The Night I Met Bigfoot: A True Story

I never believed in Bigfoot. Not really. I’m an ER doctor in Seattle—twelve years in medicine, a life built on evidence and rational explanation. If you’d told me six months ago that I’d hit a Bigfoot with my car and then saved its life, I’d have laughed. But last November, on a lonely mountain road, everything changed.

It was Friday, November 17th. I was exhausted, driving to check on my mother, who lives alone in a remote cabin near Glacier, Washington, just south of the Canadian border. She’d called that morning, her voice frail and worried—a rarity for someone so fiercely independent.

The first two hours of the drive were easy. The last ninety minutes were a winding climb through dense pine forests, the pavement cracked and pitted, the sun setting behind the mountains. I was speeding, anxious to reach her before darkness fell.

Twenty minutes from her cabin, it happened. I took a sharp bend too fast, distracted by thoughts of my mother. My headlights swept across something in the road—something tall, broad, and wrong. I slammed the brakes, but it was too late. The impact was deafening. Airbags exploded, my car spun, and when it stopped, I was facing the wrong way, heart pounding, hands shaking.

I expected to see a deer. Instead, I found a massive, dark shape lying in the road, covered in shaggy fur. As I approached with my phone’s flashlight, every instinct screamed to run, but my car was totaled and I had nowhere to go.

The creature was enormous—seven or eight feet tall, at least 400 pounds. Its arm was thick and muscular, but disturbingly human, with five fingers ending in nails. Its face was somewhere between human and animal: flat nose, heavy brow, deep-set eyes, and a jaw that spoke of intelligence.

It was hurt. Badly. Both legs were twisted, blood matted its fur, breathing wet and labored—the sound of broken ribs, maybe a punctured lung. I knelt beside it, terrified, but my medical training took over. This was a patient. I spoke softly, explained what I was doing, and started first aid.

It watched me with aware, intelligent eyes. It could have killed me, but it didn’t. It let me clean wounds, splint its legs, and stabilize its battered body.

I couldn’t leave it. I couldn’t call for help—who would believe me, and what would happen to this creature? So I did something insane: I loaded it into my destroyed car, covered it with emergency blankets, and drove three agonizing miles to my mother’s cabin, praying the engine would hold.

When we arrived, my mother didn’t scream or faint. She looked at the creature and, with a quiet shock, said, “So you’ve met one yourself.” She’d known about them for years.

Together, we helped the Bigfoot inside. My mother was calm, efficient—she’d done this before. We cleaned wounds, applied herbal poultices, and watched as the creature healed faster than seemed possible. By morning, it was already moving, flexing its legs, drinking water from a bowl with cupped hands.

My mother told me her story: fifteen years of quiet encounters, gifts exchanged, trust built. She’d helped them before, seen their families, learned their ways—their intelligence, their social bonds, their fear of humans. She’d never told anyone, protecting them from a world that would hunt, capture, and destroy.

After less than twenty-four hours, the creature was ready to return to the forest. It paused at the edge of the trees, touched my mother’s head gently—a gesture of gratitude and affection—and squeezed my hand with impossible strength, but careful gentleness. Then it vanished into the shadows.

I left with a new understanding of the world. I kept the dash cam footage, but I’ll never share it. Some secrets are too important. Some mysteries deserve to stay wild.

Now, when I visit my mother, I listen for wood knocks and hoots in the night. I leave apples on the porch. Sometimes, I find gifts in return—a feather, a perfect spiral of pine cones, or a massive elk antler.

I know they’re watching. I know they’re real.

And that’s exactly how it should be.