San Bernardino County, CA near Apple Valley

Highway 18

7 Mar 2007

Sighting,Tracks

Wed night my 19 year old son came home at approx 1:00 Am in the morning to tell me that he and a friend had a close encounter with something "sub-human" out in the desert. They were out "4-wheeling" in the friend's truck and approached what they decribed as an old parked car and trailer. As they drew close a figure rose from that backside of the trailer and charged them coming as close to three feet from the passenger side door. The friend screamed and recoiled away from the open window, as my son accelerated quickly away from the figure. There was a moon out that night, and apparently from the angle of the headlights enough light to see the figure in detail. My son and his friend told me that it looked sub-human, was covered in dark hair, had no clothes on, a primitive looking face like a cave-man, was approx. 5' 7" in height, and ran toward them without moving its arms.
The boys said they both were screaming the entire way back to the friend's house..approx 4 miles away.
Both boys were not drinking or doing drugs, and my son was VERY animated and shook up when he came home to tell me this story. The next day I went out to the site to look over things, and interview the friend. In addition I made a plaster caste of one of the footprints. We found that the old car and trailer were gone when we arrived the next afternoon, but there were six bare-foot human (?) prints around the trailer tracks. The prints were approx 11" long and 5" wide across the ball of the foot. The footprint seemed rather flat without much of an arch..if at all. The toes were very round, and the big toe rather large.

Dave Osborne

I had two phone interviews and visited the site with the boys and the father. The first phone interview was with the father of the driver. The father filed the report for the boys and we covered the basic points of the report and his perspective on what happened. Though the father had not been able to add anything else to the report, he did note that he has heard strange sounds at night and in the early morning hours since the fall of '06. The sounds have come from the same area as the sighting. The father's house is about two miles from the boys' encounter in a hilly, rocky area. The father described the sounds as similar to an old lady screaming as if she was being murdered. He at first passed it off as possibly coyotes but as he has heard the scream several times, he now dismisses that possibility. Being a full time desert dweller, he said he is convinced the sound is not coyote or bobcat. He also added that he made a plaster cast of one of the footprints from where the boys had their sighting. He said there were six prints but he got the best one. He said the footprints were eleven inches long and five inches wide at the ball.

My next phone interview was with the sixteen-year-old who was the passenger in the four-wheeler truck. We went over the report and I asked the boy to share the experience as he remembered it. He guessed the animal's height at between 5'1" to 5'3", which is a little smaller than the father's estimate. The father based his size guess on the boys' story in relation to the size of the truck that the boys were in. He guessed the weight at about 180 pounds and said the hair color was brown. He said the location of the sighting was about two miles from his friend's father's house. They were off-roading at night and circled an older truck with a camper, which had been parked 4-6 weeks in the same spot according to the witness.

As they circled the camper, they noticed that the chairs and cooler that had normally sat outside were turned and tipped over. As they came around the truck, something that was crouched by the driver's front wheel leaped out at them at an unnatural speed and started running alongside the truck. The witness described it as being only two to three feet away from his open window. Witness believed that the animal could have reached in and grabbed him if it wanted to.

The witness described his sighting to be thirty seconds or less. Since the creature was just a few feet away from him, the witness was able to give a fairly accurate description. The creature had a low forehead and he described it as looking like a primitive man. He described the head as oval shaped. The hair on its head covered the forehead. The bridge of its brow reminded him of a Neanderthal. The eyes were brown and the pupil appeared blue. The eyes were round. The creature walked straight up and not hunched over. It's body was fat and stocky with lots of hair. He described the creature's hair length as about that of a golden retriever dog.

He described the creature's arms as longer than a human and they hung by its side as it chased their truck. He estimated they accelerated up to 50 miles an hour and the creature was keeping up with them. He guessed it followed them for about 500 yards.

He said he felt shock and fear when he saw the creature and he screamed so loudly it made his friend start screaming too. He described the night as clear with a full moon. He also shared something interesting about the camper. When the boys came back the next day with the father to investigate the site, the camper was gone. I find it telling that according to the witness the camper had been there for such a long time and then the day after the incident it was gone. I really would like hunt down the person who was in the camper that night!

On April 4, 2007 I drove to the high desert to interview both witnesses and the witness's father who filed the report. I was shown the plaster cast that the father had made from one of the impressions from the sighting area. It was a very clean cast and showed fine detail of the toes and the line between them and the foot itself. The father explained that he had not had enough plaster to fill in the true width of the footprint. He stated there were several impressions in the area and they tried to duplicate the depth of the print by jumping off some near by rocks. Though they could get similar depth by jumping, the bare footprint was not coming from the rocks but heading towards it so the impressions were not likely made from jumping off the rock as they were going the wrong direction.

After looking at the cast, taking pictures, and getting everyone's story again, we headed out to the area of the sighting. It was about two miles from their house on dirt roads that can require four wheel drive. The nearest residence was about one-half mile away. We arrived at the location and the boys mapped out the area where the incident took place. Both boys' stories checked out and I could find no discrepancies or contradictions in their accounts. There was a rock-lined fire pit in the area where the boys said the camper had been. It was fairly obvious there had been fires in the ring within the last few months.The boy who was driving the pick-up was only able to see the outline of the creature and didn't get the clear view the boy in the window had but did attest to the fact he could see the creature chasing them through the rear view mirror. I asked about the possible discrepancies in the size of the creature and after everybody talked it out, the boy felt he underestimated the height in relation to the truck. The father had figured out the height based on the boys' guess at where its head lined up with the roof of the truck.

I decided to seek further input on the cast from the site. This area is desert, rocky soil with thorns, scorpions etc. It is highly uncommon for people to walk or run barefoot in this type of terrain. That is why the father took the cast. I chose to ask Kathy Strain (a U.S. Forest Service Archaeologist and active bigfoot researcher) for her input. She thought the cast looked human and suggested I get some other opinions and directed me to Rick Noll (a fellow bigfoot enthusiast) and Dr. Jeff Meldrum (Associate Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University, Pocatello). Rick Noll said they looked human to him. Dr. Meldrum said they also looked human to him, but as a side note said he has found prints that appear human that have been found under rather strange circumstances.

I would like to wrap up this report with the following conclusions. Though I have lived in this area my whole life and am extremely skeptical of bigfoot sightings in this rather arid areas, all parties involved seemed sincere and therefore, I do not feel this sighting was a hoax on their part. Secondly, there is a mountain range with plenty of water and cover a few miles away. Mountain lions frequently come into this part of the desert from the mountains and there are natural springs and caves in the area.

Thirdly, we do have some interesting reports from the desert areas over the years though they are few and far between. Finally, after viewing the footprint, though it appears to be human, I would also say I find it strange that anyone would be going barefoot in this rugged, dry, and potentially dangerous terrain. Footwear would definitely be the norm. Though a good argument exists for ruling out the cast and print, the report still stands on its own in my opinion.

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