They Were Not Bears

No names or locations will be mentioned for protection and safety reasons. My name isn't really important, but what I say here may be very important. And all you need to know is that I am a resident of a rural community in an, as of late, isolated county.
I have had my suspicions and been observing and documenting the happenings of my town from my cabin. These are my findings.
== How we got here ==
Let me lay some cards on the table with a stupid question; is anyone here familiar with the sasquatch? Whether you believe or not, numerous people all over the world have claimed to have seen these creatures, or similar creatures; big, hairy humanoids living out in the woods and/or mountains. Just about every continent has its own variation or myth of these things.
I became a researcher (or at least reading up on others research) on account of the increase of sightings in my county/region. It started about a month ago, when our local rangers noticed a significant decrease in the deer and elk population, and an increase of their half eaten bodies cluttering the region. Naturally we assumed it was bears, but if you're reading this right now, you can probably guess that it wasn't the case.
Rangers and hunting parties started to plan a culling or hunt to deal with what we thought was at least one super aggressive bear. Normally they wouldn't let mere hunters on the reserve, but in this case, several farmers found these carcasses on their fields. One was found in a barnyard.
In retrospect, we should have noted that among the animal carcasses found, all of them had their faces eaten. We didn't think much of it.
The local suspicions of a bear was seemingly confirmed when the four year old son of one of our local farmers spotted what he called "the bear man" climbing over a fence in his families field. The "man" part we naturally dismissed, writing it off as the over imaginative exaggerations of a child.
As part of the hunting expedition, many have set up trail cams along the borders of the forests and fields, hoping to pin point the animal. Or should we say animals. There were different sightings, taking place as different locations at or around the same time. And despite our first glances, these animals were not bears. They had the face, hair and build you expect to see on a bear, but their actual body was, humanoid in shape when they stood upright.
As you can imagine there was a bit of a spectacle when these trail cam images were leaked to the town. At first, rangers only let the farmers and hunters know, but one of the farmers wanted some attention, so they tried to leak it to the media. Pretty soon the town was up and arms about it; some citizens were ecstatic,, others afraid, others skeptical that "bigfoot" has made this region home.
Some wanted the hunting to cease, maybe to capitalize on the sasquatch sightings that have been pouring in. The less enthusiastic and more rational insisted that the hunting continue, rationalizing that these were in fact bears and that camera tricks and perception issues were involved. Others thought the whistle blower must have photo-shopped the images to play attention hog, and the rangers insisted that these were mere bears and it was voted up that they needed to be culled or driven away for the safety of the townspeople.
Before the following, there hasn't been any confirmed aggressive behaviour from these things. One weekend, a family made their stay at their vacation home - a cabin - from their usual lives in the city. They came by every year during the summer, on certain holidays, and on other special occasions, to revisit their family living in the area.
Not one day into their vacation, the mother took her two young children for a walk on a trail. She was warned to stay on the trail so as to avoid hunters. And it wasn't long before her little girl pointed and got her mother to look at the "monkey people" that have been following them . It was two and the mother insisted they keep their distance from this "wild family". The little girl began yelling and waving at the animals, who were staring at them from several dozen yards away.
Eventually one started advancing towards them, huffing and puffing and growling at them, and the mother hastily took her children back to the cabin. They left the next day, which was a good thing because the day after they left, their cabin was ransacked. Once again, blamed on the bears.
Unfortunately that was the more passive of incidents. You'd probably roll your eyes when you hear the story of a kid waking up his parents in the middle of the night, crying about some kind of man with no face in the trees outside his window.  (I rolled my eyes too before I read the rest of the report). But what the report said was no laughing matter; there was in fact a man's dead body hanging in the trees in front of the child's window, and said face was chewed off.
The body was identified as a local shop keeper whose family lived just on the outskirts of town. He wasn't labeled missing, but his sister, whom he lived with, mentioned how he hasn't come home the night before, and she wanted to wait until morning before she pestered the police about it.  Her brother's car was found shortly after pulled off the side of a road in a forested area on a highway, not a quarter mile away from their home.
It was here we decided that this animal (or animals as it were) is in fact a danger to humans. They had to be hunted and they had to be killed.
But that was easier said than done. You count how many times someone hunted what they've said was "Bigfoot", how many have been a success? These things have had to evaded hunters for centuries, and it wasn't like it was gonna stop that night.
What they did find, was what they thought was an oddly placed beaver dam, placed in the deepest parts of the woods, where hikers, rangers and hunter alike generally don't go. There was a pungent smell in the air and when they investigated the oddity of mud and logs, they found at least seventeen bodies, human and animal alike. All of them were half eaten, but they were all missing their faces. Apparently, the beasts that had been eating them had a special affinity for faces.
Only four bodies have been identified, missing persons from seven months back. The rest couldn't be accounted for, but there have been a series of missing persons in the outer forests, that extend well beyond the county's borders.
None of the creatures have been found, but we did find a series of large humanlike footprints leading away from the territory and towards the town. That and dozens more of these "dams". And upon further investigation, we could infer that these were not homes to these creatures, but more or less fridges to store their meals.
Now comes the part were I give you a little folklore lesson.
== My Research ==
As you may or may not know, with all these sasquatch sightings that have been recorded, some descriptions may vary. For the most part people claim to see what one would call a "standard" Bigfoot, just a big, humanoid, manlike ape. But there are others that sasquatch research categorize as types. Once in a while, people claim to see what they describe as looking more like a bear than a man.
The common name among sasquatch enthusiasts of this type is "The Gugwe", a name that derives from the name "Kukwes". It is often described in comparison to The Wendigo, which should give you an idea what kind of "animal" we are dealing with. First Nations told legends of these with the description of man-eating ogrelike creatures.
Not exactly the cute cuddly or friendly bigfoot you see in cartoons or media, right? Well, as a matter of fact, these things are described as being separated from what most people would call sasquatch; they are closer to being bearlike than apelike. Among the names the Natives had for them was "The Face Eater", and of course, due to their appearances, "The Bear Men".
When people describe the sasquatch, specifically their heads and faces, you get something closer to a human, gorilla or chimplike face. The Gugwe has a snout, according to witnesses to be more akin to baboon or mandrill. Besides appearances, these beings were different from what was considered a "normal" bigfoot; when they describe sasquatches, they describe creatures that are rarely hostile, mostly docile, omnivores that generally keep to themselves from humans. Albeit, they are still territorial.
These things, however, were famous for their affinity for eating flesh, violent temperament, and will actively hunt humans. And like the sasquatch, sightings of these things have increased in recent years, with most people passing them off as one and the same.
In the farther north of the America/Canadian/Alaskan regions, there are similar legends. There, they are referred to as the Genoskwa, and again, often overlapped with the myth of the Wendigo. They describe how these things are nocturnal, how they'd live underground, how they were not only cunning hunters, but efficient survivors. They got the nickname "The Stone Giants" by adorning their fur with mud and rocks, forming makeshift armour.
My further research from a number of sources tells me that while they are more often than not solitary hunters, they do operate as family groups and rarely if ever hunt together. How they function is hardly anymore pleasant then what is previously described. Some of my sources tell of how these creatures practice cannibalism to their dead or when they are unsuccessful in their hunting; incest in their own groups; how in colder weather they wear the hide of their kills, and some even describe how they have a tribelike mentality. This begs the question of just how intelligent they really are.
One could almost call them evil, insofar as you can call a species of animal "evil".
== Conclusions and Concerns ==
Which brings us back to here. As with the rise of sasquatch sightings around the world, there has also been a rise of sightings of the Gugwe or Genoskwa. And I have more than enough reason to believe that we are getting a special rise of these creatures in my home town.
Four days ago, schools were closed because large dark shapes could be seen walking or standing near the forested areas just off the school grounds, separated only by a small field and a chain linked fence. When the kids left the schools, there were four of them walking, standing by, and watching the elementary school, and have been specifically observing the buses before disappearing back into the trees.
One of the local farming families left town in a hurry last weakened when a dog ran into a barn to confront an intruder. The dog never came out and when the farmer investigated, he almost immediately ran back out, got his family into the car and fled their property without so much as a word to the confused neighbors. Days later, said neighbors notice a thick pungent smell, muskier than anything that usually comes out of a barn. It was as if it was stuffed with dead and decaying bodies. The dog's remains were later found just off one of the neighbor's property, when the animals on his own farm started acting up in response to a disturbance. All that remained of the dog was a spine, ribs and mandible.
Two days ago, a gas station just out of town was raided and ransacked. All its snacks were half eaten and discarded. The attendant said he hid in a garage when he saw six "sasquatch" walking onto the scene when he was about to close up. He described them as carrying the remains of a cat, and a racoon. Obviously it was not enough to satisfy their hunger, and the food at the gas station obviously wasn't helping. The only snacks that were not thrown away was the meat products, the jerky, and the hot-dogs, but that was about it. One became frustrated and they attacked the smallest in their group, and dragged its remains away. The attendant should count himself lucky that the smell of gasoline and motor oil must have covered his scent.
Around the same time that very night, an couple who lived just outside of town awoke to the sight of two of them scavenging their garbage, when one of the creatures noticed the couple through the window. As these "animals" began to pound on the doors and windows, the residents had to make a daring attempt out the back door. They had to lure the beasts back after them and run around the other side of the house to their jeep and drive to the police station. Getting the police to believe them wasn't a problem considering the increase of sightings, but by the time they got there, the creatures were nowhere to be found. What they did find was what was left of the boyfriend's elderly mother who was in the couple's care. In their panic, they must have forgotten her, as they have forgotten to close the back door.
After these incidents, the town was afraid. Half of them wanted to leave this town for a safer place. It was decided that the hunts continue in order to deal with the threat at hand, with the aid of the police and park rangers. Some idiots thought that it was best to leave them alone and for the town to continue to capitalize off the "Bigfoot" sightings.
So the other night, about sixty hunters went into the woods, determined to put an end to the threat. There is two hundred miles of unexplored forest in our parks, and places that the previous hunting expeditions never reached. During that night, the forests were filled with howls, not matching the kind normally heard from wolves and coyotes and the occasional gunshot. As far as any success rate goes, only twenty eight hunters walked out of the woods the next morning, the rest unaccounted for. There has been no confirmed kills among these things, nor were the bodies of the missing hunters found.
Around the same time, the town was being evacuated. Only a select few families stayed behind. Unfortunately a few roads were blocked by large boulders and rocks, a classic calling card of a sasquatch, their way of setting the borders of their territory. Who is to say the Gugwe, or the Genoswka or whatever you want to call them, is any different in that regard? A few of the people blocked off noted dark shapes observing them from the trees. Many are expecting these logs or boulders to be removed by the police in order to continue evacuation,  but there are a few concerns that doing so could lead to a death trap with those things watching from the woods.
Now, we are considering calling in the national guard for interference, but I have concerns of my own. It's not like they wouldn't have any reason not to believe us with the evidence we collected. Sure they could help with the evacuation, maybe try to help in the extermination, but there lies the problem. I'm no military artillery expert, but if the stories of the Genoswka armour are true, and considering the apparent failures of the hunters' rifles, how will their ammo fair any better? Best chance they got is fire, explosives, etc. This would at best start forest fires, or turn the county into a warzone at worst.
And considering how bold these creatures are in sneaking near or into the town, I can't help but think of the worse case scenario. Such as once again taking into account the increase of sasquatch sightings, I don't believe it to be a coincidence that these coincide with environmental changes; deforestation, pollution, natural or man made climate change, etc. Last year, there was a chemical plant built for the next town, on the other side of the forest; besides this requiring a small amount of deforestation, months before this whole mess started there was a controversy of them dumping their waste in the unexplored regions of the woods, requiring more human interference to salvage what they can, but alas the immediate environment was considered too polluted for any animal to survive off the land there.
What is an animal to do when their environment is destroyed? Naturally they migrate, search for a more hospitable environment. Especially one with more food. And unfortunately, humans have always been on their menu. I believe that the increase of sightings in my county is a prelude of what's to come considering that climate change isn't gonna stop in the foreseeable future, and with more and more sightings of sasquatch-like creatures, I fear the possibility that cities will be seen as a new food source. At the very least, my county may be the first of many incidents.
You wanna know what's ironic? The only bears we've seen in this whole ordeal, were among the animal carcasses found with their faces eaten.
Category:Animals
Category:Monsters