🏗️ Part I: The Massive Structure

Last fall, my trail camera started picking up something that changed everything I believed about the deep woods I hunted. What started as mild curiosity quickly turned into full obsession. I’m a hunter; I’ve hunted the same woods for fifteen years. I knew every secret they held. Turns out, I was wrong.

It began simply enough in September. I set up my eight trail cameras near game trails for my pre-season ritual. Most of the footage was exactly what you’d expect: deer, raccoons, coyotes. But one camera, positioned near a small creek, had caught something different: a dark shape moving upright, walking on two legs, too tall to be a deer. It moved with a gait that was almost human, but the stride was too long, the shoulders too broad. I dismissed it as a bear on its hind legs.

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👣 The Footprint and the Evasion

Then I saw it again on another camera, a quarter mile away. This thing walked upright the entire time it was in frame. It moved with purpose, not like a bear checking a scent.

I became obsessed, moving three cameras to cover the general area. Nothing showed up. The thing had vanished. But the feeling that I was being watched intensified. My cameras were missing it by mere feet. When I arrived at a camera location, I’d find massive, human-shaped tracks nearby, but the camera itself hadn’t triggered.

It felt intentional. Like whatever this thing was had figured out where my cameras were and was deliberately staying just outside their effective range.

One morning, in late September, I found a print near a camera I was moving: a massive footprint, easily twice the size of my size 11 boot, with five distinct toe impressions. This wasn’t a bear print. It was a Bigfoot track.

That level of intelligence—the ability to learn human surveillance tactics and adapt countermeasures—scared me more than the creature’s potential size.

I hatched a desperate plan. I marked trees near my camera locations with small scratches, an open invitation for inspection. Two days later, every single scratch mark had been disturbed. The bark around each scratch had been peeled away, exposing the pale wood underneath, clearly indicating the creature was checking trees for cameras.

I went home and dug out two old, small trail cameras. I mounted the obvious cameras in plain sight, then concealed the smaller ones twenty yards away, buried in leaves with just the lens peeking out. The plan was simple: Give it what it expects to find while hiding the real cameras elsewhere.

Three days later, I checked the memory card of the first hidden camera. And there it was. A Bigfoot. Front and center, massive, at least eight feet tall, covered in dark brown fur. Its stride was long and steady, and it was carrying something: A stripped tree trunk, a massive log that had to be fifteen feet long and weighed several hundred pounds, resting on its shoulder like it weighed absolutely nothing.

The footage showed the creature walking with casual ease, heading deeper into the forest. It wasn’t a random encounter; this was systematic behavior, purposeful activity, work being done with clear intent.

🏛️ The Temple in the Ravine

I drove home in a daze, plotting the creature’s route on my topographical map. All the lines pointed toward a section of forest I rarely visited—a ravine too rough for good deer hunting. I knew then: I had to see what it was building.

I packed my gear carefully, my hunting rifle loaded, feeling a profound guilt about lying to my wife. I hiked for two hours, the forest growing thick and difficult. I found the fresh, deep tracks and the parallel drag marks where logs had been pulled.

Then I heard it: a low, rhythmic sound, a deep bass note I could feel in my chest—the sound of grunting, purposeful effort. And it wasn’t one creature; there were multiple sources, three or four voices, all making similar sounds in rhythm. Multiple Bigfoots working together.

I crept forward, my rifle ready, until I reached a spot where the ground dropped away into a ravine. I found myself looking down onto a scene that made me question my sanity:

Four Bigfoots were working below, moving logs toward a cave entrance at the far end of the ravine, working together like a coordinated construction crew.

One was clearly the leader, nine feet tall, directing the others with gestures and low grunting calls. Two would lift a log in unison, responding to a signal, carrying it toward the cave entrance. This was sophisticated, problem-solving labor. They were building something massive, following a complex plan.

Then I spotted the final structure. In the center of the clearing stood a massive, towering structure that made absolutely no sense: it looked like a teepee built from massive, stripped tree trunks—logs two feet in diameter—arranged in a complex pattern that spiraled forty feet high.

It wasn’t a building or a shelter. It was covered in carvings, symbols, and arrangements of bones and antlers. Around the base, stones were arranged in geometric circles. The whole thing radiated something ancient, powerful, and sacred. It was a temple.

🏃 The Catastrophic Mistake

I watched, mesmerized, as the creatures continued their work, chanting in rhythm. I needed a closer view, but my morbid fascination made me reckless.

I made the mistake that changed everything. My boot came down on a dry branch hidden under the leaves. The crack echoed through the ravine like a gunshot.

Every Bigfoot froze instantly.

Then, as one, they all turned their massive heads toward my position on the ridge. The big one, the leader, let out a sound I will never forget: a low, terrifying rumble that built into a desperate, furious call that made my legs seize.

So, I ran.

I crashed through the undergrowth like a drunk, not caring about silence, driven only by pure, blinding terror. I could hear them coming—heavy footfalls and crashing brush, moving faster than anything that size should be able to move.

I glanced back. One was fifty yards behind me, closing fast.

Then my foot caught an exposed root, and I went down hard, the fall knocking the wind completely out of me. Before I could move, a massive hand grabbed my backpack and yanked me backward. My rifle tumbled to the ground. I was lifted off the ground like a child’s toy.

The big one, the leader, stood directly over me, staring down with dark, intelligent eyes. I tried to speak, tried to beg, but no words would come out. It studied me for a long moment, then gave a slight, very human nod. It had made its decision about me.

A blow hit the back of my head hard enough to knock the world sideways. Then everything went black.