The Woods Beckon: A Sasquatch Encounter

The two sisters physically shook under the covers in abject terror. They lay there in silence, not allowing themselves to even made a sound for fear of being noticed by the *things* outside the window. Their brother was asleep in his crib directly in front of the window, but he was young enough to be completely oblivious to what was happening. The sisters were hoping against hope that one of the *things* didn't come to the window - that they didn't have to see it. However, their mental pleas weren't answered. A large shape passed behind the glass pane, casting a long, dark shadow into the room. The terrified girls drew in a sharp breath.

## Come Away, Human Child

***A Few Hours Earlier***

The family lived roughly seven miles out on Highway 48 from Cumberland in Barron County, Wisconsin. Loud music drifted through the house that night as her sister and cousin played with the house-phone, dialling their own number and then hanging it up immediately so that it rang. The Native American woman who would become the primary witness in the terrifying saga that was about to unfold was only 6 or 7 years old at the time, but was 31 as of January 24th of 2001 when she reported the incident to the BFRO. It was the 10th of July, 1976 - and the Summer night-time air hung thick around the house. The time was approximately 7:00PM. The six children were home alone, with their mother out at work and their father otherwise occupied, and so when the doorbell rang they felt they had no choice but to go and answer it. This is how it all started that night. They opened the door and found nobody there. Perhaps sighing to themselves in curiosity and bemusement, they closed the door again. This same thing would happen twice more. The family's St. Bernard was acting bizarrely - crouched underneath a chair in the living room as if frightened. Nevertheless, the children decided to go outside and investigate when the doorbell was rung by a seemingly invisible hand for the third and final time. They all stood outside on the porch and searched for a possible culprit, still finding nothing except gently swaying stalks in the local cornfield and large, dark trees keeping watch in the distance.

The household settled down once more after the brief outbreak of strangeness, but this calm was not to last. About half an hour after the doorbell had rung for the last time, the witness's eldest brother went out to the refrigerator while his siblings and cousins played in the hallway. The other children got the shock of their lives when he suddenly rounded the corner, sobbing '*hysterically*' with his hands pressed to his face. He ran into his parents' bedroom and threw himself down onto the bed, landing on his stomach and continuing to cry inconsolably. The other kids gathered round him and asked him what he'd seen - and when he finally stopped crying he explained to the best of his ability. He had been by the refrigerator when he had caught sight of something peeking around a nearby tree. It had motioned for him to '*come out*' - causing him to panic and start crying. It took him a further fifteen minutes to properly calm down.

I can imagine that the children all jumped with fright when a loud knocking came from the back door of the house. Outside the back door was a road that led to two other houses, and there was a lake behind those buildings. There used to be a small swamp on the other side of that small road, but it had dried up over the years. It would've been possible to see both of the other houses from the witness' home during Winter or Autumn, but the trees and bushes had grown so thick during the Summer and Spring that they were obscured. The knocking sounded desperate, and the children crept towards the door and pulled it open. There was a man there, seemingly '*white as a sheet*' with terror. He was shaking, and told the kids that he had broken down a little away from their house and that he had heard something in the woods with him when he had been walking up the road. He had panicked, and so had sought refuge in the nearest house with its lights on. Not knowing quite what to do with the terrified motorist, the kids eventually resorted to calling their uncles – who lived just next door to them. They arrived just a few minutes later, armed with their shotguns.

The uncles talked to the motorist, and the witness believes that one of them was eventually able to take him home. After the motorist had gone home, the uncles went outside to take a look around. The witness’ cousin and her eldest sister also volunteered to help in the search. As soon as they opened the door, however, the family’s St. Bernard did everything it could to put itself in-between them and the outside world. It growled and stood there until the girls backed up away from the door – at which point the dog ran off into the house, allowing the girls to go outside anyway. They stood outside on a small, forested trail which led down to the road by the back door of the house. This was presumably the trail taken by the motorist to get up to the house. The family lived on a hill, and at the bottom of this hill, the search party of four could see what they initially took to be a tree-stump – until this tree stump moved and turned to look at them. The witness remembers her cousin saying that it had red eyes, though she places some doubt on this point in her BFRO report. Frightened, the group went back inside immediately.

However, seemingly letting her curiosity get the better of her, the cousin left the house once more through the back door, walking around the house towards the front. When she got the corner of the building, she looked up towards the garage belonging to the witness’ uncle – and saw something peeking around the wall and looking towards their house. She initially thought that it was one of the family’s other cousins, but then she noticed that it had a cone-shaped head. I can only assume that she fled in terror at this point.

The uncles eventually put the three youngest children to bed, including the witness and her sister, as well as their youngest brother. It was now roughly 11:00PM, but the girls couldn’t sleep. They were literally shaking in terror, not daring to even look towards the window above their brother’s crib for fear of seeing something come to the glass. This fear, unfortunately, would not be unfounded. A large shape passed outside the window, and the girls were overcome with panic. They waited in bed for their parents to get home, as time ground slowly onwards. When the parents finally arrived, the children and the uncles immediately told them what had happened. Their mother ended up calling a spiritual guide to come take a look at the situation – and he said that there had probably been three creatures out there that night. Apparently, one of the entities might have lost one of its children, and was looking for a boy to kidnap as a replacement.

In total, five out of six of the children present at the house that night saw something they couldn’t explain. The witness assumes that the uncles must have seen the creatures as well, but she never talked to them about it – and one of them died sometime before 2001. She said that there had been some other events around the property from 1996 to 2001, and that her boyfriend had also experienced the phenomenon. A BFRO investigator spoke to the witness and said that she had claimed that Spring was when the creatures seemed to be most active, and that she had noticed a bad odour in conjunction with one of the sightings. Strange footprints would later be found near Rice Lake.