The following was posted at BigfootEvidence.com back in July.
On August 6, 1999, Battle Mountain, Nevada, exploded into several simultaneous range fires in what would be known as the Battle Mountain Complex Fire. A Bigfoot was supposedly injured in the fire according to an anonymous government employee, who alerted the Bigfoot Field Research Organization (BFRO). In a letter to BFRO dated "7 August 1999, Battle Mountain, Nevada" the anonymous government employee, states:
"I observed an animal wounded by fire moving on all fours not like a bear. More like ape. Fire fighters captured animal, contacted local vet and medical doctor. U.S. Department of Fish and Woldlife, Department of Interior, and Bureau of Land Management on the scene.
Animal tranquilized and moved to unknown location. Those at scene told not to talk about what they saw.
Animal approximately 7.5 feet long/tall, human like arms and legs, face not like man or ape but mixed between. Genitalia: male, uncircumcised and human-like. Hair covering most of body except chest, chest has hair but sparse, hands with sparse hair, palms bare, with five digits with human opposition of thumb and 5th digit.
Multiple burns
Speech - attempted to communicate with care-givers once it realized they were attempting to care for it. Multiple burns on hands, feet, legs and body; some 2nd and 3rd degree burns, using "rule of nines" approximately 45 per cent of body with burns.
Doctor and Vet working together providing care and moved it to unknown location locally. This notice given in violation of orders given by BLM, DOI and DF&W. Witnesses numbered in the area of 30-25. Word is out in the government agencies, and among the firefighters, since an M.D. was called out. Many thought a firefighter was injured.
Please note that I am a government employee of one of the listed agencies fighting bruse fire in wilderness area of Nevada (large scale fire approximately 70,000 acres burned) and under orders not to disclose information.
Protected area
I believe a cover up is in the making, people need ro know, the animal needs to be kept alive and studied and released in protected area".
The BFRO didn't know what to believe and on top of that they had been unable to verify that there had been a fire in the Battle Mountain area. Thom Powell: "Late Monday (August 9) I was finally able to determine from Forest Service sources that there was most certainly a large range fire in this area of Nevada".
The Battle Mountain Complex Fire had extended to 180,000 acres by Monday and had 610 personnel fighting it at that time.
Nothing else was heard from their witness despite e-mail attempts to reach him. Then, some ten days after the initial report, the witness contacted their BFRO investigator by phone. Here is parts of the report that the investigator prepared after speaking with the witness:
Strict anonymity
"Much to my surprise, tonight at about 9 PM the reporting party of the Battle Mountain incident callerd me. I talked with the gentleman for about 70 minutes. Although he is maintaining strict anonymity, I was able to put together a bit of a profile of the individual.
This fellow, whom I will give the pseudonym 'Marty', is a male, full-time worker for a federal agency. Currently he is involved in the joint fire fighting efforts in Nevada. He has extensive EMT training and experience.
He says that until this incident he had "seen it all" in fire fighting, and these days he stays mostly in the truck manning the radio. He is friendly, but not effusive. He is intelligent, likable, and fairly observant, but he isn't outstandingly articulate. He is a matter-of-fact, low-key, seen-it-all kind of character.
Very tired
His regular duties may be in personnel, as he mentioned that tomorrow he would be seeing the M.D. involved in this incident about other matters regarding firefighting crews. It was abvious during our conversation that he was very tired. Our talk ended with 'Marty' saying he had to get to bed to get some rest.
Approximately 20 people were in the immediate vicinity of the incident. All were debriefed and informed in no uncertain terms that this incident was not to be discussed. There has not been a word about the incident at the BLM fire HQ.
He is very concerned about keeping his job, and says he would not look forward to taking a lie detector test. He created an e-mail address exclusively for reporting this incident.
Absolute privacy
Although I had originally encouraged him to call me collect this lengthy call was on him so he could maintain absolute privacy. He is reporting the incident because he belives the information should get out. We agreed in any future communication to use the term "patient" to describe the sasquatch. I'll use it here.
The incident happened in the early afternoon. About 20 fire fighters were directly involved. The injured patient appearantly wandered within sight of the fire crew, and was then surrounded.
The patient "seemed to know that he was captured", because he soon gave up. Marty mentioned this several times - "he just gave up". The patient sat down on his buttocks, giving no evidence of a will to resist. "Like a dog gives up, and then you can do anything with it".
Singed hair
The patient was laid out on the ground at first. His injuries were rather serious, including burns to the hands, feet, legs, and trunk, as well as much singed hair.
It didn't take long for medical services to get to the scene. The attending medical team included the regular M.D. for the fire crews, a vet that Marty didn't recognize, and one or more paramedics.
The vet was taken aback at working on a creature so human-like, and he is reported to have allowed the physician to do most of the work. At some point Demerol and morphine were administred.
The patient was placed on a spine board, which was too small. He was then placed on a regular ambulance stretcher. The sides were left down because part of the body hung over too far. The feet hung off the end.
Bowel sounds
A cut-down was performed to obtain an intravenous line, and fluids were administered. During the treatment of his wounds and the efforts at life support, the patient communicated with moans, groans and grumbling. Bowel sounds were heard by Marty, who was as close as three feet from the patient.
No language-like vocalizations were heard. The patient responded to touch: specifically patting and stroking to calm him ("You're not going to find an ape or a monkey responding the same way").
Two or three times Marty mentioned that the patient was especially responsive to a young Native American woman who started ministering to him right from the very beginning.
The patient was removed from the scene in the back of a utility truck, not in an ambulance. Marty said an ambulance would have alerted townsfolk and possibly news reporters, thinking that a fire fighter had been injured. No one would follow a nondescript van. The total time from initial sighting to extraction was estimated at three hours.
Blood leaking
There was no urination, defecation, or vomit at the scene. The patient did not eat anything during that time. Serum and blood were leaking from the burned areas of the body.
The area of the arm on which the cut-down was performed was shaved. The hair probably fell to the ground. There was significant blood from the cut-down site and from the subsequent insertion of a venous line, and some of that blood dripped to the ground.
No one knows where the patient was taken. No video cameras were on the scene to film any aspect of the incident. The fire commander was present. He had a camera, and he did record what he saw.
The patient is described as being about seven feet tall - "Give or take a few inches". Marty does not give a weight estimate.
Equine odor
Most of the body is covered by brownish hair about two inches in length; no gray hairs are evident. There are no mats noted on the coat. There is an odor about the patient. It is not an especially obnoxious odor. Marty calls it a "natural" odor, but he had a hard time describing it. He said it is similar to a strong equine odor.
The head is not "sloped", the forehead is "heavy boned", the lips large, but human-like, the ears human-like and tight to the head, with the ear lobe attached, not dangling.
The patient is "strong jawed". He could not remember the color of the eyes, but thought they might be brown. The head is about two times the size of a human head. There is hair on the face, but not on the palms or soles of the feet.
Great bulk
There is great bulk to the patient, but there is no fat. He said hos observations of the form of the body did not match with "that film with the one running into the woods", and he called that film a probable hoax.
The hands are about 1.5 times a human hand; five fingers with opposable thumb. The fingernails are thicker and heavier, and one was chipped. The feet are large; five ties on each foot; no evidence of fractures, injuries, arthritis, or deformation.
The sexual features are those of an uncircumcised male, matching the human anatomy. Marty made the comment several times that these are not monkey or ape features. He felt he was in the presence of a very human creature.
Access to the area
I have asked him to return to the scene and search for the hair from the shaved arm, or even the blood that dripped on the ground. He said he has access to the area, but probably won't be able to return until after the fires are controlled".
In response to Doug's plea that someone return to the site and search for blood and hair evidence, Marty reported back to him on 26 September: "Dozer has torn up the area. Nothing left. Word is there is still life. Location unknown. Believe within couple hundred miles. Later, Marty".
Thom Powell: "Doug concluded that the dozer work seemed a bit too convenient and was likely a cover story concocted by Marty to explain away his inability to recover any physical evidence. Doug strongly suspected that the whole matter was a hoax on this basis and that is where the situation pretty much ended".
Precise detail
But Thom Powell couldn't leave the case that easily and further on continues: "It is my feeling that this person (Marty) was not lying, and this set of described events really happened. There is simply too much precise detail and a complete absence of error or contradiction".
The report was dismissed as a probable hoax and never posted for public inspection at the BFRO website, where it might have been seen by someone else who was present at the time and who might have contacted BFRO to confirm or deny the account.
Three years after the event, Thom Powell dug up the old files on the Battle Mountain matter and decided to try and send Marty an e-mail message and see what happened. Less than twenty four hours later, he was surprised to receive this reply:
Not disclosed
"Thom, I had almost forgotten about the event until now. Have not spoken due to the classification that was put on it. The patient was taken to a university or some hospital that was not disclosed. As for verification, well other than my contact with you, I know of no one other than those there on the scene. An affidavit was signed under Department of Interior, and US Forest Service as:
1. Confidential under penalty of felony arrest and jail time.
2. Immediate loss of Government Service rank, loss of retirement, and benefits.
Several meetings were held in reference to "him". I do respect his rights of life and will always be a believer of their existence beyond any shadow of a doubt as seen with my own eyes, smelled with my own nose and heard with my own ears.
Native man
His image is still visible as it was then. No monster, no animal but a linage of native man. His trust in us to take care of him and recognize him that harm was not meant when contact was made, knowing that care would be given to him... I am sure that Department of Interior knows where he may have been released.
What more can I say? Specifics, features, anatomy? Well, stand in front of the mirror and think of man's evolution".
There's more posted at the above link and at Bigfoot Recovered; Injured in Forest Fire
Is the account anyway related to the supposed bodies found after the Mt. St. Helens eruption?
At one of Ray Crowe's Western Bigfoot Meetings, someone brought up the topic of corpses of sasquatch after the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington State. The witness heard of two sasquatch the Army Corps of Engineers had taken out of the volcanic devistation...two months after the inital blast.
Terry Reams heard of a dredging operation of the Cowlitz River and two bodies were found in the sand (probably same case?). A chopper flew them off.
Joe Beelart offered that the crane doing the dredging was from the Manatowaka Company and that the bodies were found two weeks after the Mt. St. Helen's blast of May 18, 1980. He suggested that somebody might want to track down the company and find out who was working the shift that the bodies had been found on.
During a tour of the devastation by helicopter in 1985, the Viet veteran helo pilot mentioned a similar tale to Bobbie Short saying there were military helos that choppered out nets full of burned and semi burned elk, deer, bear and something with hairy charred arms hanging out of the drop nets. They were taken to a common pit where the bodies were burned to avoid disease and contamination of the rivers.
Then there is a report submitted to the BFRO:
Fred Bradshaw report concerning dead Bigfoot bodies near Mt. St. Helens
My father worked for Weyerhauser Co. at Green Mountain ,WA, east of Vancouver. The site has security on their roads to check on the equipment and check closed areas to keep people out.
My father was working the day Mt. St. Helens blew up. He was at a meeting in Kelso, WA, and as he was a supervisor, when Mt. St. Helens blew it's side out, all heck cut lose.
My father was sent back to Green Mountain right away but like most he wasn't allowed to go very far because of the mud slide coming down the river. He did get to the town of Toutle, WA, on highway 504 off I-5. He and his crew were placed at different spots to watch mud flow and of course help people get out of the blast zone after the major blow up. He was sent to the area of Spirit Lake to keep people out.
When the second major blow up of the mountain came, my father and the other guy with him reported in, and they got out of there.
He was then placed in charge of the helicopter landing zone. It was his job to help keep people out of the landing zone and let aid crews in so they could care for injured.
Later. when all the people were out and bodies out, the National Guard was brought in to clean up. They hauled dead animals out that they placed in piles; deer in one, elk in another and so on. They were covered up with tarps and later burned.
But my father was placed in charge of one pile of dead that were covered and no one was allowed to go near. Armed U.S. National Guard personal were around this pile, and one day when they were going to move this group of bodies, and my father was very close to it and was told to keep his mouth closed. And when the tarps were removed he saw the creatures, some badly burned and some not. They placed them in a net and lifted them into a truck and covered it over. My father asked a guardsmen what will they do with them and he said study them or what ever...he didn't want to know. He said it's like other things you don't ask, and off they went . AND NO ONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. My father and the rest were debriefed and sent home.
After the post on BigfootEvidence.com, a comment was posted:
I was reading some of the stories about Mt. Saint Helen on the message boards and wanted to share this one. I only ask that you withhold my name.
I was a National Guardsman at the Mount Saint Helen site and this is the first time I have ever spoken about what I saw firsthand. I lived in Spokane, Washington and was 24 at the time this all took place.
I have read some of the other stories and they only tell part of the story.
I was placed on a special cleanup crew farther up the mountain. A large tent was set up and it was be guarded by armed soldiers who were not part of the guard. There were numerous soldiers on the scene that were not members of the guard.
We were given a briefing by soldier who said that “after he spoke to us, we would forget about him and what he said at the end of the mission”. This was strange as we never dealt with anything before.
Myself and four other guardsmen were told to follow a group of soldiers and not to speak to each other and to remain very quiet overall. We were told to get into a jeep and wait. We sat in the jeep for maybe a half hour. Eventually another jeep arrived carrying a civilian and another member of the military.
The civilian was brought into the tent and he emerged a few minutes later followed by a large hairy creature. It looked like a large man covered in fur and the best way to describe it was like “Beast” from X-Men only brown.
The creature looked to have some burns and had a bandage on its arm. At first we were afraid but when it walked by we could see its eyes and it just looked very sad and somber. He climbed into the back of a pickup with the civilian and the two were speaking in a weird language I had never heard. It would cough at times.
We followed the truck to different areas. There were 5 total stops. Each time we stopped we were told to follow the civilian and the creature. Each time we followed them to rocky areas where there were caves. The creature would make a sound and then listen. At the first area he made a sound and we all just waited in silence. After a few minutes, the creature looked at the civilian and then at the ground. The civilian at one point touched its shoulder and called for a canteen to give the creature a drink.
The same thing happened at the next area but this time there was a response to the sound. After a few minutes two soldiers emerged from the cave carrying a badly burned creature just like the one with the civilian. The creature bent down next to it and looked it over for about five minutes. It then spoke softly with the civilian. It turned and walked back to the truck and we were told to follow as we were walking away we heard a shot and we knew it was one of the soldiers putting the creature out of its misery.
There was no response at the third or fourth site but at the fifth there was another return sound to the creature. This time it was different and soldiers carried out a creature with a badly burned left leg. We were then ordered to all help get a very large stretcher from the truck and to help place the creature on it and carry it back to the truck.
We then immediately returned to the base camp. The creature was carried into the tent while the other creature and the civilian spoke. We were ordered to stay in the jeep until we were to be debriefed. As the creature turned to walk into the tent it looked at us and made a waving gesture with its hand. We took it as a thank you for what we had done.
By the time we were ordered out of the jeep we were all in shock. We were called over to an area to be debriefed and it was just strange. I will never forget what was said because it was just not what was expected. I thought I would hear “You took an oath and now you need to live up to it for your country with a threat also implied. A different high ranking soldier just said “look, do you all really want an explanation? You saw what we were doing. These creatures live in these areas; they mean no harm and want to be left alone. Do you really want to do anything that may cause them trouble? They are like us in a lot of ways. If you need or want to talk about this just wait about 30 years, by that time there will likely be no reason to keep them a secret”.
We were then ordered back to the guard camp because “they were breaking it up so nobody saw too much and knew everything that happened”. We did not speak of it and after a few months I just took the attitude that these things live out there and honestly my life is no different because of it. I only bring it up now because people have been writing a lot about MT. Saint Helen and I believe that the whole story should be told.
I will also say this. I like to camp and hike and have done so many times throughout the Northwest. Every time I would look for signs of these creatures, tracks, listen for sounds etc. I never saw or heard anything other than what I did that day on Mt. Saint Helen.
Then later, the following comment was posted (unedited):
I dont know who wrote this story or if they were there, but I can add this much and I will give you facts you can check up on, if you feel this is a hoax. But I was an airman in the Air Force in 1980. I was stationed at George AFB from the late 70's to the early 80s. Our mission was the Wild Weasels or Air Force F4s that would go into a war area before it started like the first gulf war, at low level and pop up and then light up the ground to air defenses and then shoot anti radiation missiles at the sites letting the other aircraft get it. In 1980 we were shipped to train with the Canadian forces at Comox CFB on Vancouver Island. We took a C141 from George to Canada. Our C141 had a in flight emergency and had to land at Travis Air Force base in Northern California for repair. We were losing hydraulic fluid in one engine and I saw the crewman come back and dump several cans of hydraulic fluid into the reseviour and it just went back to Zero. He had a parachute and we didnt. Kind of made me nervous. But we later got back on our way and flew over St Helens right after it blew its top. Once we got to Comox, our officer in charge told us we would be there for longer than the 2 week TDY due to an emergency mission that they needed help on. We were all specialized airman trained in different specialties in aircraft maintenence and repair, but we were soldiers first and we did lots of other stuff that our country needed.
We were there for a couple days not doing anything because as I look back they were trying to figure out how to use us. Then we all got on a bus and were bussed to the area around the south end of the island and were picked up on a strange Naval Ferry. I was never in the Navy so I dont know anything about boats but our bus was tied down and delivered to US side and we drove off. It was under darkness and it was typically cloudy and raining and we continued our bus ride to the disaster area. We were given M16s and one mag, which I found fascinating because most Airforce enlisted troops shoot a gun in basic and you may never see a M16 again.
We were also given ill fitting green helmets marked GUARD Ill fitting plain green BDF'sand told to follow orders we were to be given in the upcoming breifing. In the Briefing we were told we would be guards to special areas and told to check credentials and to only allow people in who had the correct credentials in to the military tent areas that were set up what looked to be like the perimeter of the area affected by the eruption. We had NO idea were we were at. THere were no towns or cities around where we were at and we arrived there we were about 30 Airmen completely and totally confused on what was going on. We slept in a tented area that was near where we worked. We had a Mess tent next to the tent were we slept and we didnt leave that area about an acre size for a week or more. Most of us if not all of us were gaurding areas that people moved into and out of with what looked like victims. The tents we guarded had a foyer area and we couldnt see what was behind the 2nd door. It was brightly lit and you had to go through a couple of partitions to get to the main area of the tent. I assume they were there to prevent peeping into the tents by the guards. It was VERY infrequent that anyone walk in or out. And we worked 12 hour shifts only at night. We were used to working 12 hour shifts because this was just after the Iranian crisis and we would go on alert every 3 weeks, work 12 hour shifts flying as many missions as we could, then have a day off, then another alert and 3 more weeks of 12 hour shifts for 3 more weeks. We were told that if anyone tried to breach our area to shoot. That never happened or came close to happening. This was funny to me because we were given one magazine and I dont know if the bullets were real or not. We were Air Force not Marines. I knew more about a 5 iron than a M16. But nothing ever came up.
The only time ANYONE came up to the area I was gaurding only happened after midnite, and it LOOKED to me like a Doctor in a white lab coat with either a patient or victim who was wrapped in what looked like overcoates and our night shift navy blue ski caps. You could never see the person who was led into or out of the tents because they had their hands in the coats and were led into the tent by the arm. I think I was there for 8 to nine days and it was the most unusual thing I had ever experienced in the Air Force.
Last partOut of those nights on Gaurd I noticed 2 out of the people that were escorted in were VERY tall. Thats the only thing I noticed were those 2 TALL people. I was not in a position to see HOW tall they were but it was obvious they were over a whole head higher than the doctor, if thats what they were. Only the escort talked and they only mentioned their last name and showed their badge. I dont know if they were Army or civilian. The other thing I noticed was the escorted "people" were REALLY wide, but I always assumed (until now) that it was the coats there were wearing. It WAS very nippy and I also assumed we were at some kind of altitude. After that we were given a debrief that we had helped alot of the people who were "Victims" of the eruption (thats all we were told "victims") and told that we were not to mention this part of our TDY.
After our last shift and I dont know how long that was but it was longer than a week, we were allowed to sleep then the next evening we were allowed to shower (we were only allowed skin baths with washcloths till then) in another tent that was behind the Latrine tent, and Chow tent, given back our original Air Force uniforms and put back on the same bus we rode in and bussed back to the same area under darkness, fairied back to Vancouver Island and back to Comox CFB and we continued ou TDY as if nothing happened. We did two more weeks of flying Sorties with the Canadians, played and drank a ton of canadian beer (LaBlatts Blue) and flew in our C141 back to George AFB. It was all a big mystery on what happened then till I read this story, but it seems similar. But they must have REALLY been short on personnel to use a bunch of air Force kids as gaurds, or they thought nothing would ever happen. But thats the only time I EVER pulled gaurd duty outside of basic training at San Antonio
After I had posted Oh-Mah - The 'Boss of the Woods' in November 2008, I received an email from a man in southern Washington who stated that he had heard anecdotes from Yakima native people in reference Oh-Mah or Sasquatch after the Mt. St. Helen's eruption. The most prominent account was that of a large male Oh-Mah that was badly burned, but still alive, that took refuge in an area east of the devastation near traditional tribal lands. He was told that government agents in military gear captured the Oh-Mah and airlifted it to an undisclosed location. I have no way of knowing if this is a true account but it does seem to suggest that there was an effort made to take advantage of the eruption in order to capture specimans either dead or alive.
There's Something in the Woods
Strange Secrets: Real Government Files on the Unknown
Bigfoot! : The True Story of Apes in America
Bigfoot Declassified: The Official Government Manual For Co-Existing With The Now Documented Species
'Phantoms and Monsters' has provided free email delivery for 6+ years. If this blog / newsletter is useful to you, please consider donating a few dollars as a 'voluntary subscription' in return for 52 weeks of paranormal information and alternative news. Thanks for your support...Lon
********************
