A retired police officer, now a long-haul tucker, describes his encounter with a supposed Sasquatch while parked for the night in Barretts, Montana.
"I was a cop for 27 years, which kind of brings me to what I experienced last year in Barretts, Montana. As a cop, I approached things with open-minded cynicism. In other words, I like evidence. I want to see it, touch it, feel it, test it, and then make my decision.
I retired from the department three years ago. I'm from northern Arizona. I decided I needed a second career. I taught school for a semester and really didn't like it. On a fluke my best friend and competitive shooting buddy said let's go to truck driving school, so we did. We drove as a team and spent all of last winter in the mountain states, running from Phoenix, Arizona, near where I live, to Shelby, Montana. We used to overnight in Barretts, Montana at a Sinclair station with a cafe, a small store, and parking for about 20 semis. It was a regular stop for us, so I was familiar with the area.
We stopped this night and I was in the driver's seat. My buddy was sitting on the lower bunk in the sleeper. We had a movie on the DVD player and I was paying half attention to that and half attention to my laptop when I caught some movement past the driver's window. Bear in mind this is a small facility and it is 100 yards from the freeway but generally surrounded by a large field with three to four-foot tall grass and thicket that goes right into foothills and mountains. I looked in the mirror and saw the biggest presumed man I had ever seen step behind my trailer which was about 70 feet behind me. I said, "Jesus, that's the biggest MFer I've ever seen. Damn!" My buddy popped up and looked out the passenger mirror. It walked between the space between the rear of our trailer and a truck that was parked next to us. I didn't think any more of it for a while but then realized that when I caught the movement next to me the head of the guy was nearly at my shoulder level which was 10 feet off the ground. I was in my 2019 Freightliner Cascadia tractor. The bottom of the window line of my door is nine and a half feet from ground level. My cop brain went into assessment mode and I thought it couldn't have been that tall. There must have been a shadow casting on my window. I wasn't even considering Sasquatch.
I was tired and put it out of my mind. I finished up and my partner and I went back to our bunks and killed the TV. The only noise is from my heater running. I fell into a very light sleep which was unusual because I usually sleep like a baby. I'm totally comfortable in my truck but not this night. It's like I felt like I was hovering between sleep and wakefulness.
Around midnight I really had to pee since the cafe was already closed by 9 pm. I climbed out of the passenger side of my tractor. For some reason, I felt like I was being hunted or watched. Maybe not actively hunted like prey but I definitely was aware of something predatory being aware of me. I've been hunted by criminals and I've been around predatory animals but I have never felt like this before.
I finished quickly and looked around and scanned the grass field in the quarter moonlight and had a deep down feeling that I should not move toward the field. My instincts signaled that danger existed. I got back into the truck and locked the door. I felt like there was something out there that was dangerous but only if I did something to trigger an aggressive response. I got back into my bunk and made sure that my Glock 10 pistol was in the cubby by my head. Being a retired police officer I could legally carry in all 50 states but I also made sure two spare magazines were close to hand as well. I tried to put it out of my mind and listen to a podcast while trying to go back to sleep. I slept a little bit but I had a sense of foreboding.
At 3 am I bolted upright reaching for my Glock. I saw it, whatever it was, go by the front of the truck, this time in the space between the building and my truck. I moved out of my bunk to the passenger side window and only caught a faint and fading shadow moving into the darkness out of the faint glow of the low sodium lighting on the building 75 yards away. There was no way I was going back to sleep. I got my coffeemaker and started a pot of coffee and got dressed. I still had 90 minutes on my electronic log before I could go back on duty and drive us out of there. But all I wanted to do was leave ASAP. I kept looking up the windows of the truck but I didn't see anything else. The sun started coming up and with the light, the sense of foreboding retreated.
I could see all around the truck and the few other trucks parked in the lot and out into the grass field and up to the building. My buddy asked why I was up so early. I told him what I had felt all night and he quietly said, "Me too."
When the sun was fully up I walked all around the places where I'd seen it. I was using my cop brain again and realized that the hard-pack gravel would hold no tracks especially as cold as it was. I walk to the edge of the grass field and there was a trail. It was a game trail where I'm sure deer moved through. There were no large footprints visible.
When the cafe opened for breakfast my buddy and I went in to eat. We tried to figure out what we'd experienced and seen. I am firmly convinced that I saw a Sasquatch. I took the known and the unknown and the puzzle pieces and put them into one logical assumption that could be made. At any rate, we decided to put a day of driving between us and Barretts and get to a larger truck stop or terminal."
NOTE: The location, I later discovered, was the Gateway Canyon Travel Plaza. Lon
Transcribed Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGLz0-aCoc
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