The Bigfoot phenomenon has grown to be quite a bizarre feature of the world of the weird. These massive hairy creatures have been spotted all over the world, in places where they should have no business being such as England, and in literally every U.S. state, including yes, even Hawaii. These beasts are sighted in both remote areas and even in relatively urban locales, and it has all proven to be quite a mystery as to just what is going on here. Among the various other unlikely places one would expect to find a Bigfoot is on military bases, yet there have been a surprisingly large number of reports from such locales, and here are a few.

Several encounters with large hairy hominids roaming about military installations come to us from the 1970s, with one notable and very dramatic one occurring at the Fort Lewis U.S. Army Military Installation in the state of Washington, which lies sprawled out right against a rather untamed wilderness area. In 1978 a very strange sighting was made on the base grounds by a soldier named Edwin Godoy, who at the time was on his way back from training exercises one evening along with some platoon mates. The truck allegedly suddenly and without warning sputtered to a halt at around 8 PM and could not be restarted, prompting the others to venture back to base on foot. Since Godoy had been the one to sign out the truck that day he stayed behind alone to keep an eye on the vehicle until it could be towed away in the morning.

As he sat there by himself in the dark surrounded by the spooky sounds of the nighttime forest, a little after midnight Godoy’s attention was allegedly drawn to a massive figure skulking about and looming near a stand of trees around 300 meters away. As he stared he could make out that whatever it was was very tall and broad, and covered with what looked like hair all over its body, and rather eerily possessing eyes that seemed to glint or glow. The figure was described as “swinging his body sideways” and staring directly at the lone, frightened witness. Things got rather harrowing when this hulking brute purportedly began to break out into a run directly towards Godoy, who would describe the following dramatic events thus:

That thing started running towards me, so I shouted a halt three times, asking that thing to stop and identify itself. As it wouldn’t reply I made a first shot to the air and then I shot at him or ‘it’, I don’t know how to call it. The hairy thing grabbed its chest and emitted a loud moan, stopped and then ran to his right, disappearing into the forest.

Godoy was left there shaking and terrified, yet out there alone in the night surrounded by darkened trees and with no way out of there except on foot. He decided to lock himself in his truck, although he was also well aware that this would be little protection from the enormous hairy beast, which was probably none too happy about having been shot. There would be no sleep for him that night, and when the tow truck arrived at 6 AM in the morning he was still there wide eyed and clutching his weapon close.

When Godoy told the tow truck mechanics what had transpired the previous evening, they skeptically went out to where the thing had been standing and much to their surprise found very large footprints pressed into the ground by something massive and heavy. Even more surprising was blood found on the ground, which was assumed to have been that of the wounded monster. This is where the whole story gets even more bizarre.

According to Godoy, the mechanics made a secretive radio call and not long after a group of men in what appeared to be lab coats and thick rubber gloves descended upon the area taking samples of the blood and making casts of the footprints. The whole time Godoy claims that he was not allowed to speak to anyone at all, and that he was kept to the side away from what was going on. The perplexed Godoy was then whisked away to the base hospital, but rather than be looked at by the usual medical staff he was examined by a doctor who was from the Air Force, which was odd considering it was an Army installation.

This doctor was apparently ranked as a full Colonel, and rather than disbelieving Godoy seemed very interested in every last detail of the encounter. This mysterious doctor was particularly concerned with any anomalous physical symptoms that Godoy may have been experiencing, such as headaches, dizziness, or a tingling sensation, of which the witness had none. Godoy was then thoroughly examined and had blood, skin, and urine samples carefully collected, after which he was told to return to his barracks and told in no uncertain terms to never mention a word of what had happened to him. This all gets even more far-out still, when Godoy was apparently later approached by a hospital worker by the name of L. Robles, who seemed to come to him secretly and allegedly said:

I, together with two other guys, had to analyze the blood samples taken from the ground, and we now you are the soldier involved because it was stated as such in the report…” And you know? It’s crazy, but… what the hell was it you shot out there? When we examined the blood samples we found out three weird things in it… That blood contained human blood cells, animal blood cells…and chlorophyll. Man, that’s incredible! What the hell was it?

Godoy stayed true to his orders not to tell anyone, and declined to explain anything to Robles. The whole thing would have likely been forgotten and swept under the carpet forever if it were not for a chance meeting with Godoy made by a paranormal researcher from Puerto Rico named Jorge Martín many years later, as the witness was vacationing in Cabo Rojo with his wife. It was here that Godoy would relate the whole outlandish tale to Martín and the story would finally come out.

Also from the 1970s there was a strange account related by Bigfoot researcher Doug Trapp at the Sasquatch Chronicles blog. Through interviews with various military personnel at California’s Edward’s Air Force Base, who spoke under condition of anonymity, Trapp has been able to piece together a very bizarre story of desert Bigfoot haunting the locale for years. One of the men interviewed was a a Lieutenant in charge of security in the sector of Edward’s AFB near Rogers Dry Lake, who was at the base from 1972 to 1975.

This unnamed Lieutenant informed Trapp that the base’s security force spent a lot of time using armed sentries, motion sensing equipment, and starlight scopes on the lookout for trespassers wandering into the area, especially curiosity seekers who were interested in all of the UFO conspiracies that have orbited Edwards Air Force Base for years. One evening the witness claimed that there was a perimeter breach, and the guard who had detected it cryptically described the intruder as being “a very tall man, but not really a man.” When the Lieutenant went out to talk to the guard he too saw the thing, whatever it was. Trapp would write of the scene unfolding:

Through the starlight scope he could clearly see that this was not a man. It was a very tall, hair-covered, ape-like man walking through the desert. He said the animal appeared to be looking at the desert floor in search of something. The animal was about 500 yards distant, but the scope was very powerful and tripod mounted so it could be observed clearly. Both men continued to observe the animal as it wandered around almost aimlessly. He then reported to his superiors of the activity and was told to keep the animal in sight. This was no problem as the animal remained in the area. About five minutes later a helicopter was heard approaching the area, then it was seen coming in fast from the east. They continued to observe the animal which continued its activity. The helicopter came in over a rock-pile, then the animal “spooked.” It looked at the helicopter, turned, and ran “like a deer” around a rock-pile and out of sight.

A full search of the area offered up not a trace of where the strange trespasser had gone, and the whole thing was reported to superiors the following day. It was then that the Lieutenant was apparently told that these creatures were sporadically spotted around the base, and he was told to continue to keep an eye on the situation. Over the next few years he would reportedly spot these creatures several more times, and he even claimed that they had been captured on surveillance video footage, although this evidence was unfortunately, or perhaps conveniently, classified. Then he was moved away from the base and that was that. It is very intriguing, but then again this witness also claimed that there were alien spaceships kept on the base and that the Sasquatch might have been connected, so make of that what you will. If real, it all is a very intriguing look at Sasquatch in the desert.

A second officer interviewed by Trapp was a Major serving at the base from 1970 to 1978, and he too had his own odd stories to tell. This witness not only confirmed the previous reports, but also claimed that the things were known to prowl about in the various subterranean tunnels said to fan out in the depths under the base. This witness also confirmed that the Sasquatch had been filmed on surveillance cameras numerous times, but that these were also top secret. A third soldier interviewed was described as a “security grunt,” who claimed to have witnessed these Bigfoot several times through night-vision starlight scopes. Trapp would say of this man’s testimony:

He told me that he had seen a couple of Sasquatches that stood over ten feet high, had seen “obvious” females (one with a young one walking with her), and once saw a group of five Sasquatches walking together, all over six feet tall with the tallest about eight feet tall. They were fully hair-covered except the palms of their hands, the base of their feet, and their face. He said their face resembled an ape with very small eyes, a flat nose, and ape-like lips. The arms were long and slung down to the knees. He said their feet were like ours, without an arch, as they had tracked them through the desert several times. When I asked him about the surveillance videos, he told me that he knew of them but was not involved in that. He said only officers were allowed to videotape the creatures or UFOs.

Interestingly, all of the base personnel had apparently been given strict orders not to harm the creatures in any way, and this third witness said that he believed this was one reason why they gravitated to the area, because they “knew” they were safe there. Again, it is hard to know whether any of this is real in any sense or not, but desert Sasquatch are not unheard of and two of these witnesses were high ranking, so one is left to wonder just what is really going on here.

In the winter of 1979 there was an intriguing report published on the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) website from the US Army Signal School-Fort Gordon-Small Arms Impact Area in Richmond County, Georgia. The witness, known only as J.R.H., claimed that he had been near a ravine at South Prong Creek at around 2 PM when he was allegedly approached through the brush by broad and muscular “large man/ape creature,10′ to 10’6″ tall.” The face was described as being:

Rather like a Gorilla. Dark skin and Dark deep set eyes, the head sloped back and was Neanderthal shaped, had no eyebrows,prominent lips but not protruding, jutting square chin, no ears or teeth were seen,prominent nostrils slight nose (not flat like a gorilla) and an aged look to the face.

Contrary to many Bigfoot reports of an obnoxious stench, this particular individual was reported as having no discernible odor. The witness reportedly backed slowly away back to his truck and got out of there. A later examination of the area would turn up footprints measuring a whopping 22 inches in length, as well as 20 to 30 rock piles and what appeared to be vomit containing deer skin with hair attached and egg corns not well chewed, as well as droppings laced with deerskin, egg corns, and tree bark. Other assorted sightings during the 1960s and 70s occurred around the ammo storage area of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which happens to be the largest military base in the world. Over the decades there were supposedly numerous sightings of hairy giants measuring 8 to 9 feet tall lurking about the site, which sits up against secluded wilderness and swampland. There were so many sightings that the creature even earned the nickname “The Manchester Monster.”

Moving into the 1980s, we come to an account from the spring of that year, which supposedly occurred at Fort Leonard Wood Army Base, in the state of Missouri, in the spring of 1982. At the time the soldiers on the base were engaged in an intensive 8-week training exercise, and for one Erik Youngdahl it would all be particularly memorable. During the Internet Virtual Bigfoot Conference in 1996, Youngdahl would tell Bigfoot researcher Cristopher Murphy that the soldiers had been driving along in the back of a military truck towards an engineer bridge crossing training site deep in the woods when he would observe a giant 7 foot tall hairy creature from the back of the vehicle. He would explain knew right away what he was seeing, and would say:

It is funny how this realization dawned on me because the immediate moment that I viewed him, there was not a doubt in my mind that the creature I observed was Bigfoot. I wasn’t looking for it, nor did I think that there have ever been sightings in that region of the country. It was automatic, boom, no doubt. What really surprised me was its coloration, which was a light brown color, almost like the color of cork on a bulletin board. That definitely is not a person, someone in a suit? No way. It did occur to me to alert the other trainees in the truck, but I immediately thought that by the time I did, they would awaken, crane their necks to look out the back, and by that time, not see anything. This all occurred to me in milliseconds.

Also in May of 1982 there was a late night encounter at the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton, California, in San Diego County, which was reported by the BFRO. The unidentified witness was involved at the time with a youth program consisting of a rigorous series of two week long mini-boot camps for teen-aged boys overseen by the Marines. On one calm evening the witness and around 300 boys on the camp settled down for the night, and the Marine ended up being one of the last awake on watch duty. As he patrolled the camp he says something very weird happened, which he would explain:

As I turned facing west and looked towards the closest edge of the perimeter I noticed a tall, dark, bulky figure standing about 15 meters beyond the last tent or 20 meters from where I stood. We seemed to be staring at each other, but it’s hard to say because I could not make out any of its facial definition, but I had a strong gut feeling that it was checking me out real good since I was the only thing moving around. I could feel my heart begin to pound and my entire body felt like it wanted to anchor to the ground. There was no doubt someone or something very odd and dangerous was standing there looking at me. I mean this thing was TALL and wide at the shoulders. I used my peripheral vision to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but it only confirmed what I already knew. It gently and slightly moved its upper body left and right ever so slowly as though looking around to its front, surveying the area. It was an easy 8 feet tall. Like I mentioned previously, all I could make out was its massive silhouette and no real detail features. It had very broad shoulders, little or no neck, dark, and looked very powerful.

The witness then allegedly grabbed a flashlight and went to investigate, but he would lose sight of whatever the creature was. It was all very disconcerting because he was in charge of several hundred untrained civilian teenagers and was unsure of just what he was dealing with. Luckily, nothing strange happened for the rest of the evening, but when the area was investigated in the morning there was found to be no sign of what it could have been, and it remains a mystery.

These are certainly strange cases, and it makes one wonder just what might draw these mysterious beasts to these places. If Bigfoot are indeed real then why should they want to gravitate towards these places of soldiers, weaponry, and machines of war? Are they curious as to what we are up to? Or is it the relative safety and isolation these places might provide? After all, these are secure bases well-protected from outsiders and acting as refuges in a sense, so maybe these beasts sense that they in a way have some sort of sanctuary here? There is no way to really know, and reports such as these just add further layers upon the weird world of the Bigfoot phenomenon.