We’ve Got a Bigfoot
Formerly known as: Man in a Bear Suit, The Battle for Lanthorn Mountain or Why it’s Time to Believe in Bigfoot
A faux documentary about the first documented Sasquatch encounters
Michael Stierhoff
It’s unlikely that 200 people see Lanthorn Mountain in an average year. Five square miles of rock are practically invisible when they’re embedded in millions of acres of Pacific Northwest timber, and, considering the scale, it isn’t surprising that the brown dot in a sea of green is even hard to locate on a satellite image.
But if you’re willing to drive for hours on fire trails that regularly shred SUV transmissions, everything that was minimized becomes maximized. The giant rock seems to grow out of the ground at vertigo-enticing rates, and you can tell your friends that you visited one of the most controversial locations in the Pacific Northwest while you’re at it.
Lanthorn enthusiasts usually describe the unusual rock formation in terms of a deer’s leg. For a relatively good approximation of the bird’s-eye view, imagine the right hind quarter of a giant deer lying in a pasture.
The hoof and foreleg are steep and narrow and protrude deep into the grasslands, while the front of the hip delineates the north end of the “bald” section of the plateau. The rump and back of the leg are the western edge of the plateau, where waves in the sea of great green conifers climb to meet the base of the cliffs.
It isn’t surprising that Jim Hamasha and Emery Walton put Lanthorn Mountain on the map in mid-October because they avoided crowds at all costs and the odds of meeting another hiker late in the season were low. From their perspective, a cold, crisp day with bright sunlight and sharp shadows was the best time of the year to “rope the leg” — the somewhat challenging exercise of circling and crossing the mountain in a single day. Their plans required an early start; they left Jim’s animal control SUV at the Parkerson trail head around 6:00 a.m. and emerged from the woods as first sunlight made the plateau visible.
The grasslands extend six miles to the east and almost four miles to the north. The view was as incredible as ever and the only downside was a horrible smell. Clearly something was decomposing off to the west, however, that wasn't unusual. Freezing nighttime temperatures thin out the old and the weak every fall but Jim and Emery were totally focused on the hike.
They headed northwest toward the “hoof” of Lanthorn Mountain, an unvegetated rock roughly the size of a twenty-story building, was three quarters of a mile to the northwest. Their route was simple and the reverse of a previous visit; they would head northwest through the grass along the eastern edge of the foreleg; they would continue around the front of the hip and then take the trail west that crossed the hip at the widest (4 miles) and lowest (1,200 feet) section of the mountain.
The cross trail is rather tame. Emery was recovering from ankle surgery, and they had chosen the rump trail because it’s the most weathered and rounded section of the Lanthorn rock formation. By noon, it was clear that his ankle had healed even better than they had hoped, and the two 26-year-olds stopped for lunch at the peak of the mountain.
Emery and Jim grew up 45 miles to the southwest in the one-doctor-treats-everything town of Uton. Living in the northeast quadrant of Washington State (just south of Canada and west of Idaho) practically guaranteed regular outdoor adventures. Dedicated campers, by the time they were 14, they could live off of the woods for weeks. So it wasn’t surprising that they chose vocations that supported their all-consuming hobby.
Emery graduated near the top of his class at Mount Vernon High but became an auto mechanic because the hours were good and left more than enough time for long weekends and summer excursions.
Hamasha married his high school girlfriend and also found a flexible job with slightly better benefits. As the animal control officer for adjoining Mariland County, he was practically always outdoors and had nearly complete control of his schedule. He had recently become a father, and Walton was about to become engaged, but they still managed to fit in 20 weekend trips every year.
The descent down the rump of Lanthorn wasn’t particularly challenging, but it led to the most strenuous section of the hike. The cross trail meets the path that circles the mountain nearly 800 feet lower than the trailhead. The west side of the mountain is also the western edge of the plateau, and the forest ascends the slope to the base of the cliffs. As a result, the final southbound leg returning to the SUV was torturous. They regained 800 feet by dodging trees, brush, boulders, and the slag that had peeled off the vertical section at the rear of the rump.
They broke out of the forest at the base of the rump, where the leg extends southeast into the grasslands, pointing to the trail where they entered the park. They had planned to take a shortcut home by crossing the narrow section of grassland to the south and reentering the woods just north of the parked SUV. However, they had walked only about 50 yards away from the cliffs when the trip morphed into the unexpected.
Off to the left, Jim noticed an unusually large number of vultures circling just west of the heel of the mountain. Considering the smell when they entered the park, it was likely they were likely circling the carcass of a large animal; probably a lost cow or horse, or even a bear or bison, which would be worth a photo or two. Considering that they had made good time and had originally planned to leave around sunset, they decided that it was worth the longer walk along the cliff face. They would leave the park exactly where they had entered.
Brambles and bush discouraged a direct approach from the west, the smell was overpowering and it was clear that something big had expired long before their visit.
Whatever they were approaching was located near the cliff at the back of the heel, and it was easy to see why they hadn’t noticed the vultures earlier; they had entered the park on the front side of the hoof, and the 700-foot cliff had completely blocked their view.
The few remaining vultures vaulted out of the tall grass as Jim and Emery approached the large brown shape at the base of the cliff. Walton was in front and, at first glance, was convinced that they had discovered an extremely large grizzly. Nearly eviscerated, with long, coarse, brown hair, the animal had clearly fallen off of the cliff. It had landed on its stomach with the left arm underneath, the right arm exposed and the head twisted under in an extremely unnatural position.
Considering that it was bipedal, Hamasha also assumed that it was a grizzly until he noticed the feet: no pads. The face was also wrong: no muzzle. Maybe ten feet tall, with human-like hands, feet, and face, he blurted out, “Is it a giant in a bear suit or what?”
Walton was already poking the body with his walking stick as “or what?” became the big question.
Turning the head, they could see that the face was crushed. But it clearly wasn’t a bear with a decomposed snout. Although vultures had consumed the softest flesh, the body was relatively fresh, no more than a week, maybe just a few days old.
And the hands and feet were completely intact. Five fingers with an opposable thumb and five toes without an opposable toe. Way too big for a gorilla, they started erasing photos from earlier in the day to make room for more shots.
Hamasha reports a rather lucid conversation considering the surrealistic circumstances:
We didn’t need to talk about what it was. We knew what it was. It was late, just before sunset, and we had minutes to make a lot of decisions, so we just started listing what needed to be done.
We had survival blankets and emergency food and water in our backpacks. The SUV was less than an hour round trip; it contained my shotgun and sidearm, and the sideband radio. The mountains blocked all cellular signals and we considered activating our EPERB [an emergency signal that would summon assistance via overhead satellites]; however, we needed to talk to people more than declare an emergency. So we made a list and decided that I would make the hike.
My first contact was the ranger station at Billingsly. I asked them to call my brother George and to read him a script that I had worked out during the walk. I asked them to ask George to contact Snakeboy [Josh Lolloby] and Donald Withers and for the three of them to meet me at the trail head at 7:00 a.m. if they wanted a really interesting morning.
Snake was two years behind us in high school, so we weren’t really close or anything. But he ran SasquatchLivesHere.com and constantly begged us to call him if we ever found anything. So I knew he would get it. And Donald is George’s lawyer, and he would come because George would make him.
Then I tuned into the Newton County sheriff’s office in Carlisle.
Before Hamasha had left for the SUV, the two friends had carefully considered how they would engage the sheriff’s department, and their approach was effective.
I told Sheriff Slayton that we had a mutilated corpse that looked something like a dead human wearing a bearskin and that he appeared to have fallen off the cliff. I explained that the corpse had been vulture picked, it was getting dark, and we weren’t really sure what we had, but we would guard the site overnight in case it turned out to be a crime scene. He thanked us for the call and agreed to meet us as at the trail head at 9:00 a.m.
Jim also received permission to carry his firearms into the park, packed up extra supplies, and started back about 20 minutes after he arrived at the SUV.
While Hamasha was transmitting the carefully crafted messages, Emery Walton was literally beating the bushes. He knew he shouldn’t touch the body, so he worked his way through the surrounding weeds. He identified scavenger trails but found nothing out of the ordinary.
The sun had descended into the forest earlier, so the light was dim. But as he stood behind the body, he started to wonder why a Bigfoot would want to climb a sheer cliff face. A human would need full climbing gear, and, as buff as this thing appeared, it didn’t seem logical that it just sauntered up to the cold hard cliff thinking “today, I will conquer you.”
Walton searched the cliff face with binoculars and, moving obliquely from the fall zone, he discovered a discolored section nearly half way up the face (approximately 250 feet). He realized that what looked like discoloration might actually be a rock shelf inclined toward the mountain. There was no way to reach it from the south side of the cliff, but, as he walked east, he realized that what appeared to be a horizontal fault might actually be a path.
He continued east and lost sight of the discoloration a few times before he reached the pinnacle that played the role of “hoof.” It took another five minutes to work around the toes, but he wasn’t surprised to find that the discolored line continued across the east face of the foreleg, descending on a 20-degree slope.
It was too dark to do anything else. But Walton was pretty certain that he had found a trail that snaked around the nearly vertical hoof. He was betting that there was a shelf or cave on the southern face, and everything made sense in his mind. The creature had fallen from the trail.
It was nearly 8:30 when Hamasha returned. They shot a few photos with the film camera he had retrieved from the truck, and they decided to set up camp about 200 yards to the west. The cliff face was somewhat concave at that point, and camping next to the mountain face protected them from wind and falling rocks.
They considered a fire but decided to try to get to sleep as soon as possible to conserve energy. They ate energy bars and tried to get to sleep around 9.
Emery Walton: I was completely exhausted but just couldn’t sleep and stared at the stars. There were the normal animal noises, but we weren’t scared. It was just too exciting to sleep. Of course, looping the mountain had really worn us down, but I don’t think I fell asleep before midnight.
Their alarm went off before daylight; they munched the remaining granola bars and checked the carcass to make sure that they hadn’t imagined the previous evening. They had just agreed that Walton would remain with the carcass and that Hamasha would take the walk, when they heard a loud whistle. It wasn’t quite light when Jim Hamasha met up with his brother George at the edge of the forest.
George Hamasha: I couldn’t sleep trying to imagine what they had found, so I gave up around 2:00 a.m. and went over to Josh’s to start packing. Of course, we weren’t sure what we were doing, but he was guessing they had some good tracks, and we brought plaster and tons of film and memory for the cameras. We got Don out of bed around 4 and didn’t have anything reasonable to tell him other than that Jim wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important.
Jim explained that they appeared to have made a major discovery and he had asked Don along to protect his and Emery’s interests. He admitted they really couldn’t be sure what they had or if they had rights that could be protected, but they wanted to try. They asked Josh to step aside and invited him back into the conversation about five minutes later.
Don admitted that there was a lot of uncertainty from the legal perspective but suggested that Josh document the find on behalf of Emery and Jim. As a result, Jim and Emery would own the rights, but SasquatchLivesHere.com would be first to publish. Five minutes later, as they surrounded the carcass, all agreed that the verbal contract was a good move for everyone.
Josh jumped from one topic to the next for the first ten minutes, but George and Don were detached enough that Jim and Emery put them to work almost immediately. They shot stills, planned video, and wrote a fast introduction for the web. And they put together a short-term plan in which Don would negotiate an exclusive media opportunity for television that would follow the SasquatchLivesHere coverage.
When Josh calmed down, the years he had dedicated to research kicked in, and he began to look objectively at the scene. He was certain that it wasn’t a hoax: It was too complex, and the odds of anyone finding a staged scene in this remote location were too low. And although they didn’t touch the body, he flattened the grass enough to identify the wound that later become a major point of contention. There was a very large hole below the left shoulder blade that appeared too symmetrical for a scavenger bite or a rock impact. Circular and slightly smaller than a baseball, the wound was very deep.
While they worked, they talked about meeting the sheriff and decided that Emery and Don were the best candidates to set the stage. They walked out at 8:30 and found Sheriff Slayton and the county coroner loading gear onto the department’s ATV. Introductions led to a slightly heated dialog:
Sheriff Slayton: OK, Walton, you found a body, but what’s with the lawyer?
Emery Walton: First off, Jim’s an animal control officer, and he can’t take the chance of not reporting a potential human death.
Sheriff Slayton: Could you guys be implicated? Don, you’re not going to tell me they’re involved, are you?
Emery Walton: Nope, he’s been dead for days, and we didn’t get here until yesterday. But Jim also doesn’t want to lose his job for reporting a ten-foot bear with opposable thumbs. So Don is here to make sure we do the right things one way or the other. If it turns out to be something exotic, we would like to get any credit that is due. But if we just have a gigantic Indian in a bearskin, then we’re all OK, right?
Sheriff Slayton: Well, you’ve screwed up the day one way or the other, so let’s go take a look and I bet Don’s gonna figure out a way to bill me too.
Everyone stepped aside when Leslie Korger, county coroner for nearly 20 years, approached the corpse. Josh’s video captured her initial disbelief: “You’ve got to be kidding” and, less than two minutes later, the quiet and somber “I think it’s real.” Up to this point, Sheriff Slayton had been extremely quiet — curious and following Leslie’s every move but entirely uncommitted. The video was focused on Korger bending over the carcass, but Slayton’s words are extremely clear on the audio track: “Leslie, you have to be absolutely, completely certain.”
Korger explained that they would need DNA to sort out the details but, based on human physiology and all known primates, this had to be something new. They couldn’t rule out the idea that it could qualify as semi-human, which would bring up a whole new set of questions from a coroner’s perspective. But the odds of it being a hoax were almost nonexistent.
Sheriff Slayton stared at the body, took a deep breath and then he quietly said what everyone knew “We’ve got a Bigfoot”.
Everyone started talking at once, Sheriff Slayton took another breath and then yelled “Quiet!”
He herded the group away from the carcass and explained that they needed to calmly consider all options to create a workable plan. They formed a circle and started debating ideas.
After 15 minutes, they had a list of options. Sheriff Slayton told everyone to keep talking while he went for a short walk to collect his thoughts. He came back with three very specific lists:
1. Scene: Korger would start collecting samples and documenting the scene exactly the same as any investigation. Josh could video anything he wanted as long as he helped Korger whenever asked. Josh recognized the air of authenticity that would come from working closely with a coroner and agreed completely.
2. Support: Sheriff Slayton would radio his office:
a. They needed supplies and reinforcements for 24 hours, including four deputies, food, and camping gear.
b. Jim had already realized that a standard body bag would never work and sketched out a box that was more like a packing crate. The only difference was that the section that would normally be the top would be the bottom. They would roll the carcass onto the flat bottom, drop the box down over the creature, and bolt the whole thing together. They agreed on dimensions and the carpenter they would use.
3. Legal and communication: Don would head back immediately.
a. He would put together a legal memorandum that outlined Jim and Emery’s position and submit it to appropriate authorities.
b. He would put together a contract that allowed SasquatchLivesHere.com to publish first on Sunday evening and line up a major news group for interviews on Monday.
c. Korger had close contacts with the anthropology department at the state university and Don would contact them to give them first refusal assisting in the recovery.
d. Don would remain on call in Uton to help the sheriff’s office with anything else that might come up.
By 10:00 a.m., everyone was doing something. The sheriff was busy on the radio. Don was doing odd jobs and admitted he was stalling because he really didn’t want to leave. Finally, George offered his SUV and walked Don out to the trail head around noon.
Korger put everyone else to work blocking and bagging the entire area. They cleared weeds, collected fur and blood, and even bagged the bugs that had been attracted to the carcass.
They stopped for lunch and, while they were drinking unheated soup from cans, Emery remembered the potential path across the mountain face. They retraced his steps, and most agreed that it did look like a trail. Sheriff Slayton had already considered calling in the county helicopter and went ahead and made the call after everyone agreed that the bird’s-eye view would be useful.
The next major event on Sunday occurred when Korger asked everyone to help turn the body over. They placed a tarp behind, everyone pushed, and the source of the shoulder injury was immediately clear.
As soon as the corpse was on its back, everyone could see the broken wooden pole that protruded about 2.5 inches below the left nipple. It was a massive injury; Korger explained that it must have destroyed most of the left lung and affected the heart. However, as nasty as the injury was, she could also tell that it wasn’t the proximate cause of death.
The pole had an extremely rough unfinished end, but there were signs of skin growth where it exited the body. The width of the thinnest section of a baseball bat, it was clearly the exit wound from the shoulder injury, and both had started to heal. As a result, Korger could put a relatively firm timeline in place. The injury was roughly 20 days old, while the cause of death was clearly the impact wounds from the fall, and these were far more recent. He had probably died a day or two before the discovery.
‘He’ was anatomically correct, 8’8” tall, with evidence of many wounds that had healed over the years. Due to muscle tone and hair condition, Korger was certain that this was a relatively old individual, although she had no idea how to covert “old” into years. The jaws had locked in rigor mortis, but pushing back the lips confirmed that the teeth were in bad condition and similar to a human’s but with significant differences.
The skull was badly damaged by the fall, but key measurements confirmed that it wasn’t human or a known ape.
By early afternoon, they had confirmed that university anthropologists would be on the scene by first light Monday morning. The timing was good because the weather was forecasted to deteriorate, and they wanted to get the carcass out before nightfall. Josh hated to leave the scene, but he had to prepare content for the evening’s web debut and had agreed to deliver blood, hair, and tissue samples to the county lab.
The good news was that Don had completed initial negotiations, filed the necessary paper work, and prepared an alert that would give traditional media the opportunity to prepare for 11:00 p.m. broadcasts. Josh would return with the local news affiliate on Monday morning.
The deputies showed up with supplies late in the afternoon, and Sheriff Slayton closed the loop with the state by contacting the lieutenant governor and outlining the scene and his understanding of the legal situation. Slayton didn’t expect too many problems with sightseers or the media considering the remote location; however, he asked the lieutenant governor to brief the state police in case backup was needed.
Night falls quickly in the Monashee Mountains in October, and the group finished pitching tarps and tents by flashlight. They erected a fly over the carcass in case of rain, and Sheriff Slayton ordered Emery and Jim to bed after their first hot meal in nearly 48 hours. Both had reached the point where they couldn’t keep their eyes open or finish sentences, but, as Jim put it later, “If we had known what was going to happen, we would have propped our eyes open with matchsticks. It was a bit like falling asleep before the greatest New Year’s fireworks of all time.”
The “fireworks” started early, with the first noises around 8:45 p.m. Josh had filmed the entire day and had planned for Jim and Emery to take over. But considering they weren’t available, George decided he would get the equipment out, and he did an excellent job considering he didn’t know how most of the gear functioned.
The first sounds appear to be sticks hitting sticks. Acoustic analysis suggests that they were relatively dry and lightweight poles, no more than 5 or 6 pounds, and most likely stripped of bark. The initial sounds seemed random and disorganized and emanated almost entirely from the west where the forest meets the hind quarter of the mountain. The tape did not pick up sounds in the surrounding underbrush; however, everyone reported sounds similar to deer rushing through the forest and the stick beating continued until approximately 10:30 p.m.
The sounds changed significantly at that point. Although the pole rattling could still be heard from time to time, the new sound was startling but obvious in origin. Acoustic analysis again confirmed that very large sticks were hitting very large trees with tremendous force. The thumping sound was much lower in pitch and far more sustained than the clacking sound that had dominated the earlier noise making.
Sheriff Slayton described it this way:
If you’ve camped here for long, you’re gonna hear “booming” from time to time. I was in my 20s, not 15 miles south of here when I first heard it. That time was very, very far away; we guessed it was on the mountain about 5 miles to our southeast, but it was so strong and powerful that everyone felt weird.
“Giant woodpeckers” is what we called them to get it out of our system…usually when you hear them it’s short, maybe 20 minutes. I’ve heard them two other times before Lanthorn, but Lanthorn was very, very different.
For one thing, there were lots of them. When we heard “woodpeckers” before, it sounded like one or two trees being hammered, but these sounds were from the west and expanded to the south, and they often overlapped with many different kinds of sounds. I couldn’t be sure, but, at one time, I believed I was hearing eight or so different patterns going at the same time and they were much closer than I have ever heard before.
The microphone on the video camera did not record stereo, so there is very little directional information other than the fact that the sounds do seem loudest when the camera was aimed west and south. But analyzing the distinctive pitches and sound patterns, it appears possible that there were up to ten patterns.
The initial rhythms were simple. One or two loud “thwumps” followed by silence. However, this expanded rather quickly into different patterns from different locations. By midnight, George described sounds like a drum circle:
It felt a bit like a wagon train surrounded by Indians preparing for a dawn attack. I’m a drummer and never heard anything that sounded like a steady beat, but it wasn’t random either. You know how Eastern music sounds to our Western ears? Exotic and we can’t reproduce it? We can’t find the groove, but we know its music, right?
I’m not sure that what we heard was music, but it was definite and intentional.
The activity peaked around 1:00 a.m., about the same time that Sheriff Slayton provided specific firearms instructions. He said he had no idea what they were experiencing, but, if there was a raid, his team would defend themselves. They took stock of available ammunition and he laid out the plan.
Initial shots would be in the air. But if that didn’t work, he wanted kill shots because he wasn’t sure what it would take to stop a nine-foot, 500-pound creature.
Shortly afterward, they taped the first confirmed vocalizations of a Sasquatch; a low moaning sound that ended in an irritated howl. Acoustic analysis again confirms that it wasn’t human or indigenous wildlife. They heard the howl only a few times, and all sounds stopped by 3:00 a.m.
No one knew what to make of the events, but the sheriff didn’t want to take any chances. He put deputies on watch facing the cardinal points, with George, Leslie, and himself rotating in every two hours.
Although nothing else was heard the rest of the night, everyone except Jim and Emery reported extremely spotty sleeping.
As strange as it seems in retrospect, there was very little talk about the night’s events when everyone awoke on Monday. The officers may have been embarrassed or it may have felt like a crime scene- best discussed at a later stage.
As a result, Jim and Emery were only vaguely aware of the encounter and had no idea of the details or duration.
Of course, there was much to do when everyone rolled out of their sleeping bags. Josh was back at daybreak with the news crew and he summed up the news coverage. Most of the major media had chosen to pass on the story; however, one network and a few nature-oriented programs had already posted highlights on their websites. All treated the breaking news as quirky, offbeat, and likely a hoax, but they also recognized an interesting story that might get some attention.
Members of the news crew were overjoyed with what they found and quickly established a satellite feed to provide live coverage for the 9:00 a.m. news. The anthropology team from the university showed up at about the same time, and it was much like the previous morning as the newcomers moved from a state of disbelief and into mental overload.
The county helicopter showed up before 9:00, and Jim and the sheriff were the first to examine the south cliff wall from the air. They found that Emery’s hunch was exactly right. There was an inclined rock shelf, approximately ten feet deep, that tilted toward the mountain and hid the mouth of a small cave. If the sasquatch had slipped on the trail, he would have landed exactly where he was found.
It was shortly after the flight that Jim noticed that the team’s language had morphed. Originally, they described their find as a “creature” and a “carcass.” But, by this point, most were saying “sasquatch” and “body.” It was an unconscious change — it had taken time for their minds to adjust to an idea that was hard to conceive, but the previous night’s events seemed to have accelerated the acceptance process.
Everyone wanted to visit the cave, but Sheriff Slayton narrowed the team down to Korger, Hamasha, and Deputy Malcolm Trent. Trent had mountain-climbing experience and would supervise safety, Jim would be on hand to consider the wildlife aspects, and the coroner was expected to handle just about everything else.
For the first time, Josh argued with the sheriff. He had followed orders up to this point but felt that the opportunity was too important not to document with video. However, Sheriff Slayton made it clear that he would not expose civilians to the trail until he had a better understanding of the risk.
Jim entered the cave first, with sidearm in one hand and a flashlight in the other:
It was a mess, but clearly a habitated mess. There was a stack of wild onions the size of a bushel basket and piles of dried roots in the back. Runoff water flowed along one side of the cave, and there was a pool made by stacking rocks that appeared to store drinking water. The runoff continued to the back of the cave, where it descended into a thin crevice, and there were piles of manure next to it — a primitive latrine.
Les focused in an entirely different direction. On the dry side of the cave, there was a nest of grass soaked with dried blood. Next to the bed, there was a five-foot pole with a fire-hardened point next to a pile of wood chips. And next to the wood chips was a large flint cutting edge. It was clear that the sasquatch retreated to the cave after he was speared in the back and had managed to chip away the majority of the spear in what must have been a painful and time-consuming procedure. There was dried blood everywhere, but the entire scene fell into place when Leslie found a spot of blood on the wall nearly seven feet off the ground.
Leslie Korger: I had to grit my teeth as I understood what I was seeing. The feeling of empathy was the same as any crime scene where the victim’s suffering is evident. Clearly, the sasquatch realized that the spear had to be removed, and he had to do it by himself. The physical evidence indicates that he recognized he would need to pass the spear out of the front of the body and the blood on the wall is exactly the correct height. He literally backed into the wall, forcing the spear forward through his body. Due to the patterns of blood on the floor, it is likely that this was a long process, and he probably passed out from pain and loss of blood on multiple occasions.
But, at some point, he recognized he wouldn’t be able to extract the entire spear — apparently, he already had access to a stone tool, and he started what must have been a tedious and painful job of cutting the spear in half. It’s remarkable what he did considering the spear is nearly as thick as a baseball bat and protruded more than three feet from his chest.
Deputy Trent confirmed that the trail was wider than it looked, and Sheriff Slayton gave Josh and one of the university anthropologists permission to ascend.
Josh Lolloby: It felt like we had stumbled into some old hermit’s hideaway under a bridge somewhere — like, you would think we might find a cardboard box and some canned food in a corner. But the onion pile was the food and the grass was the cardboard box, and it wasn’t a human who built this little living space.
And that made me admire him even more. He was determined and far more advanced than we expected, and he didn’t give up in conditions that would have killed me in minutes.
While the cave kept much of the group busy, Sheriff Slayton was working through the backlog of issues that had piled up. The first problem concerned the carpenter who was supposed to be building the crate/coffin. He had run overtime on a previous project, he wouldn’t be able to complete the crate until Tuesday, and the sheriff recognized he needed to plan for another night in the field.
On the positive side, the crime lab had confirmed that the tissue samples were not human or bear, but they had also asked for more samples to run a broader range of tests.
And, by noon, the number of bystanders had risen dramatically. Everyone had expected an increase in media coverage as a result of the televised report, so it was no surprise when a Spokane news team showed up by helicopter around lunch. However, sasquatch enthusiasts also appeared in greater number than the sheriff had hoped, and his deputies were quite busy monitoring the spectators.
Another helicopter showed up mid-afternoon; the state police had decided to take a look. Sheriff Slayton was originally optimistic; he had already considered asking for assistance with crowd control. And now that it was clear they would spend another night on the site, he would have appreciated all the support he could get. Unfortunately, everything turned sour when the state police captain explained that they were taking over.
Donald Withers: It was really unexpected and unnecessary. We had notified the state, we had the proper filings in place, and there was no need for change of jurisdiction. Sheriff Slayton made the right courtesy calls, and he was even entertaining the idea of asking for assistance. It was a really unfortunate turn of events that we are still trying to work around today.
The state police brought in 20 troopers and their own crime-scene analysts and suggested that everyone other than the anthropologists and media leave. Jim and Emery were too tired to argue but made it clear that they expected their interests to be protected.
However, Josh Lolloby dug in his heels. He made the case that he was a member of the media and that he should stay with the press corps. The captain agreed that this was reasonable but reminded Josh to follow press guidelines and that interviews were allowed only with state police permission.
Sheriff Slayton and his deputies were outraged at the turn of events, but they weren’t in a good position to negotiate in such a politically driven environment. To protect the county, Slayton made it clear that he handed the scene over under protest, and Jim, Emery, and all county personnel left the scene before sundown on Monday. They carried out Josh’s tapes so that other members of SasquatchLivesHere could update the website and took additional hair and tissue samples to the county lab.
It wasn’t long after they left when the state police first learned about the events from the previous night. There had never been any intention to deemphasize the encounter, but there was so much information available that there was no mention in the exclusive morning report. Two of the five newscasts that followed did mention sounds in the forest, but the video of the body, cave, and activity at the site received most of the air time.
Josh Lolloby brought the issue to a head when he asked the state police captain about his plans to protect everyone, including the 50 or so “sasquatchaholics” who had set up camp in the woods and fields. Josh replayed copies of George’s recordings from the night before to reinforce his point, but the captain remained skeptical, stating, “Anyone can hit a tree with a stick.”
As the last light faded, clouds poured in from the west, and sasquatch enthusiasts Pearce and Samantha Lowenstein prepared to leave. They had made the long trek from their apartment on the outskirts of Spokane as soon as they found the news on an Internet chat site. They had photographed the cave party as it ascended the narrow trail and had been allowed close enough to take very detailed photographs of the body on two occasions.
But neither could afford another day off from work, and they weren’t prepared if the weather turned bad. Considering that they had finished the day at the west end of the mountain, they decided to leave by crossing the unforested section south of the mountain and then cut through the narrow neck of woods that separated them from the fire road.
The trees in that section are immense, and underbrush is light, so they expected an uneventful 15-minute walk. The woods were already completely dark, but they had a flashlight and compass and were discussing dinner options when it happened.
Samantha Lowenstein: We hadn’t heard anything about the previous night and had gone only about 100 yards into the woods when we heard what sounded like a bear on our right. Pearce shined the light in that direction, and we walked more or less backward away from it toward the car. The sounds became more aggressive and turned into growls, and we were both knocked to the ground. I didn’t see anything, but Pearce said he thought we were being attacked by a grizzly. He whispered, “Lie down and play dead,” but I couldn’t do it. I grabbed the light and started running south as fast as I could.
Pearce followed, and the Lowensteins managed to get safely to their car. Although thoroughly shaken, they didn’t think about reporting the encounter at the time. They wanted to get away as quickly as possible because adrenaline was screaming “bear,” not “sasquatch.”
However, they recognized that it was likely that they had survived a run-in with a sasquatch when the news coverage spiked the following morning and they immediately contacted the state police. Of course, general public interaction peaked at about the same time, and it isn’t surprising that the Lowensteins’ story was initially lost in the confusion. It was literally months before their story was recognized as one of the least documented but earliest encounters with the local population.
Another pair of visitors, who asked to remain anonymous, provide additional insights into the state of mind around camp early Monday evening. The campers had arrived too late in the afternoon to see much and had been told that the corpse was off limits for the night. But they had heard about the trail and decided to explore the east side of the mountain around the same time as the Lowenstein encounter was taking place to the west.
They had very little information about where the cave trail began, so they examined the base of the foreleg and had moved on to the hip before they realized it was unlikely that they would be able to find the fracture in the dark.
They had been illuminating small sections of the east face and were considering returning to camp when a minor rockslide forced them to back away from the mountain. As they moved, they also heard sounds around them that they described as a “growl, like a dog that has been startled and isn’t quite sure what it is going to do next.” They shined lights in all directions and wondered if they had surprised a coyote, when a relatively large rock landed at their feet. It was about the size of a baseball, and they believed that it was too far from the cliff to be a continuation of the gravel slide that they had just avoided. When a larger rock landed next to the first, they came to the same conclusion at the same time and ran back to camp to report the encounter.
The captain was too busy with logistics to meet when they first arrived. The troopers had decided to procure a large metal casket that could be lifted by helicopter because the weather was expected to deteriorate overnight and the roads could become impassable. But when the tree banging started a few minutes later, the captain became very interested in hearing what the couple had experienced.
The sounds on the second night were not preceded by stick banging but went into a nearly full stereo tree-shaking rhythm circle within minutes. The stereo description is rather appropriate because the sounds were now approximately 180 degrees around their camp. Strongest in the west woods, there was sound from the south toward the fire road where the Lowensteins had their encounter, and farther east in the same woods. There was no sound to the north due to the solid cliff face; however, when there were pauses in the noise, it was clear that the same “thwacking” was taking place far to the east, beyond the grassland where the plateau descended back into the thick of the forest.
For the first time, the state police captain seemed to have recognized the potential danger. He called his troopers together and instructed them to congregate the campers under the cooking fly at the center of the state police camp.
He then split his troopers into three groups. He stationed six about 50 yards from the center of the camp and another six with the campers in the center of the camp and had the other six stand down in case they were needed later in the night.
The trees sang the undeciphered rhythms until 9:47 p.m., and then all became still. By analyzing sound tracks from the three news services and SasquatchLivesHere.com, it is clear that there were more than 20 different sound sources — probably more, considering the low volume of the very distant sounds.
Lewdana Banner, the acoustic engineer who analyzed the tapes for the university, had the first and most widely accepted theory as to how the sounds stopped nearly simultaneously:
The sounds immediately before 9:47 are different. When you look at the earlier patterns, there were a variety of high-pitched sounds and multiple rhythms. However, about 9:45, you first can make out a slow, low-pitched continuous “thump” that is immediately answered by the same rhythm with a higher pitch. Almost like a slow kick drum and snare pattern, it appears to have been initiated by all locations before it stopped and seemed to signal the next phase of the evening.
The next phase turned out to be a mixture of bush crashing, growls, howls, and almost human screams from every corner of the woods. The recordings of the second night’s screams and heavy footfalls of large bipeds would have been among the most solid sasquatch evidence ever collected if they didn’t already have a body.
Lewdana Banner: Humans simply don’t have the lung capacity or pitch variation for these sounds, and the spectra don’t match recorded animals indigenous to the Northwest or elsewhere.
The state police had two generator-powered searchlights in place. One was positioned about 25 yards to the west and the other to the south. Both provided very long-distance views, with relatively narrow cones of light, and both were consistently attacked over the next two hours. The western-facing light lit the southern cliff face almost as far as the forest.
The southern-facing light did reach the forest and was the first attacked. On video, a large brown shape can be seen running along the edge of the beam toward the light and stopping approximately 75 feet away when a trooper fires his shotgun into the air.
The western sasquatch weren’t visible as they circled the light and attacked from the side. Apparently, they were burned by the very hot bulb and were scared away by a shotgun blast. However, there were five more attempts in the next hour, and the last rush on the western light was successful. They managed to smash the bulb, the cliff face was no longer illuminated, and the single beam facing south became very isolated.
The first sasquatch was wounded at this point. The state police captain had initially ordered all shotguns loaded with birdshot, and, from the screams and the small amount of blood recovered the next day, it is clear that one of the attackers who destroyed the west-facing light was hit.
Probably more painful than dangerous for a 500-pound animal, the gunfire had the desired effect, and the western group retreated. However, the southern group became more aggressive, and the captain ordered buckshot to be used if the light was in danger of being destroyed.
The rain started shortly after the first attack. Light sprinkles at first, the mixtures of drizzle and pounding rain would be a challenge for the rest of the night.
Screams from the eastern side of the camp occurred about 11:30 but turned out to be a group of three sasquatch enthusiasts who had moved as far away from the commotion on the western side as possible. Walking in the tall grass with low-powered flashlights, they hadn’t realized they had an encounter going until they literally bumped into a group of sasquatch. Screaming seemed to work for everyone as the sasquatch retreated east and the humans moved back to the center of camp.
There was a break shortly afterward, and the captain called for alternating shots into the air followed by shots in the direction of attack if anything resumed. Around 1:15, there was a general rush by sasquatch on the west and south, and, in the confusion, troopers fired in all directions. Apparently, at least two more Sasquatch were injured at this point, and the first human was injured. A trooper was hit in the face so hard that a cartilage transplant was necessary to rebuild his nose.
The reaction of the sasquatch was reminiscent of a city riot. The state police helicopter that was parked 500 feet east of the camp was overturned, as were two of the vehicles parked on the fire road. Glass was broken on practically every vehicle, and, from the blood and hair left behind, it was clear that the sasquatch were not aware that their hands would be cut in the process.
The first rocks that landed in camp came from the west and were baseball sized. These were deflected using camera bags and cooler tops; however, when large stones (weighing as much as 20 pounds) arrived, it was clear they were coming from the mountain top and were far too large to deflect. The humans were completely surrounded, and a trooper who had been in the military said that it would have been a good time to ask for terms if they had any idea how to communicate.
The captain faced nothing but bad choices. Retreating to the vehicles parked on the fire road would require a run through the woods, and they didn’t know how many vehicles remained drivable. But someone would die if the rocks continued to fall, and the best compromise he could think of was moving the entire group away from the mountain.
The troopers were now armed with buckshot and “slugs” (giant bullets that are fired from shotguns), they surrounded the civilians, and everyone moved together at a fast walk. They ended up standing in a circle about a half a mile from the mountain in the middle of the grasslands. It was a truly desperate move considering that they were now exposed on all sides and handheld flashlights revealed practically nothing.
It’s no surprise that orders were given to shot to kill anything that moved. More than 100 shots were fired, but most were probably nervous reactions or coyotes. Although no one on the scene understood at the time, the battle of Lanthorn Mountain was already over: The move had defused the bomb.
The southern-facing spotlight was destroyed shortly after the humans abandoned the camp, but the noise levels were surprisingly low. The state police pilot had salvaged his infrared goggles as the group retreated past the remains of the helicopter, and he was able to provide some visual information. He said that “they were all over the camp” and that “some of them were female.” He confirmed constant movement over the next 20 minutes; however, the habitually silent giants abandoned the camp and returned to the western woods shortly after 3:30.
Over the next hour, the rain was described as “fat thick globs”.
Few in the field had adequate protection, and practically everyone chose to stand closely together. But, as the group shivered in unison, an invisible psychological seam had begun to unravel. Although the events leading up to the battle seemed well documented, two wildly different narratives emerged as the survivors went bravely into the drizzle of the new day.
On one hand, when “believers,” such as Les Korger surveyed the aftermath, they found sasquatch evidence everywhere:
The sasquatches had pulled the tarp about a hundred feet to the west; apparently they just wanted to get the corpse away from camp as soon as possible. From that point to the woods, there are two parallel grooves in the ground. It’s obvious that they had moved him onto some type of frame, the equivalent of a stretcher, and the group must have collectively lifted when they reached the woods.
The alternative version was championed by the state police and best summarized in the press release published the following day:
State police were required to bring the riot under control. “Bigfoot” enthusiasts staged a media event, falsified documents, misrepresented facts, and committed a wide variety of crimes ranging from assault to the destruction of state property, including a $1.4 million helicopter.
It remains difficult to separate the perpetrators from innocent bystanders; however, county officials are also under investigation.
The media had a field day, comparing the event to political campaigns where everyone has the same data but each side focuses on the data that best supports their preconceived positions. Some of the confusion was likely misunderstanding, but the differences are great enough that some intentional misrepresentation is likely.
For example, Jim Hamasha has regularly been accused of misrepresenting information because he first reported a “man in a bear suit.” Of course, this is the phrase he initially radioed; however, Hamasha and Walton had intentionally chosen this language to increase the odds that the sheriff’s department would investigate.
Hamasha and Sheriff Slayton have received the most negative coverage, but Emery Walton says he is happy to take heat whenever he can because he is certain that the facts will prevail.
Emery Walton: Of course, it really sucks when we are accused of staging the whole thing for profit or that we must be guilty because the state is still investigating. It was a lot harder for Jim to go back to work the next day (because he works for an adjacent county). But, in the end, I don’t care because I know we can’t lose. It’s not possible.
When [Roger] Patterson and [Robert] Gimlin shot their 35mm footage [the first sasquatch footage that is likely to be genuine, filmed at Bluff Creek, California, in 1967], all they had was a short shaky film and low-quality track casts. They were brave and published what they had, and I’m glad they will get proper credit in the end. But it isn’t surprising that very few took them seriously. I certainly didn’t. There just wasn’t enough evidence at that point.
But, as much as the detractors would like to confuse things, we now have photos, video, audio, casts, scat, blood samples, a hand tool, hair, and tissue samples. Because the state police made such a mess of things, it will probably be a year or two before we can get everything analyzed, but we will be able to publish the complete sasquatch genome in time.
Think about it. That’s the key. The genome is definitive, and it will be decoded relatively soon. After publishing, it will take time for the scientific community to put the complete picture together. But we will win.
We’ve also had some good laughs along the way. At times, their case can be downright funny. The helicopter pilot, who was wearing infrared goggles, noticed that some of the “intruders” who “vandalized” the camp were female. So are we supposed to imagine Bigfoot freaks running around in bikinis in near-freezing rain?
Actually, what bugs me the most now that I know that I know sasquatch is real is how do we address all of the things we don’t understand? Why don’t we see them more often? Why don’t they leave more evidence? And what was different this go-round, and why was our subject initially abandoned and then recovered?
Think about this for a minute. In the 24 hours between Sunday night and Monday night, the number of sasquatch making noise more than doubled, from eight or ten to more than 20. That probably means we had the local population the first night and, on the second night, visitors from 20-odd miles in any direction would seem reasonable. That gives us a minimum of 20 or so individuals living in 1,600 square miles or 1 in 80 square miles.
So that’s equivalent to one individual living in the space of a small city, and I recognize that this is one of the most remote areas of the United States. But how is it possible that we don’t stumble upon their villages from time to time, or at least find a cave as we did on Lanthorn?
Perhaps we don’t see them because we don’t expect to see them. We find a tool in a cave and automatically assume that it’s Native American.
But I’m not worried about the evidence at all. In the end, we will win.
Walton’s confidence seems well placed. Staging seems almost impossible considering the number of witnesses and the diversity of the physical evidence collected. So while we await the scientific verdict, maybe we should consider the broader range of issues he introduces.
Perhaps we should start with what is right in front of us. Consider the thoughts of Timothy Rockbird Johnson, a Native American who has been very vocal about the Lanthorn event:
You don’t see them because they don’t want to see you. We [the Nasanka tribe] made the mistake of listening to the white man, but the Sagua [the Nasankan name for the local sasquatch tribe] made a decision to avoid white men at all costs. There have been many times when you have been near them — they cause many rockslides and sounds in the woods, but they will do whatever it takes for you not to see them because they know what you did to us.
The Sagua were our enemies long before the white man came, but then the Nasankas overpowered the Sagua. When you [Europeans] came, they decided to hide in places you never go. But we still talk to them, all the time. We talk in dreams, and I can even tell you what happened this time.
The Sagua you found had been very bad. He had killed a husband and was attacked by his tribe. They meant to kill him and had no idea that he had gone to the hidden place. And they would have left him never to be found if you hadn’t interfered. But they knew they had to retrieve their brother once you found him because they knew you would come looking for them.
For now, that’s probably as good an explanation of the events of Lanthorn Mountain as can be expected. But it will be interesting to see what happens when legal issues are resolved and the scientific community has the opportunity to respond.
Author’s notes
Of course, this story this story is entirely fiction. Any resemblance of the events, names, personalities, places, or organizations in this story to actual names or events is coincidence.
Practically all of my stories are studies of people placed in unusual circumstances, so please recognize that I have absolutely no desire to defame the state police in any way and expect that we would find them an exceedingly competent force if faced with the events described.
However, Bigfoot has to live somewhere. So if you don’t appreciate this version, imagine that the entire encounter is with a community of Yetis living in the Himalayas, and you could then imagine some small unnamed national police force as the antagonists.
Michael Stierhoff c 2008
Writer, Musician, Customer Advocate, Petitioner for Truth…
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