Friday, October 28, 2011

The Bruce Barraclough Eyewitness Account

Who is this Bruce Barraclough?
I had never heard of him until a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to listen to his radio show. Another radio show? Several people told me that his show was actually pretty good and I should give it a listen. I then received a message from Bruce and we introduced ourselves and soon I was on the phone with him writing up an article on his incredible encounter he experienced on his recent Squatching expedition. Enjoy!

Bruce Barraclough- North Eastern Anomalous Research

Georgia Incident-October 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th, 2011

Location: Northern part of Georgia, in the Chattahoochee National Forest

Bruce and his group consisting of 4 members were invited to research with Jan Allen and his group, the GBRI (Georgia Bigfoot Research and Investigation.) They arrived at the location on Friday afternoon about 4:30 and began unloading their gear from the vehicle when a member of the other team yelled out, “Up the road one just ran across the road!” The sighting occurred approximately 100-150 yards from base camp. Is this possible? Could they actually have activity already? Bruce could tell this was going to be a very interesting weekend.

They continued to set up camp. It was a quiet evening with the group sitting around the campfire getting to know each other and sharing stories of their personal squatching adventures. At 2:30 am Bruce was assigned the first night watch. He heard some rustling and movement in the woods, but nothing unusual for nighttime activity. At 5 am he woke up another team member to take over the watch. He decided to stay up and chat then they hiked about 50 yards up the road and made some wild animal calls . Nothing happened. They walked about 10 feet up the trail when a rock came sailing at them from behind! They did more calls and nothing else happened.

They returned to camp and the other group members awoke and the new day had begun. The girl who spotted the bigfoot crossing the road the previous afternoon took them to the point where she saw it cross and they found prints. Bruce walked further into the woods and found a tree broken in half, the tree was placed upside down on another tree, he looked around and discovered 3 more of the same exact tree formations forming a triangular area. There was also a bent and twisted fir tree.

They took pics headed back to camp ate lunch then split into 2 teams. Two members stayed at base camp and the other 2 groups split up. Bruce’s team headed towards the area with the tree formations, the other group stayed on the trail. About a mile down the road the other team did tree knocks. Silence. Bruce did tree knocks, again, silence. They did a rock knock then and they got a loud response. On the hike they noticed what appeared to be mountain lion tracks. Bruce being sick with the flu realized he couldn’t descend the hill any further. He stayed behind with a 45 mm weapon as the others continued down the trail. They realized there was heavy movement in the canyon below. Bruce continued on back to base camp. He then heard something heavy being thrown. He then experienced violent tree shaking. He quickened his pace. He felt and heard footsteps assuming he was being followed.

Not being embarrassed he then began talking to his guest. He offered a drink from his canteen to the unknown stalker and left his canteen on the middle of the trail.

He radioed the other group and asked them to retrieve his canteen when they returned. A while later they radioed him and asked him if he had left a turtle shell on top of the canteen!

He joined them to see for himself and discovered the canteen had a turtle shell on top of the emptied canteen!

He believes that the forest visitor left him a gift.

They returned to base camp to discuss the event. Of course adrenaline is running high. A half hour into their discussion Bruce decided to set up trail cams.

He baited the area with every snack item he had in his possession. And nothing touched the items.

Another member had watch that evening and experienced constant movement and the next morning they found various sizes of tracks and they cast them.

He claims that at early dawn, in the blue of the light, he saw a large dark creature run past camp.

Looking for a food source for the creatures, Bruce took his team down the trail they only saw a few deer and a couple of berry bushes. They saw abandoned mines on the map but didn’t find them.

He has no idea what they are eating.

A 19 ½ inch track was photographed, but it was older and had some water damage.

Around 3 pm another person claims to have seen another one run across the trail! They took off in pursuit of the creature but were soon consumed by the heavy foliage. They were then in a vulnerable position so they returned to camp.

Around dusk they set out glow sticks. (cam lights) 4 on every other tree. They split up in 2 groups about 200 yards from each other. No one was left at Base Camp Lots of movement on parabolic. His camcorder battery dies. Instead of going back to base camp with everybody he headed back to camp with his Gen 3 night vision scope and his 45mm. He walked up the trail alone about 100 yards and could see the base camp he saw the campfire then off to the left he saw 2 sets of eye shine. He began making noise to scare off the creatures in case it was bear or deer, but then as he glanced back towards the camp, he saw the huge creature step in front of a tree and stop and stand there and stare at him, motionless. He could see clearly through the Gen 3. He reached for his weapon but couldn’t release it from the holster. He grabbed the radio and called for the group to return to the camp.

From the Gen 3 he assumed the creature was dark brown to black in color. It appeared to be 8 feet using a 6’5” team member as a guide.
The creature puffed up his chest and put out his arms (like a body builder) and turned and stomped into the woods.

It ducked behind a tree on the right hand side, then ducked down behind another tree on the left hand side. Then was gone.

Bruce collapsed from the emotions and needed to use his asthma inhaler. His emotions ran from fear, to exhilaration. Emotions too overwhelming to process.

Then during the night watch they noticed one of the glow sticks begin to move…he decided to wait till others were awake, to go check out the glow stick.

About a half hour before waking the next crew for watch, he heard branches breaking, heavy movement. He got the weapon out and called out into the woods warning that he had the gun out in case someone was messing with him.
He woke up the others and went to check the glow stick. They found out that the glow stick was removed and tied to a lower branch.

He was going into the tent when he caught sight of something. A formation of branches was placed next to his tent! This had to have been the breaking and rustling he heard while he was on his watch. Now it was personal!
To be continued and hopefully photos will be added...

3 comments:

  1. Great material. I put a link from my site, Bigfoot Ballyhoo, to this one. I hope you don't mind. If you do, just tell me and I'll take it off. Thanks, Linda Newton-Perry

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  2. Anonymous2:41 PM

    I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated by the reporters reactions in this encounter. Yeah…I know; how would I react etc. etc., BUT if we’re going to conduct meaningful field research we have to abide by a couple of imperatives. While these are opinions belonging to me and my associates, I hope that readers will trust that they are based on good information and valid experience, (All I can say at this point). The first imperative is: NO guns, or if they are taken afield they must remain totally invisible at all times(before leaving the trailhead to after the conclusion of the outing and complete exit from the habitat.), and only drawn in a true life and death scenario. But: your chances of being assaulted by sasquatch are much, much less than being attacked by a black bear. Sasquatch understand guns intimately, they look for them and are very distrustful of anyone carrying them. All high tech devices create distrust. The inclusion of a detectable firearm may escalate an encounter into a very aggressive response depending on the individual creature’s family history regarding firearms. The other absolute must is that field researchers refrain from using any night vision (starlight) night vision devices that utilize an infrared LED light source), or camera devices (camera traps) utilizing the same.

    Very important is the idea that we should adopt an attitude of reverence…even sacredness for the sasquatche’s immediate environment. The same as if you were visiting a dignitary holding high office somewhere—high respect.

    Leave tasty food gifts at every opportunity. Playing melodic guitar music around a campfire is a good thing, if you’re in the right place you’ll have an unseen audience. Ladies; while afield realize you are probably being admired secretly, and by all means, sing softly while hiking. (never alone though)

    Be unobtrusive;
    This means no, non-sense signaling, (you don’t know what it may inadvertently communicate), with wood knocking or imitation calls or even call blasting. Should you believe as many do that sasquatch is fooled by this kind of crap…think again!
    I watched a few minutes of FB last night; until I started getting angry and sickened by the ignorance portrayed by the actors involved—I switched over to Spongebob reruns (makes much more sense). If they only realized how ignorant and unscientific they appear, they would all be hiding under rocks instead of stupidly throwing them in the woods. They do the creature a great disservice: what decent scientist would have anything to do with investigating the phenomenon for fear of even being associated television specials such as FB. It takes an incredibly dedicated scientist (a true scientist) to publicly acknowledge the probable existence of sasquatch.
    If sasquatches have a sense of humor (and I’m pretty certain they do) they have to be laughing their big butts off! The common mistake all these yahoos make is assuming they are smarter than the creature. They consistently and severely underestimate their quarry. The sasquatch has a particular, innate, and as well, finely developed intelligence with which it perceives its environment. Again they understand our technology in an organic context and they are not fooled by camera traps (excepting a rare case involving inexperienced juveniles), fake, poorly imitated calls, whoops, or samurai chatter, woodknocking, and rock throwing, pheromone lures etc. etc. Any resident creatures within a particular territory know immediately when humans (and especially buffoons) enter. Actions by amateur field researchers have had the net effect of increasing the species knowledge and confidence of human behavior, which has possibly led to increased casual sightings. (Maybe a good thing)

    Yeah…there’s a squatch in them woods—but you’ll never see him.

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  3. Anonymous3:09 PM

    This was the wrong guy to be out looking for Bigfoot.

    He was terrified most of the time and every sound or movement to him was Bigfoot. On top of that he seemed to ready to shoot at something.

    He's in the wrong business.

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