Bigfoot Came To Ask Me To Help His Family. What Happened Next Will Terrify You – Sasquatch Story

The Cabinet Mountains: A Ranger’s Unlikely Bond with Sasquatch
Discover more
Headbands
Music
Activewear
In the dead of night, my remote cabin in northern Montana shuddered under a violent pounding. It was a slow, bone-chilling rhythm. Not the wind, not a wild beast. When I swung that door open, I came face to face with a living nightmare. A massive dark shadow standing over 8 ft tall, a Sasquatch. My hand locked on the doorframe. My breath vanished from my lungs. Every instinct in my body screamed to run.
What that creature did next defied every rule of fear and survival I had ever learned. My name is Jack Mercer, and I’m about to tell you the one story I never thought anyone would believe.
Years in the Mountains
I’m 71 years old, spent 43 of those years as a fire lookout in the Cabinet Mountains. I’ve seen grizzlies tear apart elk carcasses. I’ve watched wolverines take down prey twice their size. I know what predators look like when they’re hunting. This wasn’t that.
The knocking had started around 2:00 a.m. I’d been reading by lamplight, half asleep in my chair when the first impact hit the door. Not a scratch, not a slam, a deliberate, measured thud, like someone testing the weight of the wood itself. Then another, and another, each one spaced exactly 5 seconds apart.
I grabbed my Winchester from above the mantle, hands steadier than I expected. The cold bit through my flannel shirt as I crossed the room. Through the fogged window, I could make out a shape—tall, impossibly tall, standing motionless in the silver moonlight. It didn’t move like anything I’d ever tracked.
Discover more
Sports
sports
Video
The First Encounter
I cracked the door 6 inches, rifle barrel leading. “Back off,” I said, voice low and firm. The creature didn’t flinch. Instead, it exhaled—a long, deliberate breath that clouded the freezing air between us. Then, it did something I’ll never forget.
It stepped backward into the light. I got my first clear look at it then. Broad shoulders covered in dark matted fur. Arms that hung past its knees. A face that was both human and not—flat nose. Deep-set eyes that caught the lamplight and reflected it back like an animal’s.
But it was the eyes that stopped me cold. They weren’t wild. They weren’t empty. They were watching me, calculating.
The creature made a sound, low, rhythmic, almost like a series of controlled grunts. It glanced toward the tree line, then back at me, then again—tree line, me, tree line. I’d seen that behavior before. Wolves do it when they’re signaling a pack. Ravens do it when they’ve found carrion and want to lead you to it. This thing was trying to tell me something.
My grip on the rifle loosened slightly. Not because I wasn’t afraid—I was terrified—but because I recognized what I was seeing. This wasn’t a threat. It was a signal.
The creature turned slowly, deliberately, and began walking toward the forest. After 10 paces, it stopped, looked back over its shoulder, waiting.
I should have slammed that door. Should have locked it, loaded extra shells, maybe even radioed down to the ranger station. But something in the way it moved, patient, purposeful, made me hesitate. In 43 years, I’d learned to trust my gut in the wilderness. And my gut told me this wasn’t an attack.
I don’t know why I did what I did next. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the old fire lookout instinct, the need to investigate, to know what’s happening on your mountain. Or maybe deep down, I knew something was very wrong out there in the dark. I stepped off my porch, rifle in hand, and followed a Sasquatch into the night.
A Strange Journey
The snow crunched under my boots, each step louder than I wanted it to be. The creature moved through the forest like it weighed nothing, despite its massive frame. No broken branches, no disturbed undergrowth, just smooth, deliberate motion through terrain that would’ve shredded my knees in daylight.
I kept 20 yards back, rifle ready but lowered—not aimed, not yet. Every 30 seconds or so, it would stop, turn its head just enough to confirm I was still there, then continue forward. It was leading me somewhere specific. The thought should’ve terrified me more than it did. Instead, I felt something else—something I didn’t understand then and still struggle to explain now. A strange, uncomfortable certainty that if this thing wanted me dead, I’d already be dead.
We moved deeper into the forest, away from any trail I recognized. The moonlight barely penetrated the canopy here. My breath came in short, visible bursts. The cold was working its way through my jacket, but I barely noticed. I was too focused on the shape ahead of me.
At one point, the creature paused near a massive Douglas fir and placed one hand—hand, not paw—against the bark. It stood there for a long moment, head tilted as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. Then it made that sound again—the low, rhythmic vocalization, softer this time, almost cautious.
That’s when I realized we weren’t alone out here. Something else was moving through these woods tonight. And whatever it was, this creature was aware of it.
The Hidden Danger
The terrain started to slope downward. My boots struggled for purchase on the icy ground. The Sasquatch navigated it effortlessly, occasionally glancing back—not at me, but past me, scanning the darkness behind us, checking if we were being followed.
My pulse quickened. I’d been so focused on the creature in front of me that I hadn’t considered what might be behind me. I resisted the urge to turn around. In the wilderness, showing your back to unknown threats is how you die.
We descended into a narrow ravine, the kind that floods violently during spring melt. The creek bed was frozen now, covered in a thin sheet of ice that cracked under my weight. The creature stopped at the edge of a small clearing, and that’s when I heard it. Breathing—labored, wet, struggling.
The Sasquatch stepped aside, and I saw her—another one, smaller, maybe 7 feet tall, slumped against a fallen log. Even in the darkness, I could see the steel trap clamped around her lower leg. The chain was anchored to a tree root, and she’d clearly been fighting it. The snow around her was churned into a dark, muddy mess. But it was the smell that hit me hardest. Chemical. Acrid. Wrong. Poison.
Illegal trappers use it. Sometimes coat the trap mechanism with diluted strychnine or antifreeze to weaken anything that gets caught. Makes the animal easier to finish off later.
Foam ringed her mouth. Her breathing was shallow, erratic. Her eyes, half-closed, glassy, tracked my movement with effort. She was dying.
The male Sasquatch made a low sound, almost a whine, and moved closer to her. He touched her shoulder gently, then looked at me. Really looked at me, and I understood. He hadn’t brought me here to attack. He’d brought me here because she needed help. And somehow—somehow he’d figured out that humans were the only ones who could remove a human trap.
The Rescue Attempt
My hands shook as I lowered the rifle completely, leaning it against a nearby tree. “All right,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “All right, let me see.”
I approached slowly, hands visible. The male stepped back but didn’t leave. He positioned himself between me and the forest, watching both of us. I knelt beside her. The trap was a commercial-grade leg hold, the kind that’s illegal in Montana for exactly this reason. The jaws had penetrated deep into the muscle. Blood had frozen around the wound in dark crystalline patterns. Her eyes found mine. There was pain there, fear, but also something else—something that made my throat tighten. Awareness.
She knew I was trying to help.
I pressed my fingers against the trap’s spring mechanism, testing the tension. It would take both hands and significant force to open it. Force I wasn’t sure I had in me at 71.
That’s when I heard it. Distant, echoing through the frozen forest. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Wood knocks—deliberate, rhythmic, coming from multiple directions. The male Sasquatch’s head snapped up. His entire body went rigid. Every muscle tensed. He made a sound I hadn’t heard before—a low, guttural warning that vibrated in my chest.
Something was out there, and whatever it was, it terrified even him.
The Trappers
The wood knocks stopped as suddenly as they’d started. The silence that followed was worse. I’d heard wood knocks before. Researchers claimed Sasquatch used them to communicate across distances. But these were different. Too evenly spaced, too methodical, almost like someone was mapping the forest, triangulating a position. Our position.
The male moved closer to the injured female, placing himself directly between her and the direction of the sounds. His breathing had changed faster, sharper. His eyes swept the tree line in quick jerking movements. He was afraid, and that scared me more than anything else that night.
I turned my attention back to the trap, fingers working faster now. The metal was ice cold, biting into my skin, even through my gloves. I wedged my boot against the base for leverage and pulled with everything I had.
The spring mechanism didn’t budge. “Come on,” I hissed through gritted teeth. Sweat ran down my spine despite the cold.
The female made a sound—soft, almost questioning. Her eyes were still on me, but they were unfocused now, rolling slightly. The poison was progressing. Her breathing had become more labored, each exhale rattling in her chest. I didn’t have much time.
I repositioned my hands, searching for better grip. That’s when I noticed something that made my stomach drop. The trap wasn’t just embedded in muscle. The chain had been deliberately wrapped around the tree root twice, secured with a carabiner.
This wasn’t an accidental catch. Someone had prepared this, set it specifically for something large, something intelligent enough to trigger it while investigating.
These trappers knew exactly what they were hunting.
A branch cracked somewhere to my left—close, maybe 40 yards. The male’s head whipped toward the sound. He dropped into a lower stance, arms slightly extended. I’d seen gorillas do something similar in documentaries—making themselves look bigger, ready to charge. But he didn’t vocalize, didn’t roar, or beat his chest. He stayed absolutely silent, tactical, controlled, predatory.
For the first time since leaving my cabin, I truly understood what I was dealing with. This wasn’t some gentle forest giant from a nature documentary. This was an apex predator, smart, powerful, and right now, cornered. And I was kneeling three feet away from his injured mate.
My hand slowly moved toward my rifle, still propped against the tree. I didn’t grab it, didn’t even touch it—just positioned myself where I could reach it if needed. The male’s eyes flicked to me, to the rifle, back to the darkness. He knew what I was thinking.
Another sound, this time from the right. Footsteps. Heavy boots crunching through frozen undergrowth. Human footsteps.
Then voices—low. Muffled. At least two people, maybe three.
“Trail goes cold here. Check the trap line. Something big hit the number seven.”
Trappers.
Illegal ones, judging by the late hour and remote location.
Coming to check their catch.
The male Sasquatch’s breathing changed again—slower now, deeper. His muscles coiled like springs, ready to release. He was going to attack them. And if he did, if he killed those men, they’d come back with hunting parties, with helicopters and thermal imaging. They’d turn these mountains into a war zone. Both of these creatures would die.
I made a choice I still question. I stood up slowly, hands visible, and locked eyes with the male. Then I pointed at myself, at him, at the injured female. I pressed my finger to my lips. Stay quiet. Stay hidden. Let me handle this.
I don’t know if he understood. Don’t know if creatures like him even can understand human gestures. But he stepped back into the shadows. Disappeared so completely it was like he’d never been there at all.
I grabbed my rifle, checked the safety, and started walking toward the voices.
The Confrontation
My heart hammered against my ribs. Every instinct screamed at me to run the other direction. But if those trappers found the female, they’d kill her. Probably mount her head on a wall somewhere, sell the body to some private collector. I’d spent 43 years protecting these mountains. I wasn’t about to stop now.
The voices grew clearer as I climbed out of the ravine. I could see flashlight beams cutting through the trees ahead. Three of them, moving in a loose search pattern.
I chambered around. The sound echoed through the forest. The flashlights froze.
“Montana Fish and Wildlife,” I called out, voice hard and steady. A lie, but one that might save lives.
“You lost, old-timer?”
His voice carried that particular edge of a man who decided he was the biggest threat in any room.
“Long way from any ranger station.”
“Could say the same about you.”
I kept my tone neutral. Calm.
“Trapping season’s closed. Has been since November.”
“We’re not trapping.”
The one on the left spoke up. Younger voice, nervous.
“Just hiking. Heard something in the woods at 3:00 in the morning. Couldn’t sleep.”
The lie hung in the frozen air between us. We all knew it was a lie. They knew. I knew. But I also knew something they didn’t.
Behind me, in that ravine, a 7-ft tall creature was bleeding out in one of their traps. And her mate, 8-ft of muscle and intelligence, was watching this entire exchange from the shadows.
If shooting started, we’d all die tonight.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said, adjusting my stance slightly. Old knees were starting to protest the cold. “You three are going to walk back the way you came. I’m going to forget I saw you. And tomorrow morning, I’m going to report illegal trap equipment in this sector.”
The big one in the middle tilted his head.
“You threatening us?”
“I’m offering you a way out that doesn’t involve federal charges.”
A pause. Wind moved through the pines above us, shaking loose small cascades of snow. Then I heard it, so faint I almost missed it—a low, barely audible growl from the ravine behind me.
The male was still there, still watching, and he was not happy about these men being this close.
The big trapper heard it, too. His flashlight beam twitched slightly to my left, trying to see past me.
“What was that?”
“Grizzly, probably,” I said quickly. “They don’t hibernate as deep as people think. You boys really want to be stumbling around in the dark with a hungry bear nearby?”
It wasn’t a grizzly. We all knew it wasn’t a grizzly, but it gave them an exit that didn’t involve admitting they were doing something illegal. The younger one on the left shifted his weight.
“Maybe we should shut up, Kyle.”
The big one, Marv, stared at me for another long moment. His jaw worked like he was chewing over his options. Then he spat in the snow.
“This isn’t over, old man. We know what’s out here. We know what we caught.”
He jerked his head toward his companions.
“Come on.”
They turned and started back through the forest, flashlights bobbing, boots crunching.
I didn’t lower the rifle until their lights disappeared completely into the trees. Even then, I waited another 5 minutes, listening, making sure they were really gone.
Finally, I turned back toward the ravine.
The male Sasquatch was standing exactly where I’d left him, completely motionless, eyes reflecting the moonlight like an animal’s. But there was something different in his posture now. The aggressive tension was gone, replaced by something I couldn’t quite read.
I walked back down to the injured female. She was worse, breathing more shallow, eyes barely open. The foam around her mouth had turned pink. Internal bleeding probably. I knelt again and gripped the trap mechanism.
This time, I didn’t try to force it. Instead, I examined the carabiner holding the chain to the root. Simple spring-loaded gate. I could work with that.
“I can’t get her out tonight,” I said aloud, not sure if the male understood, but needing to say it anyway. “But I can make this better. Give her a chance.”
I unclipped the carabiner, freeing the chain from the root. The trap was still clamped on her leg, but at least she wasn’t anchored anymore. At least she could move if she needed to.
Then I shrugged off my jacket, the heavy winter one I’d grabbed on my way out of the cabin, and draped it over her torso. It wouldn’t do much, but it might help retain some body heat.
The male watched every movement. I stood up slowly, retrieved my rifle, and backed away.
“I’m coming back,” I said. “Tomorrow with help. Real help.”
The male didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge, just stood there, massive and silent.
I started the long walk back to my cabin. My hands were shaking now, adrenaline finally catching up. My shirt was soaked with sweat despite the freezing temperature.
Halfway up the ravine, I glanced back. The male had moved to the female’s side. He was touching her face gently, making soft sounds I couldn’t hear from this distance, and I realized something that made my chest tighten.
He’d trusted me.
A human, the same species that had poisoned his mate and left her to die. He’d trusted me because he had no other choice.
I didn’t sleep that night. Just sat in my cabin, rifle across my lap, staring at the door, wondering what the hell I’d just gotten myself into. And knowing—knowing this was far from over.
Dawn broke cold and gray over the Cabinet Mountains. I hadn’t moved from my chair. My coffee had gone cold hours ago, untouched on the table beside me.
I kept replaying the night in my head. The wood knocks, the trappers, the way that male Sasquatch had looked at me. Not like an animal looks at a human, but like one person looks at another when they’re asking for help.
That’s what scared me most. Not the size, not the strength, the intelligence.
At 6:00 a.m., I picked up my radio and made a call I knew would change everything.
“Emily, it’s Jack Mercer. I need you up at my cabin. Medical emergency.”
Static crackled. Then her voice came through. Suspicious, alert. Emily Hart had been a wilderness paramedic for 15 years. She’d patched up loggers, rescued hypothermic hikers, once even treated a hunter who’d been mauled by a mountain lion. She didn’t spook easy.
“What kind of emergency, Jack?”
I hesitated. How do you explain this without sounding insane?
“Large animal trapped, poisoned, still alive, but not for long.”
“Jack, if it’s a bear or a cat, you need to call wildlife services, not me.”
“It’s not a bear.”
Silence on the other end. Long enough that I thought she’d hung up. Then…
“I’ll be there in 40 minutes.”
The Final Decision
She arrived in her beat-up Cherokee medical kit in one hand, skepticism written all over her face. Emily was 52, lean and weatherworn with gray-streaked hair pulled back in a tight braid. She took one look at me and frowned.
“Jesus, Jack, you look like hell.”
“Didn’t sleep.”
“I can see that,” she said. She set down her kit. “Alright. Where’s this animal?”
“About a mile east. Steep ravine. You’re going to need to trust me on this, Emily.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Trust you on what?”
I met her gaze. “On staying calm. On not running. On understanding that what you’re about to see, it’s real.”
She studied me for a long moment. We’d known each other for over a decade. She’d never seen me rattled.
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
She picked up her kit again. “Then let’s go.”
The hike took 30 minutes. I moved slower in daylight, partly because my knees were screaming after last night. Partly because I was giving Emily time to process what I’d told her on the way.
“So, you’re saying you found a Sasquatch?” she asked flatly.
“Two of them.”
“Two Sasquatch?”
“Yes. And one is injured in an illegal trap.”
“Yes.”
She’d gone quiet after that. I couldn’t tell if she thought I was lying, crazy, or both. But she kept walking.
As we approached the ravine, I raised my hand. Slow, quiet.
“The male is protective. He’ll be watching.”
“The male,” Emily repeated like she was testing the words.
“We descended into the clearing. The female was still there, slumped against the log. My jacket draped over her. Her breathing was worse than before, raspy, irregular. Emily froze. Her medical kit slipped from her hand and hit the snow with a muffled thump.
“Oh my god,” she whispered.
The male stepped out from behind a cluster of pines, not aggressive, not charging—just appearing. 8 feet of dark fur and muscle, watching us with those impossibly aware eyes. Emily’s hand shot out and gripped my arm hard.
“Jack, don’t run. Don’t make sudden movements. Just breathe.”
To her credit, she didn’t scream, didn’t bolt. Her fingers dug into my arm like a vice, but she held her ground.
The male looked at me, then at Emily, then at the injured female, and he stepped aside, allowing us to approach.
“I’ll treat her like a large primate,” Emily said quietly, moving toward the female.
I stayed between her and the male, just in case. Emily knelt beside the injured Sasquatch and opened her kit.
“Talk me through what you know,” she ordered.
“Leg hold trap, been on at least 8 hours. Poison on the mechanism, probably strick nine or antifreeze. Foam indicates toxin ingestion. Labored breathing suggests respiratory distress.”
She pulled out a stethoscope, hesitated, then pressed it against the female’s chest.
“Heart rate’s erratic. Breathing’s compromised. She’s in shock.”
Emily looked up at me.
“Jack, I don’t even know her physiology. I don’t know what dosages are safe. I don’t know…”
The female’s eyes opened, found Emily’s face, and Emily went completely still.
“She’s… She’s looking at me.”
“I know.”
“No, Jack. She’s looking at me like she understands.”
The male made a low sound. Not threatening, almost encouraging.
Emily swallowed hard.
“Okay. Okay. I’m going to treat her like a large primate. Similar body mass to a gorilla. That’s my best guess.”
She pulled out syringes, vials, antiseptic. Her hands steadied as she worked, muscle memory taking over. “I’m administering activated charcoal suspension for the poison. Broad-spectrum antibiotics for infection. Morphine derivative for pain.”
The male watched every movement. When Emily pulled out the syringe, he tensed. I stepped slightly forward.
“It’s medicine to help.”
I don’t know if he understood the words, but he seemed to understand the intent. He didn’t interfere.
Emily administered the injections with practiced efficiency. The female flinched but didn’t pull away, didn’t strike, just endured.
“The trap,” Emily said. “We need to get it off.”
Together, we worked the mechanism. It took both of us and a pry bar from Emily’s kit, but finally, finally, the jaws released. The female made a sound. Low, pained, but also relieved. Emily immediately began cleaning and dressing the wound.
“This needs stitches. Probably needs surgery. I can stabilize it, but—”
The male moved closer. Emily froze. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the injured leg where Emily’s hands worked on the wound, watching how she did it, learning.
“Jack,” Emily whispered. “Do you see this?”
“Yeah.”
“This is… this is tool use comprehension.”
“This is…”
I knew what it was.
“Planning,” she finished, her voice a whisper.
“That’s…” she whispered, stepping back. “He’s learning from us.”
The Final Threat
The male’s head snapped toward the tree line, his body rigid. We both froze. The growl from the woods was faint but distinct. A warning. Another sound came, deeper, more guttural. The male dropped into a low stance, his arms stretching forward. His eyes—intelligent, calculating—locked on the space ahead.
More wood knocks, but different this time. Faster. More urgent.
Something’s wrong.
“Jack, what’s out there?”
I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to find out. The male’s tension told me everything. Whatever was out there, it terrified even him.
I turned to the injured female. “We need to leave. Now.”
“Jack, I can’t just leave her like this,” Emily said, her voice filled with determination.
“Do you think I want to leave her?” I replied harshly. “But we can’t stay here.”
I glanced at the male Sasquatch, still standing guard, tense but motionless.
“Jack, what if something follows us?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we can’t stay here.”
For the first time, the fear wasn’t just for the female Sasquatch—it was for all of us. Emily looked at the male one more time, her eyes filled with fear and disbelief.
She nodded.
We walked back toward the cabin, the tension in the air palpable. We didn’t speak. The forest behind us felt like it was closing in, the weight of the unknown pressing in from every direction.
A Future Unwritten
That night, we didn’t sleep. Both of us sat in the cabin, staring out at the dark, wondering what we had seen and what it all meant. The male Sasquatch’s final look—so much like a person—had haunted me. He trusted me. He trusted us.
We had done what we could, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more at play than just saving one of his kind.
Over the next few days, we returned every day, sometimes twice a day, checking on the female. And each time we returned, she had moved, the space around her altered slightly. They had been watching us—tracking our pattern, learning our schedule.
And I started realizing something that unsettled me to my core: we were no longer the ones in control.
It was them—the Sasquatches—who were dictating our actions, guiding us, teaching us what they wanted us to learn.
A week later, after the female began walking on her own, the pair of Sasquatches disappeared into the forest, vanishing like they were never there. Emily and I stayed behind, unsure of what we’d just witnessed.
Days turned into weeks, and nothing changed. Until one day, a new set of tracks appeared near my cabin, massive, fresh, unmistakable. And then came the wood knocks again, faint, distant, and yet, unmistakably familiar.
They were still out there, watching.
But the biggest question remained: What happens when the line between human and Sasquatch blurs?