8. In 1924, a group of miners claimed they fought a battle against aggressive Sasquatches
1924 was a busy year for Bigfoot. For another group of people encountered the creature, and lived to tell the tale (this time in the same year, which casts further doubt on Ostman’s story). A group of miners prospecting in the Mount St. Helens area of Washington, came across giant, unexplained tracks from time to time. In mid-July 1924, the group began hearing ‘shrill, peculiar whistling each evening’, which seemed to be an exchange between creatures on neighboring ridges, along with ‘a booming, thumping sound just like something was hitting itself on its chest’.
As a precaution, the confused men took rifles with them to collect water from the spring one evening. Upon arrival, the men saw ‘a hairy creature… about a hundred yards away… about seven feet tall with blackish-brown hair’, and fired three shots at it. Returning to the cabin, the men all agreed to leave at first light. Unfortunately for the frightened miners, the events would escalate quickly. About midnight, the men were awoken by ‘a tremendous thud against the cabin wall’, and realized that they were surrounded by a group of very angry apes, three of which they saw through the damaged cabin wall.
As the night continued, these alleged creatures threw huge rocks at the cabin, while some of the beasts climbed on the roof. Most alarmingly, one of the miners recalled: ‘a most profound and frightening experience occurred when one of the creatures, being close to the cabin, reached an arm through the chinking space and seized one of our axes by the handle’. The ‘apes’ were dissuaded for intervals only by gunfire. As they left the next morning, one of the men shot a creature 80 yards away three times. The body was (of course) never found, but the area received the infamous name of Ape Canyon.