waiting to be discovered and catalogued by science, they are perhaps something much more otherworldly, and understanding these creatures could very well help us understand the bigger picture of the paranormal and anomalous world. Indeed, the notion that Bigfoot creatures are simply an undiscovered animal or a possible hominid is very much up for debate. There is good reason to suspect that these creatures, far from being merely flesh-and-blood animals, are something much more, possibly supernatural, perhaps even interdimensional.
Perhaps one of the first areas of concern (outside of a lack of a recovered body or evidence of a Bigfoot habitat) surrounding an undiscovered flesh-and-blood beast that had eluded detection for seemingly thousands of years was the many accounts that featured these Bigfoot creatures seemingly vanishing into thin air. The highly respected researcher and author, Linda Moulton Howe, for example, recalled an encounter that a rancher had with a Bigfoot creature on his land. She stated that the rancher in question suddenly found himself only several feet from this menacing creature, and after a moment of contemplation, he instinctively raised his weapon and prepared to fire. Before he could, though, the creature simply disappeared in a bizarre flash. This detail can be found in multiple Bigfoot reports and accounts, with many witnesses stressing how the creature was “there one minute and then gone the next!”
We might ask, then, are these creatures simply making themselves invisible? As bizarre as that might sound, there have been several intriguing pieces of footage circulating on the Internet for several years of what appears – or is at least claimed – to show a “cloaked Bigfoot” creature.
Or might it be that these creatures quite literally leave our realm of existence to a destination elsewhere, another dimension, perhaps, or even another time? And if that is true, then how do they achieve this? Can they manipulate reality or the environment to create a portal or gateway, and if so, do they achieve this through their own supernatural (to us) abilities, or do they utilize some kind of advanced technological device? Or perhaps they are simply aware of where certain X-points exist, and are sure not to venture too far from them, which might explain why there are certain “cluster areas” throughout the North American continent of Bigfoot hotspot locations?
Just one Bigfoot researcher who has concluded that these Bigfoot creatures are using some kind of portal or interdimensional gateway to enter our world is Becky Cook, who investigated dozens of Bigfoot encounters throughout the state of Idaho. Cook, though, has also gathered further remarkable data, not least that around 70 percent of people who have had encounters with a Bigfoot creature have also had “at least one near-death experience!” Moreover, rather than just being a strange and fascinating statistic, Cook believes that these near-death experiences have likely opened something within a person’s mind or perception that allowed them to see these elusive creatures in the first place.

There are ample reasons for us to contemplate that these Bigfoot creatures are not only highly intelligent but also have the ability to alter time and even wipe memories, either due to their unique capabilities or, as strange as it might sound, with access to some kind of advanced technology.
With this in mind, an encounter that unfolded in New Zealand in the late 1990s is of particular interest to us here. The anonymous witness claimed in his report that he and a friend were hiking in the wilderness and had made camp in a clearing in the forest on the night in question. During the night, the witness woke needing to relieve himself and so left the tent in order to do so. However, while answering the call of nature, he spotted two huge, hairy, beast-like creatures appear, as if from nowhere, out of the trees, approaching the tent where his hiking partner remained asleep. He noticed that they each took exceptionally long strides as they moved. Moreover, he stated that he could almost “feel” each footstep through the ground itself. Then, the two creatures came to a stop right outside the tent’s entrance. The witness remained as quiet and as still as he could, watching as the two creatures seemingly sized up the tent in front of them. After several moments, they simply turned and headed back into the woodland. By the time the witness returned to the tent, he could see from the look of distress on his face that his friend had also witnessed the bizarre event. The following morning, things turned even stranger.
By 7 am, with daylight bringing a slight sense of calm to the two hikers, they decided to head into the woods in the direction the Bigfoot-type creatures had disappeared. However, almost immediately after heading in that direction, the two witnesses found themselves approaching their camp area. Moreover, it was now sunset. They checked their watches and discovered that 12 hours had passed, 12 hours that they had no memory of whatsoever. Whether this missing time is connected to the strange creatures or not is perhaps open to debate. There are, though, several things for us to consider.
Firstly, there is a connection between UFO hotspots and areas of regular Bigfoot reports, with an increase in such reports usually coinciding with increases in UFO sightings. With this in mind, then, the two witnesses could have found themselves at the center of a close UFO encounter, perhaps even an alien abduction. Even with this possibility, there are perhaps two main “sub-possibilities” to consider. The first is that the two strange creatures are somehow connected to this speculative UFO, and so facilitated an equally speculative abduction scenario. Or, the second possibility is that, if we assume for one moment that these Bigfoot creatures are arriving in our realm from elsewhere, that whatever mechanism they use for this also allows UFOs access to our world, and so this mechanism, combined with the hikers’ curiosity, placed them in the middle of a close encounter. Indeed, if this were the case, then the location in New Zealand (which, unfortunately, is not known) could be considered a place of High Strangeness. Of course, alien abduction is not the only possibility.
If not UFOs or alien abduction, then might we consider that the Bigfoot creatures themselves were responsible for the missing time of the two hikers? Some researchers into these elusive creatures suggest that they not only have the ability to come in and out of our realm of existence (making them both supernatural and flesh-and-blood creatures at the same time) but that they are able, using nothing more than the powers of their minds, able to force people to simply not see them (essentially, making themselves invisible) or for a person to forget their encounters altogether. Could that have been the case here? Could the two creatures have encountered the two hikers the following day and simply erased their minds somehow using some kind of invasive form of telepathy? Indeed, telepathy is another trait that several researchers have suggested these creatures are skilled with.
With this in mind, it is worth exploring another encounter with a Bigfoot creature in the early 2000s in the woodlands of New Hampshire in the United States. According to the report, the anonymous witness was hiking in a remote area, deep in the woods, when he stumbled upon a wounded deer. It was still alive, but it had an arrow sticking out of its body. The witness carefully pulled the arrow out, discarded it, and then tied the deer to a nearby tree so that he could clean the wound. Ultimately, he decided to set up his basecamp next to the deer and continued to tend to it for several days. When it was fully healed and back to good health, he untied the animal, and it headed off back into the woodland. A short time later, the witness began packing up his equipment, ready to move on and explore elsewhere. As he was doing so, however, he suddenly sensed movement behind him. He spun around and was more than shocked to see a Bigfoot creature sitting on a log no more than 20 feet away from him. Then, an already bizarre situation turned even more surreal.
To his shock, this strange creature spoke to him, although not physically, but directly into his mind. This creature stated that it had been watching him as he had cared for the deer and nursed it back to good health. As the creature was telling him this, the witness thought to himself that this figure was the source behind the many sounds of snapping twigs and rustling of bushes he had heard over the last several days. To his further amazement, the creature then confirmed this to him only moments after he had thought it.

While there are reports of Bigfoot creatures all around the planet – some of which we will explore shortly – undoubtedly the biggest concentration of reports comes from North America, particularly the United States and Canada. Furthermore, these reports are only continuing today; they appear to be increasing. One particular encounter made international news headlines in January 2019 after a missing child was discovered, safe and well, offering to his mystified parents and searchers that “a bear helped him” to get back home. According to the reports, three-year-old Casey Hathaway went missing from his North Carolina home and remained missing for the next 48 hours, seemingly somewhere in the forests close to his home in freezing conditions. Then, not only was he discovered safe and well, but he also offered his account that the bear had kept him safe and, essentially, brought him home.
As we might imagine, many experts and people involved with the search put forward that the boy’s claims were simply a coping mechanism, or even a “fantasy” of his creation, not least as not only are there no known similar accounts on record, but most bears would have been deep into hibernation at this time of year. While most people were happy enough to accept this explanation, those in the Bigfoot community believed that the truth of the matter was staring people right in the face. One such commentator stated that:

“….…there are no reports available of bears coming out of hibernation to tend to lost children. However, also on record, are many reports of Bigfoot helping lost children…So, did Casey Hathaway spend two days with a bear, or did he spend two days with a Bigfoot? Some may doubt such a thing. However, in the light of what we know about bears in winter. And Bigfoot’s documented interaction with other children. I am going with Bigfoot!”

Just what did happen to the young boy in question remains unknown. There are, however, other cases on record of people going missing, particularly young children, who have claimed a “hairy man” fed and looked after them and returned them home, many of which have been documented by David Paullides as part of his Missing 411 research. Moreover, these encounters stretch back well over a century, at least.
In Northern Michigan in 1868, for example, a three-year-old girl seemingly vanished into thin air while with her father at a lumber camp. He later stated that his daughter was there one moment, and then gone the next. With the help of two local hunters, the three men set out in search of the missing girl in the next woodland. They searched for the remainder of the day until nightfall forced them to stop. Then, the following morning, they returned to the woods to continue the search. To begin with, it appeared their efforts would go unrewarded. Then, much to their surprise and relief, they heard the “muffled or muted” sounds of a young girl’s voice somewhere close by.
The three men followed the sound of the voice, eventually coming to a river. There, they heard a large splash, and when they turned their focus to where the noise had come from, they could see a “dark shape” that was swimming away from them, towards the opposite riverbank. Before they could take in any further details, however, they noticed the missing girl, standing on a log nearby. She was seemingly in shock, but otherwise unharmed. Eventually, the young girl spoke of the incident to her father, claiming that the large figure – which she called “Mr. Wolf” – had held her prisoner somewhere near the water. What’s more, the creature had “eaten her hat and taken her shoes” (indeed, she was discovered without her hat or shoes). Although she didn’t explain why, she said the wolf-like creature had taken her to the river and left her on the log where she was found. Was the dark figure the three men witnessed Mr. Wolf? And was this strange creature, in fact, a Bigfoot?
Just short of three decades later, there is another encounter of a child who went missing before being discovered that could also have involved a Bigfoot-like creature. Although there is no direct evidence to suggest this, some of the details in the case are very similar to the missing girl in Michigan 30 years earlier. In August 1897, in Maine, six-year-old Lillian Carney was picking blueberries (a bizarre detail that often shows up in missing persons cases) with her mother she simply vanished. Her panic-stricken mother immediately raised the alarm, and a short time later, no less than 200 volunteers were searching the area for the missing girl. She was eventually discovered two days later, although her discovery brought with it more questions than answers.
To begin with, she was in a “trance-like state” and several “dazed!” However, she eventually managed to speak to her parents about her ordeal. She claimed that she had suddenly found herself in the middle of the forest “where the sun had shone the entire time!” It has never been made clear what she meant by this, not least as the weather during the time of disappearance was grey and overcast, and she spent at least some of the time she was missing at night. This has led some people to speculate that she was perhaps inside some kind of structure or building deep in the forest, or that she had even been a victim of alien abduction, and the “sun” was, in fact, some kind of artificial light. We might also consider whether she had quite literally vanished into thin air. After all, if we accept the notion that portals could be responsible for at least some of the Bigfoot appearances and disappearances, perhaps this might also explain not only the young girl’s sudden disappearance and reappearance, but also the constantly shining sun.
Almost exactly a year later, on the afternoon of August 25th, 1898, three-year-old Alice Rachel Peck was picking berries with her mother when she simply disappeared. She was eventually found three days later, no less than five miles away. Much like Lillian and the girl from Michigan, Alice was in a trance-like state, at least to begin with. Then, after several hours, she recalled walking along a strange road and that she was missing her shoes. Perhaps strangest of all, though, an odd creature that she referred to as “the black man” guided her to a safe spot where she was eventually found. Was this “black man” she referred to a Bigfoot creature?

It is also interesting to note that each of these cases featured the respective witnesses feeling dazed and confused following their discovery. If we accept, for a moment, that these cases did involve Bigfoot creatures, is this an example of their apparent ability to control a person’s mind and make it difficult for them to recall their encounters?
In more recent times, even if we take only the second half of the twentieth century onwards, there have been multiple reports of Bigfoot – quite literally thousands of sightings and encounters, specifically so in the United States and Canada. And while these reports occur regularly and consistently, some of the strangest and most detailed occur during UFO waves. In 1973, for example, during one of the busiest and most active UFO waves in history in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, a particularly intriguing Bigfoot encounter unfolded.
According to the account, at around 9 pm on October 25th, multiple witnesses reported seeing a “red spherical object” hovering low over a nearby field. Then, after several moments, the glowing, red orb began to descend, eventually landing in the field in question. Intrigued, several of the witnesses headed over to the landed object. As they approached, they could hear a strange “whirring” sound and could see that the strange object was white and dome-shaped. Most bizarre of all, though, they witnessed two tall figures, each between seven and nine feet tall, emerge from the object. These creatures were covered in thick, shaggy hair, and each had arms that appeared too long for their frames. Most disturbing, however, were the glowing green eyes that each figure sported.
By now, several of the witnesses had drawn their weapons, and, rightly or wrongly, they opened fire on the two creatures. However, rather than drop to the ground injured or even dead, the two figures turned around, and a moment later, a blinding flash filled the witnesses’ vision. When this flash had cleared, the object was no longer there, and the two figures were almost a speck in the distance near the surrounding woodland.
A team of local UFO investigators arrived at the location shortly after, and remained there for most of the night. They noticed that the animals that would normally use the field and graze there wouldn’t go anywhere near it, as if they sensed something utterly terrible. Even stranger, they noticed that almost all of these animals paid them no attention whatsoever, but instead, appeared to be focused on the woods where the two creatures had disappeared. Stranger still, at one point during the evening, investigators witnessed a blinding flash – similar to that witnessed by the witnesses in the field they were investigating – come from another local farmhouse a short distance away. Then, an already bizarre and surreal experience turned even stranger.
Suddenly, one of the witnesses went into a bizarre trance-like state. Stranger still, he began barking and howling like a dog. This continued for several moments, with the witness even pushing investigators to the ground when they tried to restrain him. He ran off into one of the fields, the bizarre, guttural, animalistic sound coming from him as he did so. Then, the sounds stopped for a second or two before an “inhuman scream” came from him. Following this, the man collapsed to the ground, seemingly released from whatever power had overtaken him. As this was happening, investigators noticed the sudden odor of “rotting eggs” – most likely sulfur, an aroma that accompanies a whole host of paranormal phenomena, from ghosts to UFOs, and, of course, Bigfoot encounters. Incidentally, when the man came to, he was able to give a clear description of the events, claiming that while he was in this trance, his mind filled with visions of “the end of the world!”
If there is a Bigfoot presence on the North American continent, whether a permanent one or a recurring temporary one, they have been there for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Many Native American legends, for example, not only refer to these Bigfoot-like creatures, referred to by some tribes as Skoocooms, who they believed were a supernatural-type being.
We might also explore the records of the Norse explorer Leif Erikson, who appears to describe witnessing strange, beastly men during his expedition to the region. Although some researchers put the date of this expedition in the year 986, it appears more likely that the date would have been at some point in the early 1000s. According to the account, as they navigated the New World (North America) they stumbled upon “manlike beasts” who were “horribly ugly, hairy, swarthy, and with great black eyes!” Furthermore, these strange creatures had a “rank odor” and issued a “deafening shriek”, and it was clear that they “towered over” Erikson and his men. According to the record, Erikson and his men had several such encounters with these hairy beasts, and it is perhaps worth noting that Erikson’s men themselves had long hair and thick beards, so, interestingly, they should describe these strange men as “hairy”, perhaps indicating that they were making reference to hair that covered the entire body.
As we mentioned, it isn’t just in North America where Bigfoot encounters are reported. If we turn our attention to the United Kingdom for a moment, we find the research and investigations of Adam Bird, the co-founder of the British Bigfoot Research Organization, who not only documented a Bigfoot encounter in the woods of Lincolnshire in the 2010s, but also captured a picture of it. After collecting several reports from the area, Bird ventured out to the woodland himself. Not long after arriving, he noticed strange footprints in the ground and began hearing the occasional rustling coming from close by. Then, he spotted a strange, shadowy ape-like figure that appeared to be watching him from the surrounding trees. It was at this point that Bird snapped the picture, although he and several fellow members of the organization remained in the area for several hours, during which time they “felt watched and followed!” Bird offered to the media following the encounter that Bigfoot creatures are spotted all over the UK, with reports seemingly beginning to “spread from Scotland right down to southern England!” Moreover, Bird put forward that the creatures themselves are “something unknown” and that the picture he managed to capture “could be genuine evidence that the British Bigfoot exists!”
It is also worth our time exploring the Bigfoot sightings recorded in what is today modern-day Germany, with historical, legendary accounts of a creature known as a Wildermann, whose description is almost identical to what most people would recognize as a Bigfoot. The Wildermann is described as being hairy from head to toe, with huge feet that often leave impressions in the ground. Arguably, the first officially documented encounter with a Bigfoot in Germany occurred in 1855 when Johann Georg Schmidt reported encountering a hairy man-like creature while he was walking in the forests of Bavaria.  
In more recent times, in 1963, several hikers were making their way through the Black Forest when they spotted a Bigfoot-like creature a short distance away. Just short of 20 years later, in 1982, Peter Durr not only spotted a Bigfoot creature on the Bavarian Alps, but managed to capture a photograph of it. Even in the contemporary era, there continue to be sightings and reports. In 2015, for example, a young couple reported seeing such a creature heading towards the Harz Mountains, while in 2018, a man encountered a Bigfoot close to the Rhine River.
If we venture to the other side of the world, to Australia, we can find legends of the Yowie, said to roam the Australian Outback, and these legends go right back to the indigenous tribes of the region. The Yowie is said to be anywhere from six to 12 feet in height and has a distinct “ape-like” appearance, although, like Bigfoot, it walks upright on two legs. Despite this domineering appearance, the Yowie is said to do its best to avoid human contact, and there have been no known cases of a Yowie showing aggression (although there are reports of “savaged pets” on record).

In Japan, there are legends of the Hibagon, which is spotted on and around Mount Hiba in Hiroshima and, from descriptions, appears to be almost identical to the typical American Bigfoot, although it seems to be shorter in height, standing around five feet tall. What is particularly strange about the Hibagon, though, is that sightings of it seem to have started from nowhere at some time in the early 1970s. This sudden appearance has led to multiple possible explanations, ranging from the Hibagon being nothing more than an undiscovered breed of monkey to it being possibly one or more residents of the city who were still suffering the aftereffects of the nuclear bomb dropped over the city in 1945 to bring the Second World War to an end.
In the remote woodlands and mountain regions of Hubei in China, we can find a very similar creature known as the Yeren, sightings of which, similarly, exploded in the second half of the twentieth century. In fact, according to statistics from the Xinhua News Agency, there have been over 400 official reports.
If we return to the United States for a moment, it is very much worth our time exploring the legends of the Billiwhack Monster that is said to reside in the abandoned Billiwhack Dairy Plant in California. Sightings of this strange and ominous creature began at some point after the Second World War, and while reports continue today, they appeared to reach a peak in the 1950s and 1960s. Those who claim to have encountered this menacing beast claim that it is covered in “dirty white hair” and has razor-sharp claws and “ram-like horns” on its head. Perhaps strangest of all, it is often described as looking half-human and half-sheep.
Some of the legends behind this beastly creature are as bizarre and intriguing as the monster itself. According to some, the Billiwhack Monster is the result of a top-secret military experiment that took place towards the end of the Second World War. This experiment looked, according to legend, to create a genetically superior super soldier by combining human DNA with that of an “unknown creature!”
It is interesting to note these claims of a “super soldier” that is a result of human and beastly DNA being combined. While we should treat them with a considerable pinch of salt, much like the claims of the Billiwhack Monster, is that some researchers suggest that the Third Reich were involved in almost identical genetics experiments during the Second World War, with the express purpose of having soldiers who could operate in the freezing conditions of Antarctica (these were, according to the claims, as Polar Men). Could it be possible, perhaps through such post-Second World War programs as Operation Paperclip, that these experiments were carried on, in top-secret, in the United States? It is certainly something worth keeping on the back burner of our minds.
Perhaps what is most interesting about the Billiwhack Monster is that its description is more akin to a Yeti, a creature often referred to as a Siberian or Russian Bigfoot, or, more widely, as the Abominable Snowman. And it is to the Yeti that we will turn our attention next.
In truth, it appears the Yeti roams the mountainous regions of Asia, Siberia, as well as the Himalayas, and we should note that for a large part of the twentieth century, many of these regions were under the control, or at the very least, the influence, of the Soviet Union. And while many insist that the Western Bigfoot is more of a supernatural being rather than a flesh-and-blood one, there is perhaps more reason to believe the latter is the case with the Yeti. It is perhaps worth noting the comments of Sir David Attenborough, who offered, following the discovery of fossils with huge molars, that “the Abominable Snowman may be real”, even suggesting that the Himalayas and the “immense rhododendron forest that goes on for hundreds of square miles could hold the Yeti!” He elaborated that “if there are some alive, and you walked by their habitat, you can bet these creatures may be aware of you, but you wouldn’t be aware of them!”
Sightings of the Yeti would appear to go back thousands of years, at least. One of the earliest apparent documented encounters with this Bigfoot creature of the East is relayed in the book Yeti, Sasquatch, and Hairy Giants by David Hatcher Childress. The account is taken from the ancient writing, Anabasis Alexandri: Book VIII by Arrian, and took place during Alexander the Great’s invasion of India in 326 BC. While making their way to the Indus River, a battle between Alexander’s men and a group of “hairy men” called Tomerus ensued. These Tomerus lived in “stifling cabins” along the banks of the river, and after engaging with Alexander’s men, several of them were captured while the rest fled to the nearby hills.  Upon studying these captives more closely, it was recorded that they “were hairy, not only the heads but the rest of their bodies!” Moreover, they had “nails rather like beasts’ claws!” Interestingly, the account states that these beastly creatures wore “skins of animals” for clothing.
We can find another account from the ancient world of a Yeti in the writings of Claudius Aelianus in De Natura Animalium (On The Nature Of Animals), who detailed an encounter in India around 200 BC. Aelianus called these creatures Satyrs, and he wrote that they were “covered with shaggy hair!” He continued that these strange creatures, “when left to themselves, stay in the forest and eat tree sprouts!” However, when approached, “they run with incredible speed to hide in mountain caves!” One particularly interesting detail is that these creatures “repel approaching humans by hurling stones down at them!” This, of course, echoes many Bigfoot encounters.  
We can find further documented encounters with Yetis in more (relatively speaking) recent times, many of which were relayed in the book Bigfoot by Rupert Matthews. One such account unfolded in Nepal in 1825 when hillwalker B.H. Hodgson claimed his porters told him of seeing a “tall creature covered with long, dark hair!” As soon as the strange creature noticed it was being watched, it “bounded off in apparent fear!”
Just short of 65 years later, in 1889, in Sikkim in northern India, Major L.A. Waddell was on an expedition when he came upon footprints that “seemed to be those of a barefooted man with enormous feet!” Perplexed but amazed, he asked his guide what the footprints belonged to. Without hesitation, he was told that they belonged to “the wild, hairy man!” Moreover, his guides insisted that they all should leave the area immediately.
Several years later, also in the Sikkim region of India, at some point in the 1890s, William Knight encountered an almost identical creature. Although the incident happened at the end of the nineteenth century, it wasn’t until the 1920s that Knight spoke of the encounter via a letter he sent to The Times newspaper. He stated that he was traveling from Tantok to Sedonchen when he stopped to allow his horse to rest for several moments. Almost as soon as they had come to a stop, he could hear a sound coming from behind him, like something emerging from the woodland. He turned around, and “some 20 paces away,” there was a strange creature. He wrote in the letter that he immediately assumed this was “one of the hairy men that the Tibetans call the Abominable Snowman!” He recalled that despite the “bitter cold”, the creature was completely unclothed and was well over six feet in height.
Although he stated that this figure had hair all over its body, he noted that he could make out “pale yellow” skin and that the figure had more hair on its head than on the rest of its body. Even stranger, he claimed that this creature was carrying “some form of primitive bow!” Ultimately, he watched the figure for around five minutes. Then, whether it noticed his attention or not, it suddenly took off running at “tremendous speed!”

A particularly interesting encounter unfolded in the early years of the twentieth century, not least as documentation of it likely resulted in the widely used epithet that this beastly creature would become known by. The encounter involved Mary MacDonald, the daughter of a colonial military officer who was with a team of porters in the mountainous regions close to the Tibetan border. As they made their way along the trail, a sudden piercing cry rang out, causing the group to stop in their tracks. Mary asked her guide what could have made such a sound. However, when she turned to face him, she realized the group was running in the opposite direction in terror. Instinctively, she reached for one of the guns and then set off towards the rest of the group. They all eventually came to a stop, and she was told that the creature who made the shrieking call was a “Metoh Kangmi” – this translated as “Bad Man of the Snow!”
Now, it would be another two decades before this moniker came up again, only on this occasion, the translation was slightly different, and it was this translation that spread throughout the West. As he was scouting Mount Everest, Colonel Howard-Bury was told of the same creature after they discovered extraordinarily large footprints in the snow. Howard-Bury, however, mistranslated the name as “Abominable Snowman”, which subsequently began appearing in print in English newspapers in various parts of the world.  
Sightings and encounters with the Yeti have continued across the decades right into the modern age, with some of the most well-known occurring in the 1950s, a time when the wider populations of the West began taking notice of this strange cold-weather creature. Arguably, the most famous of these encounters resulted in one of the most famous photographs ever captured, which showed a clear, large footprint in the snow around Mount Everest. The picture was captured by English mountaineer Eric Shipton, who was on a research mission in the region in 1951. Incidentally, the discovery of the foot impression was at approximately 20,000 feet above sea level.
Three years later, John Angelo Jackson led an expedition to the same region with the specific goal of finding evidence of the “Abominable Snowman” – as it was now being referred to. The expedition was sponsored by the Daily Mail newspaper (and even billed as the Daily Mail Snowman Expedition) and stretched from Everest to Kanchenjunga. As well as discovering and photographing several footprints impressed into the snow during the expedition, the team also uncovered ancient symbolic depictions of the beast, perhaps confirming that it had been in existence in the region for thousands of years.
In 1959, American entrepreneur Tom Slick embarked on his expedition of the Himalayan regions in an attempt to locate proof of the Yeti, and his mission was arguably one of the most fruitful yet. He not only discovered a feces sample thought to have come from a Yeti, but when this sample was tested, a parasite was discovered within it that was, and remains, unknown to science. Moreover, declassified documents have since shown just how much of an interest the United States intelligence services took in these Bigfoot and Yeti creatures. This document states that “American resources in the last two years have been concentrated on efforts to capture the Abominable Snowman!”
One person who has studied the Yeti extensively is Maya Bykova, who conducted decades of research right up until she died in 1996. Perhaps one of the most fascinating details of her research, not least as it would resonate with researchers of the North American Bigfoot, is that these creatures can make themselves “invisible” as an act of defense. Once more, we might ask, is this something these creatures simply can do, or do they utilize some kind of technological device? To answer that question, we continue relaying Bykova’s research, which highlights the beliefs of the Tibetan red-hatted monks. They claim that the Yetis (and, incidentally, Bigfoot creatures) are one of the few remaining creatures on Earth that can control their brain activity to the point where they can make themselves appear invisible.
At this point, it is worth asking if the Yeti and the Bigfoot are the same creature, even different breeds of the same creature, or whether they are entirely different. Clearly, white hair aside, physical descriptions are very similar, although there are some differences. Their height, for example, is perhaps one of the clearest differences, with the Yeti seeming to be around six feet tall and the Bigfoot being around eight feet in height. Moreover, while Bigfoot is described as specifically ape-like, many descriptions of the Yeti tend to have an appearance more like a bear. Ultimately, these differences aside, it would appear that these creatures are related somehow.
We might ask, then, if there is a connection between these strange and elusive creatures, how long have they been here, and where did they come from? Are they indigenous to Earth, or were they brought here from elsewhere? Or might, as some researchers have suggested, they have been the result of a genetic experiment deep in antiquity? Although we are straying into ancient astronaut territory here, some researchers have highlighted several verses from ancient Sanskrit texts translated by Zecharia Sitchin that appear to describe just such a genetic experiment. The verses in question feature Enki, one of the leading Anunnaki, who is selecting the “most developed primate” on the planet with which to combine Anunnaki (extraterrestrial) DNA. Describing one of these early attempts, the verse states:

“Shaggy with hair all over was the newborn. His foreparts like of the Earth creatures were. His hind parts to those of the Anunnaki more akin they were.”

Another verse is even more descriptive. This verse describes one of the genetically-altered creatures after it had been given time to grow and develop. Despite this, Enki soon realized that this creation was also not suitable for their needs. The verse states:

“Taller the Earth child grew. In the image of the Anunnaki he was not. His hands for tools were not suited. His speech only grunting sounds was!”

Do these verses describe what we might recognize as a Bigfoot creature? And if Sitchin’s translations are correct (and we should note that many are highly suspicious as to the accuracy of his translations), then do they describe the Bigfoot’s origins on our planet? Is this why they seemingly possess such remarkable abilities as being able to render themselves invisible or even control a person’s mind? Perhaps these Bigfoot creatures were allowed to develop on their own, away from the Anunnaki, and, over the eons and centuries, away from humanity until (relatively speaking) recent years. If we look at another Sanskrit writing – the Epic of Gilgamesh – we might find another telling of Bigfoot and its history on our planet.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest text in the world, dated around 2700 BC, and tells the story of Enkidu, a close friend of Gilgamesh, a “wild man” who resided outside of the main city. Part of that text describes Enkidu as:

“…like an animal, Enkidu’s body had hitherto been covered with hair which is now shaved off. He is anointed with oil and clothed like a man!”

Could Enkidu have been a Bigfoot creature? And is this not only another example of documentation of these creatures in the ancient world, but of their apparent intelligence? While this tale tells of Enkidu wearing clothes and shaving his body hair, we might imagine that other Bigfoot creatures will have existed who remained outside of society.
As we might imagine, many experts insist that the Epic of Gilgamesh is nothing but a work of fiction. However, we should note that Gilgamesh himself was very real, with many records of his activities and achievements. Moreover, when this particular tale was committed to the official record, writing was much more of an arduous and expensive task, and as such, only the most important information was “written” down. With this in mind, and given that we know Gilgamesh very much existed, we perhaps should take the tales of Enkidu at much more face value.
Whatever the truth, Bigfoot (and Yetis) remain not only one of the most elusive entities on the planet, but one of the most mysterious and intriguing. Indeed, should we ever manage to establish the true nature and origins of these creatures, it would likely shine a light on many other unsolved and unexplained areas of our collective reality, possibly providing answers to everything from cryptid creatures (as we would understand them) to UFOs and even the potential existence of portals and gateways. In that sense, Bigfoot is so much more than just a wild beast that roams the woodlands and wilderness in an attempt to avoid contact with humanity. It is very likely one of the keys to the mysteries of the Universe and our collective existence within it.