He Discovered Something Buried on His Property — DNA Tests Confirmed Bigfoot, and Federal Agents Arrived Just Days Later
I Found a Buried Foot on My Land — And the Government Took Everything
My name is Bernard Hill.
I am sixty-six years old.
For most of my life, nothing remarkable ever happened to me. I was a farmer in rural northern Oregon, the kind of man people forget as soon as he leaves the room. I raised cattle, grew hay, repaired fences, and watched the seasons change the same way my father and grandfather had before me.
But in September of 1985, I dug a fence post in the wrong place.
And because of that, I lost my home, my land, and my belief that the world works the way we’re told it does.
.
.
.
1. The Land
My family had owned the property for sixty years.
Two hundred and twenty acres of mixed forest and pasture, about forty miles east of Eugene. A narrow creek traced the eastern boundary. On clear days, I could see the foothills of the Cascades rising blue and distant against the sky.
I lived in the same farmhouse my grandfather built in 1923. The boards creaked when you walked across the floor. The windows rattled when winter storms rolled in. But it was home.
My wife Martha died in 1982. My sons moved to Portland years earlier for work. By 1985, it was just me, fifty head of cattle, an aging Ford F-150, and a routine so steady it felt carved into the land itself.
Ronald Reagan was president. The Cold War was still alive. Around here, people worried more about timber prices than politics.
Life was quiet. Predictable. Exactly how I liked it.
Until September 12th.
2. The Fence Post
I was expanding the northern pasture, pushing the fence line about thirty yards into the tree line to give the cattle more grazing room before winter.
I’d been clearing brush and digging post holes for two days using a manual post hole digger—the old clamshell kind. The soil up there was brutal: clay mixed with stones left behind by ancient glaciers. Every hole fought back.
I was nearly three feet down on the eighth post hole when the digger struck something that wasn’t rock.
It didn’t ring.
It didn’t scrape.
It gave.
Fibrous. Dense.
I set the digger aside and knelt down, using my hands to clear away dirt. At first, I thought I’d hit a tree root—dark brown, almost black.
But then I realized it wasn’t wood.
The texture was wrong.
It felt like thick leather. Tough. Organic. With coarse hair still clinging to it in patches.
I grabbed my shovel and widened the hole carefully. As more of it emerged, my stomach tightened.
This wasn’t a root.
It was a limb.
After twenty minutes of careful digging, I exposed what looked like a foot—and part of a lower leg ending just below the knee.
A massive foot.
At least eighteen inches long. Eight inches wide. Five thick toes with flat, human-like nails. A broad heel. A pronounced arch.
It looked almost human.
But no human had feet that size.
The ankle joint was enormous, built to carry tremendous weight. The leg itself was too thick, too muscular, even in its decomposed state.
I’d hunted and farmed in Oregon for forty-six years. I’d seen bear paws, elk hooves, cougar tracks.
This was none of those.
There was no smell of decay. Whatever decomposition had happened, it had happened decades ago.
I sat back on my heels, staring at it, the forest silent around me except for wind moving through the Douglas firs.
I should have buried it again.
Filled in the hole. Moved the fence line. Pretended I’d never seen it.
But curiosity has ruined better men than me.
3. The Professor
I wrapped the remains in a plastic tarp and hauled it into the bed of my truck. It weighed forty, maybe fifty pounds—far too heavy for something that had been buried for so long.
I didn’t call the sheriff. I didn’t call a veterinarian.
Instead, I remembered an article I’d clipped from the Eugene Register-Guard months earlier. A new professor at the University of Oregon. Wildlife biology. Interested in unusual specimens.
Dr. James Whitmore.
I called his office and left a message on his answering machine, feeling foolish as soon as I hung up.
He called back within an hour.
The next morning, he arrived right on time in a white Volvo station wagon.
The moment he saw the foot, the color drained from his face.
He didn’t speak for nearly thirty seconds.
Then he whispered,
“Dear God.”
He photographed it. Measured it. Took notes with shaking hands.
“This is primate,” he said finally. “But scaled far beyond any known species. The structure is consistent with bipedal locomotion.”
He looked up at me.
“If the proportions are typical… this creature would have stood seven to eight feet tall.”
Then he asked the question that made me laugh nervously.
“Mr. Hill… have you ever heard of Sasquatch?”
4. The DNA
Dr. Whitmore took samples—hair, tissue, bone fragments. He warned me not to tell anyone.
A week later, he called and asked to meet somewhere private.
The DNA results showed 98.5% similarity to humans.
Not human.
Not ape.
A separate hominin species that diverged from our lineage nearly 800,000 years ago.
Before we could say anything more, four men in dark suits approached us at the Lane County Fairgrounds.
Federal badges.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
Or so they claimed.
They knew everything.
The samples. The DNA. The location.
They produced a warrant that had been signed before they ever spoke to me.
They told me the species had been classified since 1942.
They told Dr. Whitmore to sign a gag order.
They told me my land now fell under federal jurisdiction.
And then they told me I had 72 hours to leave my own home.
5. The Cemetery
They brought ground-penetrating radar.
Metal detectors.
Excavation teams.
Within hours, they found more.
Not just one burial.
Nine.
Arranged in a deliberate circular pattern.
A cemetery.
Someone had been burying them between 1935 and 1945.
Someone who treated them with respect.
Someone my grandfather had allowed onto that land without asking questions.
A man named Joseph.
A Calapooia elder.
He buried them as people.
Not animals.
And the government dug them up like specimens.
6. What Comes Next
They moved me into a motel.
They classified everything.
They took the remains.
But one agent—just one—broke protocol.
He gave me photographs.
Maps.
DNA reports.
And a small wooden carving of one of the creatures standing upright.
He told me the truth.
They weren’t just animals.
They had culture.
Relationships.
Art.
And if the public ever learned that, everything would change.
