Author’s Note. This isn’t my typical blog post. It’s a non-fiction account from something that happened when I was a young teenager. It’s something I’ve debated posting for years and years, and just couldn’t find the courage to do it.
But now, I don’t know why exactly, but I feel like I’m ready to tell my story. Maybe it’s because I want others to know what I’ve seen, so if they’ve seen something too, they won’t feel so isolated. Maybe it’s because we need to realize that life on our world is more vast and more complicated than we believe. Maybe it’s because I want us to realize science doesn’t have all the answers. Not yet, anyway.
I’ll leave it up to you if you want to believe it or not. If I hadn’t had this experience, I’m sure it would have been difficult for me to believe.
But regardless of that, I’m ready now. Ready to tell the story of how I encountered Bigfoot in Narnia.
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Southeast Texas on Highway 105 between Vidor and Evadale
It was in the mid-nineties when me and my sisters decided to explore the woods near our home. We were homeschooled and perpetually bored, so we went outside for entertainment. Technically, they weren’t “our” woods. Our family didn’t own the land, so we had to cross from our haven of the pasture and through the perils of a barb wire fence to make it inside the woods.
In the pasture, we had a few landmarks. This was during the time when our love for C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia inspired our choices in naming.
“The lamppost”- a dead, stick-like tree, bleached white, which contrasted with the surrounding woods. Nearby was the “horsey tree”- a huge live oak with branches long and skimming the ground, flexible enough for one to ride like a horse.
Then, when one found the lamp post and horsey tree, one could also find the fence line where the barb wire was a bit stretched out. It was the most ideal place to enter the woods. This was Narnia.
In Narnia, we followed along game trails looking for anything interesting, and that’s when we found Tumnus’s cave.
It was an odd structure that stood out. Made of sticks, tree limbs, and pine needles, it resembled a manmade hovel. Inside, it was about eight feet wide, four to five feet tall at its apex. We’d never seen anything like it in the woods. Stranger still, it wasn’t the only one. Nearby, we found another hovel, and this one was better constructed than the first.
We staked our claim in Narnia, and we proceeded to make those little stick caves our homes. We would pack lunches and journey to Narnia, eating peanut butter and jelly in our newly discovered caverns, decorating them with drawings we’d made or toys we’d toted along with us—whatever we needed to make a house a home.
I would sometimes sit inside one of the little houses and look at it with confusion. They couldn’t have been naturally formed—they were too precise. And if they were manmade, who would have made them—and why?
Ours was the only house for miles. We never once encountered anyone else in our Narnia. We saw deer and squirrels, we heard woodpeckers and crows, but as for humans, they were absent.
I also recall the wood knocks. What kind of woodpecker makes only three slow knocks? I would ask myself.
A woodpecker was my only explanation, although logically, I knew it couldn’t be. Sometimes I would even knock back and get a response, but still, I chalked it up to birds.
At times, I went to Narnia alone. It was a great place for escaping. I say alone—but I was most often followed by a cat or two. A dog, sometimes.
On this particular occasion, I was followed by my faithful cat, Pig. I went to the pasture, found the lamp post and horsey tree, found the great-place-where-it-was-easier-to-climb-through-the-fence, and entered Narnia.
I don’t remember anything too out of the ordinary on that journey, although I was often spooked when going alone, and sitting inside Tumnus’s cave by myself could either be calming or downright creepy. To remedy this, I would hum church hymns.
After sitting in Tumnus’s cave for a while, I decided to go home. So, back on the path I went, to the horsey tree and lamppost, back through the fence, and into the safety of the pasture.
It was late in the evening, and as I walked through the pasture, I saw an unusual tree behind the fence and just on the edge of the tree line.
I’d been to the pasture every day for the entire summer and many seasons before. I knew the pasture and forest so well, I could tell you which trees were where and what they looked like, and this tree was blatantly out of place. Plus, why was it such a dark brown color? All the other trees were mostly pine, with reddish bark and green or rusty brown needles.
But it must have been a tree, and I needed to prove to myself that it was, so I bravely approached it.
“It’s a tree. It’s got to be a tree.”
I repeated this line for about two steps forward, when I very clearly remember realizing that not only was it not a tree, but a… something?
It was covered in coarse brown fur—almost black. It was about my height, maybe five feet. Although it stood upright and resembled a human, its build was too stocky. Its head sat on thick shoulders, and its arms were too long.
It didn’t move.
It only stood there, looking at me.
I knew it was something other. But I had no name for it.
Still, I was brave. I knew everything had to have an explanation. Was it a weird mannequin someone had placed in the woods? A hunter?
Yes, it was most likely a hunter wearing a Gilly suit.
I took another step. Another. My cat crossed the distance between us and stood directly between me and it, sniffing cautiously. I stood ten feet away, so close I could see its eyes—completely black and shiny.
If it’s a hunter, I thought to myself, and I call for my cat, he’ll be forced to say something.
“Is this your cat?” he would ask.
“Yes!” And I would laugh at how absurd I’d been in thinking this was something other.
So, I tried it.
“Here, kitty kitty kitty.”
Nothing.
No response. No laughing. No movement.
Its stare told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, I am an other. He seemed to say. You’ve seen something you can’t explain. You’d better leave quickly.
Describing the fear in that moment is impossible. It’s like you’ve been thrown into an icy lake, and if you don’t escape, you will die in that instant. And you can never swim—or in my case, run—fast enough.
So, although every fiber in my being told me to run, I turned around, and I walked away.
Don’t run, I told myself. If you run, he’ll chase you.
I walked at a brisk pace to the gate. After climbing over it, feeling as if I was in the clear, I bolted. I didn’t run; I flew. I made it home faster than I’d ever made it in my life.
Completely shaken, without any sort of explanation for what I’d seen, I stayed mum except to tell my younger sister, Andrea.
I don’t recall if she believed me, but she was a practical person, and most likely brushed it off or tried coming up with a logical explanation, so I decided it was best to keep the encounter to myself.
I’ll admit I forgot about the incident.
I didn’t go out to the woods much after that. I think I wanted to forget it. When you can’t explain something, I think your brain has a way of dismissing it.
So, that’s what I did. I dismissed it, and I nearly forgot it.
Fast forward to the early 2000’s. I’m married now, a newlywed, and I’m on the way to the movies with my husband David.
We’ve stopped at an ATM. He’s outside getting money. I’m in the car listening to the radio. Chester Moore. He’s discussing the sightings of “Little Bigfoot” in East Texas, and I’m hit with a bolt of lightning that reawakens memories I’d suppressed for years.
Little Bigfoot?
“Sightings have been recorded of a species of Bigfoot living in the Piney Woods of Eastern Texas near river bottoms,” Moore explains. “Some report seeing juveniles or smaller Bigfoot—around four to five feet in height.”
Little Bigfoot.
I finally have a name for what I saw.
Although I had one answer, many more remained.
If Bigfoot exists, why doesn’t science recognize the species? Why has a body never been discovered? Wouldn’t we have scat? Bones? Fur? Something? Anything?
But the more I delved into the subject, little by little, I got a few answers. Tumnus’s house and the accompanying structure, where we ate peanut butter sandwiches and decorated with little pictures or plastic jewelry—were most likely Bigfoot nests. And since I spotted a juvenile, it was quite possible I was sitting in his nursery.
The knocks? Not woodpeckers, which wouldn’t have made three slow knocks anyway, were most likely Bigfoot knocks. And I’d unwittingly responded.
It’s possible that my “Little Bigfoot” had been watching me and my siblings for some time. I suspect since I went alone that day, it felt brave enough to let me see it, as I’d been sitting in its nursery and inadvertently leaving gifts for it. I don’t think it meant to be threatening, but I also got the impression that it wanted me to know that I was in its territory.
I wish I had more answers.
I’ve gotten mixed reactions from the few people I’ve told. My parents have been supportive and encouraged me to write my story. My husband believes I saw something. My sister remembers me telling her I saw something.
My aunt thinks I saw a raccoon.
To me, I don’t really care if people believe me or not. I don’t even care if they think I’m crazy. Really, I would just like answers, because I know I can’t be the only person in Southeast Texas who’s seen it. And not just in Texas, but the entire world. I can’t understand how there can be so many sightings, all over the planet and for centuries, and no conclusive proof that Bigfoot exists. It boggles the mind.
Is there a conspiracy? Are aliens involved? The government? I don’t know, but I feel like if we were free to believe in Bigfoot, I would have been less traumatized by the experience. I would have had an experience that made me think… “Oh, that’s cool—a Bigfoot!” Not, “That’s a monster! It will kill me if I don’t run away this instant!”
Just as an update, my parents still live on the land where I grew up. While they’ve never seen anything, they have reported bipedal footsteps outside their window. It’s not much, but I think it does lend some credence to my story.
Until the world believes in Bigfoot, I think we’ll be doomed to ignorance. I have deep respect for people like Chester Moore who helps shed light on this topic.
Daniel J. Boorstin wrote, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
My hope is that we can open our minds to the possibilities of what’s out there—that we don’t know everything, and that there are things in this world yet to be discovered. Not every video is CGI or a “man in a costume.” Not every encounter is a trick of the light or “just some drunk who saw something.”
Fear is what makes us cling to the known.
The pursuit of knowledge is what leads us to discovery.
Do I believe Bigfoot exists?
No. I don’t have the luxury of belief. I’ve seen it. I know.
There’s a difference between belief and knowledge. One is intangible and depends on faith. The other is concrete.
Can I explain how he exists?
That’s the question I’m trying to answer, and I pray it’s one that’s answered not just to satisfy my personal curiosity. I want an answer for the countless others who’ve witnessed something they couldn’t explain, so curiosity can replace fear. So knowledge can replace ignorance. So truth can replace fiction. I hope we’ll do it for the other young girls who are traipsing through their own Narnias, free to discover what’s out there, and not afraid by what they might find.
I used all my artistic skills to create a rendition of my encounter with “Little Bigfoot.” Okay, so I’m no Leonardo da Vinci, but I gave it my best effort. The “lamppost” and “horsey tree” were down the fence line and would have been too far away for me to include in the drawing.