We have all heard the classic Bigfoot stories like Ape Canyon, Albert Ostman, The Fouke Monster...but have you heard about the "Old Man of the Cave" in Oregon? It features animal hides, bones, and the possibility of the creature using a tool...
The following excerpt is from "The Bigfoot Files" by Peter Guttilla. You can purchase the book here.
The Old Man of the Cave
West of the Cascades in central Oregon the days are hot and humid in the summer, and the land is filled with sizable bands of deer, elk, and antelope. And yet a hiker can walk for miles and never find a crushed flower or mark of track. At night, mosquitoes and buffalo gnats swarm in moist wooded hollows while enormous bullfrogs croak their supremacy from the banks of hid-den pools. Oregon is an ancient place blanketed with more than 30 million acres of woodlands and volcanic, virtually inaccessible, wilderness territory. The following report was received from an unidentified source, and efforts to locate the principals proved futile. However, the story has the "ring" of authenticity and includes some intriguing features.
On a summertime excursion in search of Indian artifacts in 1969, the witnesses discovered a hidden cave. One of them wrote:
"...After locating the cave about one hundred and fifty feet from where we were, we stopped and carefully looked over the area around the cave. We didn't see anything unusual. We went closer and in front of the cave was a pumice formation making it very dusty. In the dust leading from the cave was a human footprint; in fact, there were several, showing that this ground had been walked on quite a bit, recently. These were the largest footprints I had ever seen. Some of these looked as if they had been made within the last few days or two. I will admit I was scared. We wanted to get inside the cave, but it was getting late and we didn't care to be in this part of the country after dark.
"...A couple of weeks later we had a chance to get back there again. We arrived at the place we were before and found it much easier going than it was the first trip. We tried not to make too much noise by watching our step and not talking, hoping to slip in and possibly catch a glimpse of the man at the cave. We circled around to the place we had picked the trip before and were in a position where we could see anything or anybody before they got within seventy-five feet of the cave. Sitting there waiting for a couple of hours, we suddenly heard a noise to our left, it kept coming closer. I practically froze on the spot. Finally, a large deer appeared. The doe passed and we calmed down. About three o'clock we decided to leave, but I went over the tracks one more time; some had been made since we were there before. Having a metallic ruler in my pocket, I measured the plainest track and found it to be twenty-three and seven-eights inches long, and nine and three-quarters inches wide. From the looks of the print, the foot was heavily calloused across the ball of the foot with several cracks in the heel and the ball of the foot.
" ...It was about a month before we could return to the cave. We had our camera and several rolls of film on this trip in order to get some good pictures, to have proof of what we had seen. Getting closer, we sneaked along with our eyes on the opening of the cave. I stepped on a small rock and twisted my ankle, making much more noise than I should have. Taking our eyes off the cave for an instant, we heard a noise and turned around and caught a glimpse of something coming from the cave and going to the left of us. It happened so fast that all we got was just a glimpse. It looked to be about seven feet or more and was all covered with black hair. We were so startled that we just stood there and stared at each other, not saying a word. After we got over our scared spell, I motioned to my companion to stay put. I walked over to where this thing had disappeared into the brush; its tracks showed in the pumice dust. I couldn't tell whether there was more than one person or animal that had made these tracks on the ground.
" I could see with my flashlight that the cave was fairly large in size on the inside. I became a little braver and finally stuck my head inside the cave and flashed the light on the walls until I had covered the entire inside. Seeing and hearing no movement of any kind, I noticed something shaggy lying on the floor. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the cave, I saw that it was the hides of animals that had been spread out as if they had been used for a bed. There was the foulest odor inside the cave; it was sickening. Inside there were several more large tracks like the ones outside the cave.
"I took the flashlight and went into the cave. Off to one side there were numerous animal bones that had been stripped of all the flesh. On the other side of the cave was a freshly killed deer with part of the flesh gone. The hide had been rolled back a ways, revealing that the flesh had been gnawed or torn with a crude tool of some kind.
"As I approached the spot where I had seen the hides, the odor became stronger. I noticed that the hides had been used for a bed. The hides had not been tanned, but they still had the hair on them. They were shaggy and looked like they had been used for a long period of time. There was no sign of fire. Getting some pictures of the cave and footprints, we went back to the car. As we were driving home, my friend had not said a word for several miles. If we had told anyone else of this location, it would have started a stampede and this could have ruined everything...after we got all the information, we might tell others...
" ...Several months later on our final trip to the cave, we started up the hill and the going was steep and full of loose rocks. If any of these rolled down the hill, they would have rolled close to the mouth of the cave and scared the creature out of there before we were ready to snap a picture. We slipped over a little farther to the right so that, if he did hear us, he would have to go through a spot where the brush wasn't so thick, but if he moved as fast as he had before, we wouldn't be able to get a picture of him. We heard a noise near the opening and he started toward us...we froze right there. We had always come in from the other way before. He took off on his regular route that he had always used...he didn't see us until he got almost to us, but he was going so fast that he just ran within three feet of us; we could have touched him. We were so startled that we forgot all about the picture.
"It was the most gruesome thing I had ever seen. It looked to be over seven feet tall and resembled a giant ape or gorilla entirely covered with short, shaggy hair. His face was fairly smooth. It would take a lot more nerve than I had at that moment to stand three and get a picture. I looked at my friend; I never saw anybody so pale and trembling. It was quite a while before I could quit trembling and shaking. We continued down the hill and stopped at the cave only long enough to get measurements of his long strides. These strides measured five feet. Each time that we had scared him out of the cave, he always left by the same route, through the brush..."
The witnesses continued their spring and summer visits to the "old man's cave" for a period of more than two years and told virtually no one about their experience. Efforts by researchers to find the witnesses in the mid-1970s ended in failure, and a search of the approximate location revealed several possibilities but nothing conclusive. The participants are, indeed, real people — one being a Native American — and apparently mentioned their encounters with the "old man" to various friends. According to their report, the creature's frantic exit from the spot each time they arrived prevented the taking of photographs. A landslide eventually covered the mouth of the cave, burying the hides, the bones, and other traces of its occupant.
Bonus: We have another post about this fabulous book here.
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