Man claims he saw Bigfoot spying on his family during hike
Group reports smelling something musky, hearing grunts before sighting 


Associated Press - 


SELMA, Ore. _ Grants Pass, Ore., psychologist Matthew Johnson insists he's not crazy.

Even when he tells people that he heard, smelled and saw the Pacific Northwest's mythical Bigfoot while hiking Saturday with his family at the Oregon Caves National Monument.

"It was very tall; it was very hairy," Johnson said.

"It was nothing else but a sasquatch. I swear to God."

Johnson said he was squatting in the woods near one of the monument's backwoods trails when he spotted the creature standing upright about 60 feet away, hiding behind a tree and spying on his wife and three children.

He said that shortly before the sighting, his family had detected a pungent, musky scent on the trail and heard some deep, guttural groans in the woods nearby, as if the sound were following them.

"I lived a lot of years in Alaska," Johnson said. 

"I've been chased by a grizzly bear. This was no bear."

Johnson said he ran off to get his family and report the sighting to monument rangers.

Rangers checked the area Sunday and found "nothing unusual," monument Superintendent Craig Akerman said.

But the incident has caught the attention of Bigfoot researchers in Northern California, who spent part of Monday retracing the Johnson family's steps along the monument's Big Tree Trail.

Johnson said the researchers, accompanied by a monument ranger, found some partial prints in the area.

Bigfoot, or sasquatch, is the name given to a large, hairy, apelike creature reportedly living clandestinely in the woods of the Pacific Northwest.

This was the first known report of a sasquatch sighting at the monument, Akerman said.