Part 2 of Cliff Barackman's Research in the Oregon Cascades

The knock came from the thick woods to Will's north. It seemed to be responding to either the sound of the car door shutting, or to the dome light being turned off. Either way, the sasquatch was monitoring Will's campsite. I thought it best to not walk up the road quite yet in case my presence would shut down the situation. Being patient, I decided to sit in the dark and listen a while longer.

About twenty or thirty minutes later, another knock came from Will's north. This time, it was a double knock. Multiple knocks always give me pause. Often (but not always), multiple knocks occur in quantities that match the number of people present. This could be just a coincidence considering I usually go bigfooting either alone or in pairs, and I usually hear one or two knocks. Still, in the light of recent primate research, this sort of coincidence deserves some thought. They might be counting us and communicating our numbers to other bigfoots nearby.

After this double knock, Will suggested that I join him. I readied my mobile thermal imager and took the long dark walk to Will's camp. I moved at a snail's pace both to thoroughly scan my surroundings in hopes of capturing a sasquatch on video, as well as to not crash Will's party, so to speak. After a ten minute stroll, I came upon Will sitting on his tailgate scanning the woods with his thermal imager.

We engaged in a whispered conversation detailing our experiences and assumptions of the previous knocking events. Directions from where the sounds came from were indicated without pointing into the woods (it is my opinion based on an experience I had several years ago that sasquatches don't like to be pointed at). Before too long, another loud and clear knock rang from the dark woods to the north. Was this a signal that another human (me) had joined the first? Was there another sasquatch listening nearby to interpret these signals, whatever they might mean?

Giddy like school children, we strained our ears to hear whatever the forest might tell us about the ape man (or is it man ape?) we suspected was nearby. For quite a while, the forest gave us nothing to go on besides the usual clicks and clacks of the night. Eventually, we heard the most dubious knock of the night which seemed to come from quite a ways to the west of our location. I cannot say with much certainty that this was a knock, but it was significantly louder than the other snaps and noises the forest makes. It was just too distant to tell.

After another long silence, I decided to head back to my camp. The walk was long and slow as I scanned the meadows and marshes that dotted the roadside. I returned to my truck and settled down to listen once more. Shortly thereafter, Will radioed me to tell of another loud, clear knock this time coming from his south. It seemed that he had been flanked without knowing it. This knock was to be the last of the night.

Recordings of two of the knocks have been posted on my website. You can hear them by clicking here. As usual, the recordings do not do the sounds justice. You just had to have been there...

Morning brought another onslaught of mosquitoes and warm temperatures. We walked through the woods and on the roads looking for signs of our nocturnal visitors from the night before. Finding nothing, we debated about what to do.

By staying one more night, we would run the risk of shutting down any activity. However, the sasquatches might be a little ticked off that we were there again and come down on us a little heavier than they had before. We eventually decided to stay one more night instead of moving locations.

The day passed at a leisurely pace since we had nothing in particular to do. While on a drive, Will saw a large black bear run across the road ahead of his vehicle a few miles from camp. Later in the afternoon, Will's brother joined us for the night in his own vehicle.

Unfortunately, no bigfoot activity was noted that night. In a way, this was fortuitous because I had a "control group" sort of night against which I could gauge the knocks from the previous evening. If there had been several loud knocks that night as well, it could have been possible that these sounds just happen there for some other reason.

It had been a great weekend. Hearing the unsolicited howl on Thursday night was a real treat. Getting six knocks the following night was even cooler, but mostly because the sasquatches were much closer. I can't wait to get out in the woods again. I won't have to wait very long, either. More on that soon.