“A Bigfoot Is Attacking My Farm”—A Farmer’s Terrifying Sasquatch Encounter Story That Will Leave You Speechless

I Haven’t Slept Right in 3 Years

I’m standing in what’s left of my barn at dawn, looking at the splintered boards and strips of dark fur caught in the broken wood. The horses are gone. The farm is gone. My entire way of life is gone. I’ve been watching my family for years, ignoring every warning sign until it was too late. This is the story of how I lost almost everything.

My family ran a small horse farm in a rural area right up against dense forest. We’d been there for three generations. My grandfather built the original barn. My father expanded it, and I was supposed to pass it on to my kids. We had a dozen high-quality horses on the property at any given time. Some were for breeding, others we trained for dressage and show jumping. These weren’t backyard ponies. We’re talking animals worth $15,000 to $40,000 each. Some we even rented out to neighboring farms for breeding purposes.

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The farm was everything—our income, our legacy, our future for the kids. My wife and I had two children, ages 6 and 9, when this all happened. They grew up around those horses, learned to ride before they could read. Behind our property, the forest stretched for miles and miles—untouched wilderness, no roads, no trails, nothing. Just trees and whatever lived in them.

Looking back, the signs started about three years before everything fell apart. I just didn’t want to see what they really were. It started with broken fence posts along the tree line. I’d go out to check the pastures and find these thick wooden posts snapped clean in half—no rot, no termite damage—just broken like someone took a baseball bat to them. The breaks were clean, as if force had been applied suddenly and with tremendous strength. I blamed it on the weather, on age, on anything that made sense.

Then there were the footprints—massive footprints in the mud near the creek that ran through our back forty. Much larger than any boot I’d ever seen. I once measured one: 17 inches long, 7 inches wide at the ball of the foot. I convinced myself they were bear tracks, even though they didn’t really look like bear tracks. Bears leave claw marks, but these didn’t. The toes were clearly defined, separated, five of them—like a human foot, but impossibly large. I let myself think about what they looked like.

The horses started acting strange at night. They’d whinny and stamp in their stalls for no reason. I’d go out to check on them and find them pressed against the far wall, eyes rolling, nostrils flared. The barn would reek of their fear sweat. I’d walk the perimeter with a flashlight, never finding anything. But animals have instincts we’ve lost. They can sense things we can’t.

My stallion—the big one I used for breeding—started losing weight. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong. He was eating, drinking, everything seemed normal—yet he was dropping pounds like he was sick. The vet finally said something was stressing him out. At night, I’d hear him kicking the walls of his stall—bang, bang, bang—for hours. In the morning, there’d be dents in the wood from his hooves.

My wife would sometimes feel watched when she hung laundry near the woods. She’d be out there in broad daylight, clothes pins in her mouth, and get this creeping sensation on the back of her neck—the kind you get when someone’s staring at you. She’d turn around, see nothing but trees. But the feeling wouldn’t go away. It would follow her around the yard. Eventually, she started doing laundry in town at the laundromat instead. Said it was easier. I knew better.

One morning, I found a deer carcass hung in a tree branch 12 feet off the ground. It was partially eaten. Now, I’ve hunted my whole life. I know how animals feed. This wasn’t how animals feed. The deer had been placed there deliberately, carefully balanced on the branch like someone was storing it for later. The meat that was missing had been torn away in chunks. I could see finger marks in the remaining flesh—finger marks, not teeth marks—as if something had grabbed the meat and pulled.

There was also a smell near the property line. Not all the time, but sometimes, when the wind came from the forest, it was musky and rank—like wet dog mixed with rotting vegetation and something else I couldn’t identify. It would make your stomach turn if you got too close, make your eyes water. I blamed it on a dead animal decomposing somewhere in the woods. But the smell would come and go. If it was a dead animal, it should have either worsened or faded away completely. This smell kept returning—always strongest at dusk.

About six months before I lost everything, the situation started escalating in ways I couldn’t ignore anymore. The horses refused to graze near the tree line. They’d stand at the fence, completely still, staring into the woods for over an hour. Their ears pricked forward, bodies tense. I’d go outside, look, but never see anything. Yet they wouldn’t move. They just watched.

I found coarse black hair on the fence posts—long, thick, greasy, too long for a bear. I knew what bear fur looked like. This was different. When I touched it, it felt wrong—oily and stiff at the same time. I pulled off a clump and the smell on my hands wouldn’t wash off for hours.

Then one morning, I came outside and found my daughter’s swing set bent. The metal poles were twisted, like someone had tried to rip the whole thing out of the ground. The swing seats were dragging on the ground. She cried when she saw it. The barn door had deep scratches—gouges running vertically down the wood, the highest scratch at 8 feet off the ground. I tried to think of an animal that could scratch wood at that height. Couldn’t. The scratches were parallel, four of them side by side, like fingers.

One night, at 2 a.m., I woke to heavy footsteps circling the house. My wife was terrified, asking what was happening. We lay in bed listening to slow, heavy thuds—too slow for a running animal, too heavy for a person. Each step shook the house slightly. We listened as it circled twice, then moved back toward the woods. I installed motion sensor lights all around the property. They’d go off randomly at night. I’d look out the window, see nothing—or sometimes a large shape moving just beyond the lights’ range. Something walking upright.

My son, only 9 at the time, told me about something he’d seen from the school bus. He was dropped off at the end of our driveway every afternoon around 3:30. One day, he ran into the house, breathless, eyes wide. Said he’d seen a tall, hairy man standing in the woods, watching him walk up the driveway. He said it was hunched, on two legs, arms hanging almost to its knees. I told him it was probably a hunter in camouflage. He insisted it wasn’t. He knew what hunters looked like. This was different—covered in hair, dark brown all over its body.

I drove down after dinner to look around. Found footprints in the soft earth near the trees—16 inches long, not human. I started picking him up from school instead of letting him take the bus. He seemed relieved.

A week later, my daughter, just six, came to me before bed, scared of the dark. She said she’d woken up to use the bathroom and saw a face pressed against her window—a flat nose, dark eyes, hair covering everything but her eyes, nose, and mouth. She screamed, her mother came running, but by the time they looked, nothing was there. I checked outside the next morning—her window was 8 feet off the ground. There was a clear impression in the mulch below, deep and heavy, like something had stood there.

There were handprints on the window glass—palm print 9 inches across, fingers smudged another 6 inches. I stopped letting the kids sleep in that room. They bunked together in the opposite side of the house, the side facing away from the woods. I nailed shut the window in the abandoned bedroom and avoided it unless I had to.

I started seeing movement in the woods—something larger than animals, moving with purpose. I’d be working in the yard, catch a glimpse of dark movement between the trees. When I looked directly, it was gone. But the impression remained, that feeling of being watched.

One evening, I was fixing the fence, replacing broken boards. The sun was low, maybe an hour of light left. I heard a branch snap behind me. I turned around and saw it—about 50 feet away, partially hidden behind a large oak, watching me. Its eyes were dark, almost black, but with intelligence—aware, knowing. It saw me, and it didn’t care. I reached for the hammer I’d set down, not to threaten, just to have something in my hand. The creature tilted its head like it was curious. Then it pushed away from the tree and melted back into the forest. It walked upright, slightly hunched, long arms swinging. In seconds, it was gone.

I abandoned my work and went straight inside. I was shaking. That thing had been so close, close enough to hit with a rock if I’d tried. And it hadn’t been afraid of me at all. A few nights later, my wife and I were watching TV upstairs. The kids were asleep. Around 10 p.m., we heard a scraping sound from the back porch—like something dragging across wood. I grabbed my rifle, told her to lock the doors and call 911 if I wasn’t back in five minutes.

I stepped outside, around the house, rifle ready. The porch was empty, but the trash can had been dragged off and tipped over. Garbage was scattered everywhere. In the middle of the mess was a pile of feces—enormous, deliberately left. Way too large for any normal animal. It was marking territory—sending a message: this is my space. You’re only here because I allow it.

I cleaned it up before my wife saw. She believed me—or pretended to. I think she knew something was seriously wrong but didn’t want to admit it.

Late autumn, dusk. I was putting the horses in for the night. It was getting dark earlier. I always tried to get them inside before full darkness. I saw a low growl from the woods—something deep and rumbling, like coming from deep inside something’s chest. It made the hair on my arms stand up. My stomach dropped. That sound was primal—something that triggers every fear response hardwired into us.

One of my mares started screaming—high-pitched, desperate, like she thought she was about to die. I ran to her, found her trembling in the corner, foam dripping from her mouth, eyes wide with terror. She was staring past the fence line. Following her gaze, I saw something massive moving among the trees—standing upright, at least 8 feet tall, covered in dark, matted fur that absorbed what little light remained. It swayed slightly, deliberately, rhythmically, as if calculating something.

I froze, unable to process what I was seeing. This couldn’t be real. I’d grown up here, hunted here since I was 12. I knew every animal. This wasn’t any of them. The creature raised one arm, pointed at the horse, then at me. The gesture was unmistakable—claiming the horse, telling me it could take what it wanted.

Then it melted back into the trees. One second, it was there—standing, watching—then gone like it had never existed. But I knew what I’d seen. The horse knew, too. It had seen it.

The horse was stressed for days—refused to eat, wouldn’t drink. The vet said it was stress, that she’d nearly been scared to death. She was pregnant, due in three months. That night, the sound woke me—screaming horses, splintering wood, metal screeching. All at once, in a terrible symphony of destruction. The house shook. I grabbed my rifle and ran outside, in my underwear and boots. My wife shouted after me, asking what was happening. I told her to stay inside, lock the kids in the bathroom, call 911.

The barn was being torn apart from outside—boards ripped off, support beams splintered, roof sagging. More than one of them. The creatures I’d seen, working together, tearing into the structure. One of them ripped off a board, reaching through the gaps for the horses inside. The smaller one did the same. They were coordinated, deliberate.

I raised my rifle and fired at the larger one. Hit it in the shoulder. It flinched, roared, then charged at me at a speed I didn’t think something that big could move. I dove aside, felt its fur brush my arm. I fired again—missed. The rifle jammed. I tried to cycle another round, but the mechanism stuck. The creature stopped 10 feet away, rose to its full height. We locked eyes—those dark, intelligent eyes. In that moment, I saw something I’d never seen before—something more than animal cunning, more than predator intelligence. It knew exactly what it was doing. It understood.

That’s when I heard my son screaming from the house: “Daddy! Daddy!” The creature saw it, too. It looked past me toward the house where my family was. The smaller one had stopped tearing at the barn and was also watching. They were deciding. I raised my jammed rifle like a club. I didn’t care I couldn’t shoot. I’d beat them if I had to. I’d die before I let them near my family.

The larger one looked back at me. We held that stare for what felt like an eternity. Then it made a low rumble from its chest. The smaller one responded with a similar sound—some form of communication. Then they turned and walked back into the woods, not running, just walking, slowly. The big one stopped at the tree line, looked back one last time, then disappeared into the shadows.

In that moment, I understood—I could have been killed anytime. It could have come for my family, for me, at any moment. But it hadn’t. It was giving me a choice. Fight and risk everything, or leave.

The message was clear: this is their territory. We were the intruders. And they were done waiting.

When the sheriff’s deputies arrived twenty minutes later, they found the barn in ruins. Two sides had been torn down—boards ripped, support beams cracked, roof sagging. Inside, two horses were injured. One had deep lacerations on her flank, trying to escape. Another had broken her leg after kicking through her stall door. Deputies took photos, measured the damage, asked questions I couldn’t answer. What had I seen? How many animals? Which way did they go? I told them the truth—multiple large animals, attacked the barn, retreated into the woods. I didn’t tell them about the creatures walking upright, with hands. They dismissed it as a bear attack—maybe two bears, very unusual behavior.

The vet came at dawn. The pregnant mare had to be euthanized—she was worth $25,000. The others needed stitches, antibiotics—another $1,000 in bills. My insurance wouldn’t cover it. The policy specifically excluded unexplained animal attacks and acts of nature. It was like I’d been hit by a truck.

I sat at the kitchen table as the sun rose. My wife was crying. The kids were terrified—they’d seen everything through the upstairs window. My son asked if the hairy men were coming back. I told him no. I told him we were safe now. I was lying—and he knew it. My wife looked at me and said what we’d both been thinking: we can’t stay here. She was right. I’d been trying to protect the horses, the farm, our way of life, but I couldn’t protect my family from this.

Not from what was out there. I couldn’t prove what was in those woods. The authorities thought it was bears. I couldn’t kill these things—I’d shot one, and it barely slowed down. And even if I did, there were others. That night proved they worked together, coordinated, planned.

My kids had to come first. Nothing else mattered.

The day I listed the farm for sale, I went down to the back pasture one last time. I needed to see where it all started—the place I first saw that creature watching my mare. I found fresh tracks, still wet from the morning dew, leading from the woods to within fifty feet of where I stood. It had been here that morning, watching me. Maybe it had been watching me make the calls to potential buyers, or taking down the “for sale” signs I’d put up.

I looked up and saw it—about 8 feet tall, the alpha, if that’s what you call them. We stared at each other across the pasture. Then it nodded—slow, deliberate, like it was acknowledging something—like it understood what I was doing. Then it turned and walked back into the forest.

That was the last time I saw it. But I knew it was still there, still watching. Always watching. This was their home, not mine. I’d just been borrowing space in their territory. And now, they wanted it back.

Within two weeks, I’d listed all the horses for sale. Buyers came from three counties over. They sensed my desperation. They knew I needed to move these animals fast. They lowballed me on every one. The prize stallion I’d paid $35,000 for sold for $16,000. The show mare that had won three competitions sold for $12,000—she was worth at least $25,000. The younger horses, the ones with potential, went for bargain prices.

Watching them load those horses into trailers, each one a memory—my favorite stallion, the mare I delivered myself when her mother died giving birth, the three-year-old I trained from a foal—I felt like I was losing part of my soul. Gone. My daughter cried when they took her favorite pony, a gentle old mare who’d taught both kids to ride. She was twenty years old, worth nothing to anyone but everything to us.

The buyer promised to care for her. I wanted to believe him. My son didn’t cry. He just watched, his face hard—too hard for a nine-year-old. He’d learned too much about loss, fear, things that shouldn’t exist but do.

In total, I got about $140,000 for twelve horses—collectively worth nearly $300,000. I’d lost over $150,000. And that was just the horses. That didn’t include barn damage, vet bills, broken equipment, or fencing.

I listed the farm for sale the same week, priced $30,000 below market value just to move it quickly. My real estate agent asked why I was in such a hurry. I told her we’d found a place closer to town, better schools for the kids. She didn’t push. A young couple came to look a week later—fresh out of college, full of dreams. They wanted to start an organic farm—no animals, just crops. They walked the property, talking about where they’d put the greenhouse, the vegetable gardens. The husband asked if we’d had any problems with wildlife.

I hesitated. My wife squeezed my hand hard—a warning. I said wildlife could be aggressive. Be careful at night. Keep your doors locked. They laughed, said they’d lived in the country before. They could handle it.

They made an offer that afternoon—below asking but close. We accepted immediately.

The week before we moved out was the longest of my life. Every night I expected them to come back, to punish us for not leaving fast enough. They didn’t. The property was quiet—almost too quiet. The forest felt empty, like something had withdrawn. Or maybe it was just watching and waiting.

I saw the tracks again—fresh, in the mud, on the morning of closing day. Leading from the woods to the property line and back. One set—the large one. It had come to check if we were really leaving. I wondered if it was satisfied, if this was what it wanted all along—horses gone, humans leaving, the land returning to something closer to wild.

On moving day, the movers loaded our furniture, our lives into a truck. The kids got in my wife’s car. She was taking them to her mother’s. They’d stay there while I finished the last details. Before I got in the truck, I walked to the edge of the property one last time. I looked into the woods—the dark spaces between the trees, the shadows that could hide something massive. I said aloud, “It’s yours now. Leave them alone.” I don’t know if it heard me. Don’t know if it understood. Don’t know if it cared. But I needed to say it. Needed to believe that leaving would be enough. That the new owners would be safe because they weren’t a threat. No horses to hunt, no challenge to its territory.

I got in my truck and drove down that long driveway for the last time. In the rearview mirror, I saw something move at the tree line—something large and upright, watching me go.

I didn’t stop. I didn’t look back again. I just drove.

We live in a subdivision now—40 miles away. A tiny yard, neighbors close enough to hear their TVs through the walls.

My kids adjusted better than I expected. They made new friends at school. My daughter joined soccer. My son started karate, saying he wanted to learn to protect himself. I didn’t argue. If it made them feel safer, it was worth it.

They don’t talk much about the old farm. Sometimes my daughter mentions the pony—wonder how she’s doing. I tell her she’s probably living her best life—plenty of grass to eat, no stress. I hope that’s true.

My wife got a job in town, working as a receptionist at a dental office. She seems happy—relieved. The fear is gone from her eyes. She sleeps through the night now, no longer waking up at every sound, reaching for the baseball bat she kept by the bed.

I work construction—framing houses, installing siding, roofing. The work is good, physical, keeps my mind busy. The pay is steady, though not what the farm brought in. We’re getting by. But sometimes I wake up at 3 a.m., listening for sounds that aren’t there anymore—the breaking wood, heavy footsteps, that low rumbling communication.

In those moments, I’m back there—standing in the dark with my rifle, facing something I couldn’t fight, couldn’t understand.

Sometimes I drive past the old farm just to check. I don’t stop, just slow down. The new owners seem happy. Their garden is thriving, rows of vegetables, a small greenhouse. They have chickens now—about a dozen. No horses. Nothing big. Nothing worth hunting.

I wonder if that’s why they’ve been left alone. If the creatures only care about the horses—big prey. Or maybe they decided the family wasn’t a threat, not worth the effort. Or maybe they’re still there, watching, waiting, just being patient.

I still have nightmares about standing in that empty stable at dawn, looking at the broken boards, the dark fur caught in the splintered wood, the wet tracks leading back into the forest—knowing something had been there. Something real, terrifying, impossible.

I know I made the right choice. I know my family is safe. We’re alive, together. My kids are happy. My wife isn’t living in constant fear anymore.

But I still feel like a coward. Like I should have fought harder, stood my ground, protected what was mine.

Some battles can’t be won, though. Sometimes survival means knowing when to walk away—knowing when you’re outmatched, when the cost of staying is higher than the cost of leaving.

My kids are safe and healthy. They don’t wake up scared anymore. My daughter doesn’t cry about the hairy man in the window. My son doesn’t patrol the house with a baseball bat. That’s all that matters—despite everything I’ve lost.

Even if it cost me everything I built. Even if I lost three generations of family history. Even if I lost $150,000. Even if I lost my identity as a horseman, a farmer, someone who belonged to that land—they’re safe. That has to be enough.

Sometimes late at night, I look at satellite maps of that forest—those acres of untouched wilderness.

I think about what’s out there—what’s still living in those shadows. And I wonder: how many others have seen what I saw? How many have been driven from their homes by something that shouldn’t exist? How many have stayed silent because no one would believe them? Because saying it aloud makes you sound crazy.

I’m not crazy. I know what I saw. My wife knows. My kids know. The horses knew before any of us.

There are things in those woods that science doesn’t recognize—things that are smart enough to avoid cameras, stay hidden. Things strong enough to snap a horse’s neck with their bare hands. Things that coordinate attacks, plan strategies, send messages.

They’re real. They’re out there. And they don’t want us in their territory.

If you’re reading this—if you’ve had an experience like mine—if you’ve seen something in the woods that you can’t explain, something that watched you from the shadows and made you feel like prey—I believe you.

I know what it’s like to see something impossible and have no one to tell. To carry that knowledge alone.

And if you’re thinking about buying property near dense forest, near untouched wilderness—I have one piece of advice:

Pay attention to the signs. The broken fencing, strange tracks, the way the animals act, the feeling of being watched. Don’t ignore it like I did. Don’t rationalize it away. Don’t convince yourself it’s nothing. Because by the time you realize what it really is, it might be too late.

I got out. My family is safe. But I lost everything else in the process.

Somewhere in those woods, in that vast forest stretching behind the farm that used to be mine—something is still there. Still watching. Still waiting.

And it always will be, because that’s its home—not ours.

We were just visitors who overstayed our welcome. And when we wouldn’t leave on our own, it made us leave.

I hope the new owners never see what I saw. I hope their chickens and garden aren’t interesting enough to attract attention. I hope they can live happily, never knowing what’s watching from the trees.

But sometimes I worry. Sometimes I think about warning them properly, telling them everything. But what would I say? How do you explain something like that to someone who hasn’t lived through it?

You can’t. They’d think I was crazy—just like I would have, before I saw it myself.

So I don’t say anything. I just drive by sometimes, check that the lights are on, that everything looks normal—just the woods, just the forest. And I hope that’s enough.