“After 10 Years, Hunter Discovers Lost Hiker’s Remains — And Unsettling Bigfoot Evidence That Raises Chilling Questions | Compilation”

A Camera, a Cave and a Question the Forest Won’t Answer

By Staff Writer

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OLYMPIC NATIONAL FOREST, Wash. — On a gray afternoon during elk season last November, a veteran hunter named Jonathan Mercer followed a game trail down a steep slope in a remote corner of the Olympic backcountry. Through the trees, he noticed a flash of orange — the unmistakable brightness of a hunter’s safety vest — half-buried beneath years of fallen leaves.

What he found around it would reopen a five-year-old missing person case and ignite a debate that stretches from sheriff’s offices to university labs.

Scattered across a small clearing were human bones.

The remains, bleached by weather and time, lay spread over roughly 30 feet of forest floor. A skull with a fractured crown rested against a cedar trunk. A torn backpack with a bent metal frame lay crushed beside a rotting log. Nearby, fragments of a sleeping bag were shredded into strips.

Inside a shallow cave formed by two boulders, Mercer discovered something else: a damaged smartphone and a digital camera, carefully placed on a dry ledge as if someone had tried to preserve them.

“I’ve hunted these mountains for 20 years,” Mercer later told investigators. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Within hours, deputies from Jefferson County arrived by helicopter, documenting the scene and collecting the remains. The timing, location and gear soon pointed to a likely identity — a 28-year-old Seattle software engineer who vanished during a solo backpacking trip in November 2019.

At the time of his disappearance, the hiker had filed a detailed five-day itinerary through a remote section of the Olympic National Forest. When he failed to check in, search teams combed the area for two weeks before winter storms forced them to suspend operations.

Now, five years later, the forest had yielded answers — and new mysteries.

The Data Card

Digital forensic specialists were able to extract data from the recovered devices. The smartphone’s final outgoing message, sent Nov. 18, 2019, read simply: running behind schedule but safe. After that, dozens of failed call attempts reflected the region’s unreliable cell service.

The camera told a more complicated story.

Its memory card contained more than 200 images charting the hiker’s journey from confident trailhead selfies to increasingly anxious nighttime shots. Early photographs showed snow-dusted ridgelines, neatly organized campsites and a well-equipped outdoorsman at ease in isolation.

By Nov. 19, the tone shifted.

One image captured large, unfamiliar footprints pressed into creekside mud — too long and narrow for a bear, investigators noted, and not consistent with known wildlife patterns in the area. Another showed logs and rocks stacked around the tent in what appeared to be a makeshift barricade.

Subsequent photos documented items repositioned around camp. A water bottle moved. Boots set neatly side by side in a location the hiker had not described in earlier shots. His backpack opened, contents laid out in rows.

“There’s evidence of disturbance,” said one law enforcement official familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation remains open. “Whether that’s wildlife, environmental factors or something else is still under review.”

The most unsettling images were taken at night using the camera’s flash. In several frames, a tall, shadowed figure appears near the tree line. Digital enhancement reveals what looks like a broad-shouldered, upright silhouette partially obscured by brush. In another, a large hand-shaped imprint presses against the outer wall of the tent.

The final photograph, timestamped 11:47 p.m. on Nov. 24, shows a massive form standing just beyond the tent’s entrance. The image is sharply focused. The figure appears bipedal, its arms extended, its eyes reflecting the flash.

Minutes later, the camera was hidden in the cave where Mercer would find it years afterward.

Forensic Questions

Analysis of the skeletal remains added to the uncertainty.

According to internal summaries reviewed by this newspaper, several ribs showed fracture patterns consistent with significant blunt force trauma. The skull bore evidence of a powerful impact to the back of the head. Bite marks were present on some long bones, though officials have not publicly identified a species.

Black bears and cougars inhabit the Olympic Peninsula, and wildlife attacks, while rare, are documented. But one forensic consultant described the trauma patterns as “atypical” compared with common predator behavior.

Trace hair samples recovered near the site did not match entries in existing wildlife databases, investigators said. DNA analysis proved inconclusive.

Scientists caution against drawing extraordinary conclusions from ambiguous evidence.

“Perspective distortion, low light and stress can all influence interpretation,” said a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington who reviewed several images at the request of law enforcement. “When you’re dealing with flash photography in dense forest, shadows can take on anthropomorphic qualities very quickly.”

A Pattern — or Coincidence?

News of the discovery prompted a review of other disappearances in the Pacific Northwest. Over the past 15 years, more than 30 experienced hikers and climbers have vanished in remote areas of Washington, Oregon and Northern California. Most cases are attributed to falls, exposure or wildlife encounters.

A 2017 disappearance in the North Cascades involved a climber whose campsite showed unexplained disturbances. In 2015, a family camping in the Oregon Cascades vanished; rangers cited wildlife damage at the time, though questions lingered about the scene’s layout.

In none of those cases did authorities confirm evidence of a large, unidentified bipedal animal.

Yet online communities devoted to the legend of “forest beings” have seized on Mercer’s find as proof of what they believe inhabits the deep woods of the Olympic Peninsula. Folklore among regional tribes, including members of the Skokomish Nation, contains references to powerful, elusive figures dwelling beyond human settlements, though tribal leaders decline to discuss sacred narratives in detail.

Law enforcement officials emphasize that the case remains classified as a homicide investigation pending further evidence.

“We are not concluding the existence of any unknown species,” a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said. “We are following forensic leads.”

The Hunter’s Vigil

For Mercer, the discovery altered more than a cold case file. He has returned repeatedly to the clearing, installing trail cameras at its perimeter. He says the devices have captured images of a large shape moving at night, though the footage is indistinct.

Investigators have not confirmed those recordings.

On one visit last spring, Mercer reported finding a camera repositioned and pointed toward a nearby tree. Carved roughly into the bark, about 10 feet above the ground, were letters that appeared to spell out a warning: STAY AWAY.

Authorities would not comment on the carving’s authenticity.

Whether the explanation lies in misidentified wildlife, an unreported human assailant or a confluence of environmental hazards, the forest remains what it has always been: vast, complex and capable of swallowing certainty along with those who venture too far from the trail.

The official record lists the Seattle hiker as deceased, cause undetermined. The recovered photograph sits in an evidence locker, a frozen frame from a November night.

For Mercer, the image poses a question he cannot shake.

“I used to think the wilderness was empty space,” he said. “Now I’m not so sure.”

In the cathedral silence of old-growth cedar and hemlock, answers are elusive. The backcountry does not explain itself. It only keeps its secrets — and, occasionally, releases just enough to deepen the mystery.