‘I Was Sent To Hunt Down Bigfoot’ – Pilot’s Terrifying

THE DAY THE MOUNTAINS ANSWERED BACK

I never believed in monsters.

Not after fifteen years of flying bush planes through northern British Columbia, not after watching storms rise out of clear skies or landing on strips of land so narrow they felt like dares. I believed in weather, terrain, human error. Everything had an explanation.

Until the mountains proved me wrong.

It started as a job I couldn’t afford to refuse.

A man in a tailored jacket stepped into my hangar one cold October morning, his shoes too clean for the oil-stained floor. He spoke softly, confidently, the way people do when they’re used to being obeyed. He said his company had lost contact with several teams operating in the Cassiar Mountains. All he needed was aerial reconnaissance. Photos. Coordinates. Nothing dangerous.

The money he offered made my chest tighten.

My business was dying. My co-pilot—Tommy—knew it. We exchanged a glance, the kind that carries months of unpaid bills and quiet panic. We accepted.

The first flights were uneventful. Endless forest. Rock. Snow-dusted peaks. But by the fourth run, something felt… arranged. Trails too straight to be animal-made. Clearings where trees had been removed deliberately, stacked in patterns that made no natural sense.

Then the radio interference began.

Low, rhythmic pulses bled through every frequency. Not static. Not weather. It sounded intentional—almost like drumming. When we flew over certain areas, my compass spun uselessly, forcing me to rely on GPS alone. On the sixth flight, the engine coughed. Then again.

The mechanic found nothing wrong.

The client wasn’t surprised.

That should have been when we walked away.

Instead, on the seventh flight, the engine failed completely.

I spotted a small alpine lake just in time. The landing was brutal. Metal screamed. Water sprayed. When the plane finally stopped, half on shore, half in the lake, my hands were shaking too hard to unclench from the controls.

We were alive.

But we were alone.

The emergency beacon was destroyed. No signal. No contact. Just trees, cold, and the sound of wind moving through mountains that suddenly felt aware of us.

Tommy found the footprints before sunset.

They were pressed deep into the mud by the shoreline—eighteen inches long, five toes, shaped like a human foot but impossibly large. The stride between them was wrong. Too long. Too confident.

Neither of us spoke.

That night, the forest came alive.

Heavy footsteps circled our fire, slow and deliberate. Branches snapped high above the ground. Eyes reflected the flames from the darkness—golden, intelligent, far too high to belong to any animal I knew.

Whatever was out there wasn’t rushing us.

It was watching.

When morning came, the fear didn’t leave. It deepened.

Our gear had been moved. Not stolen. Studied. Arranged neatly, like someone trying to understand how it all worked. Handprints—massive, humanoid—were frozen into the frost coating the aircraft wings.

Hands.

Not paws.

The second day was worse. Shapes moved between trees just beyond clear sight. Dark forms watching from slopes, from behind trunks, from places that gave them perfect vantage points. We realized then that we weren’t surrounded by one thing.

We were being observed by many.

On the third day, we saw it clearly.

Eight feet tall. Broad shoulders. Covered in dark hair. It stood partially behind a pine tree, calm and unafraid. When we raised our weapons, it didn’t flinch.

It studied us.

And then—slowly—it raised one hand.

Not in threat.

In greeting.

Something broke inside me.

This wasn’t an animal reacting on instinct. This was intelligence. Awareness. Choice.

Over the next days, an impossible understanding formed. We left food at the edge of camp. In the morning, it was gone. In its place—fish, berries, medicinal roots. Gifts. Exchanges. Communication without words.

They were taking care of us.

On the sixth day, I found the truth hidden in my own survival kit.

A tracking beacon.

Small. Silent. Planted.

The engine failure. The interference. The secrecy. We weren’t hired to observe.

We were bait.

That night, the radio crackled to life. Our client’s voice coordinated an operation—helicopters, ground teams, capture equipment. They were coming at dawn.

To hunt.

We tried to warn them—the beings who had spared us. We drew pictures in the dirt. Helicopters. Guns. Cages. The largest one—the leader—studied everything carefully.

Then it made a sound that rolled across the lake like thunder.

Within an hour, the forest erased itself.

Tracks vanished. Clearings blended back into wilderness. Every sign of their existence was removed with terrifying efficiency. Before leaving, the leader approached us one last time.

It placed its massive hand over its chest.

Then over mine.

Gratitude.

Farewell.

The helicopters arrived at sunrise.

Men in uniforms searched everything. Asked questions that cut too close. We lied with shaking voices and steady eyes. We said bear. Wolves. Nothing unusual.

They didn’t believe us.

But they found nothing.

We were paid. Silenced. Released.

Three months later, I still fly those routes. I still wake up at night hearing footsteps in snow that isn’t there. Sometimes, when the light hits the forest just right, I see movement—far below—watching.

And then it’s gone.

I don’t tell people what I saw.

Because some truths don’t belong to us.

The mountains are not empty.

They are inhabited.

And sometimes, when humans choose compassion instead of fear, the mountains choose mercy in return.