OregonBigfoot.com

Oregonbigfoot.com Photo Research Journal
June 18, 2002
Lane County, Oregon

Bohemia Mines

Bohemia Mountain

Locally, Bob and I have been concentrating our bigfoot-related field jaunts in an area near Cottage Grove called Bohemia Mines. I've known about the Bigfoot activity in this area for about 10 years and recently received a request from the BFRO to follow up on this report:

WHERE: BOHEMIA MINING DISTRICT, ABOUT 15 MILES E. OF COTTAGE GROVE, OR

OBSERVED: MY COUSIN AND I WERE ON A CAMPING TRIP TO THE BOHEMIA MINE AREA LIKE WE DO AT LEAST TWO TIMES A YEAR. THIS WAS IN 1992 OR 1993 I BELIEVE IN AUGUST. WE SETUP CAMP AND THEN HIKED AROUND UNTIL EVENING THEN CAME BACK AND MADE DINNER. AFTER DINNER IT WAS DARK SO WE WENT UP TO A LOOKOUT TOWER WHICH, BESIDES BOHEMIA MOUNTAIN ITSELF WAS THE HIGHEST PEAK ABOUT 6000 FT. THERE WAS A METEIOR SHOWER THAT WEEKEND AND WE WENT UP TO WATCH IT. WE STAYED UP THERE TILL ABOUT 2100 I THINK AND THEN WENT BACK TO OUR CAMP. WE STAYED UP FOR ABOUT A HALF OF AN HOUR THEN WENT TO BED. WE HAD A 3 MAN CAMP TENT TO SLEEP IN. AT ABOUT 2200-2230 I WAS JUST ABOUT TO FALL ASLEEP WHEN I STARTED HEARING BRANCHES BREAKING LIKE SOMETHING WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS TWARD US. IT STARTED A WAYS AWAY FROM OUR CAMP AND KEPT GETTING CLOSER. MY COUSIN WAS CALLING MY NAME AND ASKING ME IF I HAD HEARD THE SOUNDS BUT I WAS CONSENTRATING ON LISTENING TO THEM AND TO SCARED TO ANSWER HIM SO I JUST LAY THERE LIKE I WAS ASLEEP. WE HAD TAKEN HIS CAR UP THERE AND WE PARKED IT ABOUT 100 FT. AWAY FROM OUR TENT BECAUSE THERE WAS TO MANY BRANCHES AND STUFF TO DRIVE IT ALL THE WAY UP TO THE TENT. THE NOISES STOPPED AND ALL THE SUDDEN THERE WAS THIS HIGH PITCHED AND FAST "WOOP, WOOP, WOOP THAT CAME FROM ABOUT WHERE HIS CAR WAS PARKED. MY COUSIN ASKED WHAT THAT NOISE WAS AND SAID NOTHING BECAUSE IT SCARED ME TO DEATH. THEN IT STARTED WALKING OUR WAY AND WE JUST LAYED THERE AND LISTENED AND IT GOT CLOSER AND CLOSER TO OUR TENT UNTIL IT CAME ABOUT A COUPLE OF FT. AWAY. WE WERE SO SCARED WE JUST LAYED THERE AND DIDNT MOVE A MUSTLE BECAUSE WHATEVER IT WAS HAD BEEN WALKING ON TWO FEET NOT FOUR. IT STOPPED MAKING NOISE A COUPLE OF FT. AWAY AND WE COULDNT HEAR ANY WALKING UNTIL WE COULD HERE IT WAS RIGHT NEXT TO THE TENT IT HAD SNUCK UP REAL QUIET WE COULD HEAR IT BREATHING, WHEN MY COUSIN MOVED A LEG IT SCARED WHATEVER WAS OUTSIDE OUR TENT AND IT TOOK OFF RUNNING AND WE COULD HEAR THE INDIVIDUAL STEPS THAT HIT THE GROUND LIKE THUNDER, IT SOUNDED VERY HEAVY. IT RAN OFF ABOUT 50FT. AND STOPPED. THEN IT WOULD START WALKING BACK TWARD US, GOT WITHIN ABOUT 10 FT. THEN WE COULNT HEAR IT ANYMORE. THEN ALL THE SUDDEN IT WAS RIGHT NEXT TO THE TENT. IT HAD SNUCK UP REAL QUIET AGAIN TO OUR TENT; IT COULD MOVE VERY QUIET WHEN IT CHOSE TO, IT MOVE FROM ONE SIDE OF THE TENT TO THE OTHER QUIETLY AND FAST, IT WOULD BE ON ONE SIDE AND THEN THE OTHER BEFORE WE NEW IT. IT DID THIS PRETTY MUCH ALL NIGHT. IT HAD LEFT ONCE THEN CAME BACK. FINALLY WE FELL ASLEEP OFF AND ON. IN THE MORNING WE LOOKED FOR TRACKS BUT THERE WAS TO MUCH FOREST LITTER TO SEE ANY. WE DID NOT HAVE ANY PROTECTION WITH US AT THE TIME AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO SCARED IN MY LIFE. I HAVE BELIEVED IN SASQUATCH PRETTY MUCH ALL MY LIFE, MY COUSINAND I GO UP THERE A COUPLE OF TIMES A YEAR TO LOOK FOR EVIDENCE AND HOPE TO HAVE ANOTHER ENCOUNTER, BUT HAVE NOT. I HAVE HUNTED SINCE I WAS A LITTLE BOY WITH MY FATHER AND CONTINUE TO HUNT TODAY AND I KNOW THE SOUNDS DEER, ELK AND OTHER FOUR LEGGED CREATURES MAKE WHEN WALKING AND THIS CREATURE DEFINETLY WAS WALKING ON TWO LEGS. DEER USUALLY VISIT OUR CAMP WHEN WE GO UP THERE AND WE CAN HERE THEM COMING IN THE DARK, THEY GET CLOSE AND WE CAN SEE THEM IN THE FLASHLIGHT. I HAVE READ OTHER ACCOUNTS IN BOOKS AFTER OURS AND HAVE FOUND A FEW SIMULARITYS, LIKE THE HEAVY FOOTSTEPS WHEN IT RAN, THE "WOOP,WOOP,WOOP WE HEARD IS ALSO IN ROOSEVELTS ACCOUNT I BELIEVE AS WELL AS OTHERS. MY COUSIN AND I HAVE READ BOOKS ABOUT THE MINING THAT WENT ON HERE IN THE FOURTYS AND SOME OF THE MINERS REPORTED SEEING BIGFOOT, THERE IS ALSO OTHER REPORTS FROM THE COTTAGE GROVE AREA THAT I HAVE FROM OLD NEWSPAPERS. I RESENTLY BECAME A VOLUNTEER RESEARCHER FOR THE BFRO AND HAVE READ ALOT OF REPORTS AND MY COUSIN AND I HAVE GONE OVER THIS IN OUR HEADS TO MAKE SURE THAT IT COULNT HAVE BEEN ANOTHER ANIMAL THAT VIVSITED US AND WE KNOW THAT IT WAS A SASQUATCH. ENVIRONMENT: TYPICAL PACFIC NORTHWEST FOREST, NEXT TO AN OLD RANGER STATION THAT STILL IS USED FOR CAMPERS. [MUSIC MINE RANGER STATION APPRX. 5000 FT. ELEVATION.

I contacted Steve via telephone.He relayed his entire story to me once again and was very cooperative in describing the exact location so that Bob and I can find it in the spring. He struck me as a very honest and reliable witness, and also just a generally nice and helpful guy. He said that prior to that he had an interest in Bigfoot and related the following additional details to the report: He and his cousin were camped next to an old ranger station building. During the preceding day, they found some ribbon markers leading off into the woods which marked the trail to different mines. They followed these and were led deep into the woods and past a 20' deep mine entrance before finally coming back out onto the access road. Then they continued down the small road and at the end was a steep drop-off. Down below were more woods and the river. Steve and his cousin, being familiar with reports of Bigfoot throwing rocks, thought it would be "funny" to throw some rocks down in the ravine and "wake Bigfoot up". :) He said he left that part of the story out because he thought it may make the rest of his story seem suspect... like they "wanted" it to happen. (I have to chuckle here, just because it's funny as hell to me that they may have gotten exactly what they wanted!) He related the rest of the story to me as it was in the report, though in a bit more detail and with more emphasis on the fear they felt (I had asked him specifically about this due to my nearly identical experience in Washington State). He again stated that he heard the sound of breathing outside the tent, and when I asked whether it was up high or down low he said he didn't know. There was no smell (there wasn't when this happened to me either) and he said "whatever" it was didn't mess with anything in the camp but rather stayed to the back and the sides of the tent. He didn't think it ever approached the "front", or flap-side of the tent. He also explained the "whooping" noise to me; I had assumed it was three, long whoops, beginning low and ending high. He said, no, it was three SHORT whoops, very fast and high-pitched. The one thing that Steve emphasized most in the telling was that he would hear the footsteps far away, and then suddenly they would be right next to the tent, with no noise in between. Then it would walk away, stomping and being "deliberately" noisy.... and then it would be right up next to the tent again. He mentioned several times that that was baffling to him. He said perhaps there were two of them outside the tent, but it still didn't explain what he was hearing. The entire ground around the tent was surrounded with branches and duff. He also mentioned that it was the weekend of Bohemia Mining Days, which would put it more toward July, and that there were other people around that weekend, though not many. Steve related another story to me that he thought might be relevant. He said that a couple of years prior to this incident he and several other friends and friends' dads were camped in this same spot (in 89 or 90). They heard walking - loud bipedal crunching - down in the ravine. Steve and his friend's father shined a flashlight down in the ravine and saw eyes reflecting back about 30' down the hillside. The father, being a skeptic, passed it off as a deer, but Steve noticed that every time the light would hit the eyes, the thing would move behind a tree. He said he felt "spooked". This is the primary area for Bigfoot reports in the Cottage Grove vicinity. In the ten years I've been researching here, I've had two separate reports come out of that area of a Bigfoot-looking creature with a "pig-like" nose. (I know that's uncommon, but the two men who described their sightings to me did not know one another. That's quite a coincidence!) In 1997, a friend had an experience hearing large boulders being moved behind her while she was gold panning and her friend saw a Sas walking up a steep clear-cut hill. In the 70's, a group of bikers who were refurbishing a building in the old ghost town had an experience similar to the Ape Canyon story; they were in the building and the things were pounding on the walls and dragging their equipment off into the woods. Friends tell of finding tracks up there while hunting when they were kids. There are miners up there who claim to "see them all the time". Bob and I camped up there several times last summer and on one hike we could swear we were being followed. There are huge boulders which have been overturned, but many have been rolled uphill or simply picked up and placed to the side. These were too heavy for Bob to lift. At any rate, it looks like a good area and we were already planning to concentrate our efforts there this summer. Perhaps we'll get a chance to speak with some of the miners.

06/18/00: We found the location, drove up via Noonday Ridge Rd. While we were there, two men came up to see about renting the Musick Ranger Station. When asked about Bigfoot, one of the guys (a local historian) told of a friend of his who, in fall during the early 1980's, was hunting along the main through-road from his truck and had a BF cross the road in front of him less than 100 yards away. It was traveling down the mountain. He also told of a man in Disston, "Leebo", who runs an active mining camp up there that can be seen from Fairview Lookout. He said Leebo would be a good person to talk to about Bigfoot.

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