Piscataquis County, Maine
July 12, 2003
Near Baxter State Park

My wife and I along with my 17-year old would-be geologist rock nut son have been hiking some of the major trails in the Baxter State Park in Maine for the past 6 or 7 summers. The scenery up there is spectacular and the history is interesting. We stay out for about a week during each trip so we usually leave word what trails we're taking at the Millinocket HQ. We always stop to talk to other hikers, especially the older folk like us.

On Saturday evening July 12th we met on the trail a retired botanist and his wife who invited us to camp nearby and share rations. They were returning from Roaring Brook via the Russell Pond Trail, which was our direction. We made ourselves comfortable, and chatted about this and that when our botanist friend perked up his ears. "Hear that?" my wife interrupted, "sounds like the whistle of a hawk circling nearby." Thinking they went to roost at night, (and it was getting close to dark) we all sat still and listened. The shrill came another two or three times, each one sounding just like a hawk crying overhead but the shrill coming from opposite directions. Maybe two red-tailed or Cooper's hawks?

The ladies excused themselves to find a bush before it got completely dark and my botanist friend leaned over said, 'you know, that sounded more like the Katahdin creature." I asked what the Katahdin creature was and he replied, 'you know, those 'injun devils' up here that come out at night, probably just a campfire story, but we heard about, well you know, those bigfoot things that live in parts of the Mt. Katahdin region." For as long as we've been coming up here, that was a new one on me. We continued talking about the stories he had amassed about these wild things and what they might be when we saw the flickering lights shining hither and yon as the women worked their way back to camp.

My son was deep into some pocket computer game he carries, the gals were sitting down pullin' on jackets when the loudest whistle came from very close by and the shrill was loud enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. My son jumped up, grabbing a high power flashlight and shone it in the direction the shrieking whistle came from. We all went quiet and listened. But nothing more was heard, Jon Jr., found nothing with his flashlight and went back to playing with his pocket game boy thinking we may be disturbing late nesting hawks or something in the trees.

We went on talking until about 10:30 maybe 11:00, it was getting cold and we were thinking it was time to turn in when my wife tore open a bag of malted milk balls and passed them around; one last treat before we turn in for the night, she has to have her chocolate.

Suddenly a small rock landed in the midst of us! Thoroughly annoyed, I yelled, "what the hell was that" when another small pebble came flying inbound and hit the center flap on my tent. I grabbed Jon's flashlight because it had a stronger beam, higher powered and flashed it around to see what jerk was doing the rock throwing when the botanist guy says "I think we got company and it isn't a hawk," my light followed his light beam which fell on the damnest thing I ever saw. My jaw dropped. There, standing half way behind a tree was a "something," a man (maybe) but covered with reddish-brown hair everywhere except his face, naked, no clothing, just covered in hair, some parts shaggy like under the forearm. The thing stared into our lights for a bit then it raised its right arm up to sort of shield its eyes then slipped behind the tree and out of our line of sight and that was about a distance of some thirty or forty feet. After several rounds of "did you see that" and "what is that thing" we decided it was too dark to investigate and the women were to scared to try to pack up and leave the area. We don't know how long it had been the area, but we figured the loud shrieking whistles were coming from it or them and it had been there for some length of time.

The gals calmed down, climbed into the tents and went to sleep. We stayed up another hour or so until the battery on his flashlight began to dim. Not knowing what else to do about whatever that thing was standing out there, finally we agreed to have a look in the morning and turned in. The rest of the night was uneventful and when morning came, we found no trace of the hairy man.

It's all very interesting though, now we have a campfire story to tell in the future. Once we got back home my son and I scoured the Internet and found your website. I can't be sure, but I think we saw a bigfoot and I see there have been reports of this creature around Maine's Mt. Katahdin area since the early 1800's. All the more interesting, wouldn't you say?

There is nothing more to describe, but we all saw the same thing, just standing there momentarily then pulled back behind a large tree. That is our report as preposterous as it sounds, it is all true but sounds crazy in this day and age. If you put this on your website, no names, no email address, please.

Just sign me Jon from Orono, Maine (Bangor)
Wednesday August 27, 2003