The following is a memory that was recounted by an individual who stated they had two back-to-back encounters with cryptid animals at age 11 while camping at Spanish Peaks, a pair of mountains surrounded by wilderness about 180 miles south of Denver.
In this report, the witness depicts two sightings of two distinctly different cryptid animals within the span of 24 hours.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word cryptid as “An animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the yeti.” For the following witnesses to living cryptids, there is no dispute. In this series of National Cryptid Society’s case files, you will read what the witnesses have experienced in their own words.
Keep an open mind when reading these accounts, and also remember one’s perception and memory of an event can be influenced by the emotions felt at the time of the occurrence. The contributors to this series of articles are doing the best they can to recount what are in some cases very shocking and traumatic experiences.
If you have a personal cryptid sighting story you would like to tell us, our contact information is at the bottom of this article.
NCS Case File #42: Memory of Giant Alligator and Bigfoot Encounter Back-To-Back in the Shadow of Spanish Peaks.
Submitted by: Nathan
Location: Spanish Peaks, Colorado
Date 2003
The witness described a memory of a huge alligator or crocodile (by his recollection it was 30 feet in length) in a swampy / marsh area Northwest of the camp. [Sunday July 20, 2003]
“I remember seeing a reptile coming out of the swamp marsh and getting a bear carcass gulping it in one bite. Then it went in the swamp hissing and growling. It looked at me darted into the swamp and quickly came darting towards [my direction]. I heard the roar the creature made; it was similar to the American alligator but higher pitched.”
The witness also recounts another encounter the next day, this time the creature was described as a large Bigfoot.
“I was speed walking up the road because it was raining kind of hard. And yes it was muddy. When I got to the curve on the dirt road, I could feel something near me. The smell of this thing was like cooked eggs but it smelled pretty bad, it was so strong that I looked up.
There he was, the mysterious ape-like creature ( sasquatch, bigfoot, etc..) 4 to 6 feet away from me. I was not terrified of the creature or anything I just looked up and he was at least 10 to 12 feet tall 900-1,000 + lbs. His hair wet and musky but smells beyond way worse than I had imagined.
His eyes were yellow brown. And he looked at me with those eyes and they were like piercing type. It shuffled its feet and the legs were kind of bent like if you see a chimpanzee. It still haunts my mind just like yesterday and then he turned around and then I saw his foot print and then I heard this howling growling; nearly demonic type roaring scream. That was the scariest thing I had ever heard.”
The witness stated that the creature turned and ran into the woods. The entire encounter took between five and ten minutes.
NCS Notes:
- In 1996, 44 miles Northwest of the above reported encounter, a 6-foot tall creature was observed jumping between trees.[i]
- Three years after the above Bigfoot sighting in 2006, there was another sighting of a 7 to 8 foot tall reddish-brown Bigfoot observed from a vehicle on Ideal Road, which is ten miles Northwest of the Spanish Peaks camp.[ii]
- Several cattle mutilations occurred 13 miles northeast of Walsenburg between August 8th and August 17th 2014. (This report may / may not be related to the Bigfoot sighting, but it does show that the area has had some strange goings on in the last few years). The details of these mutilations were covered in-depth by UFO and paranormal field investigator Chuck Zukowski.[iii]
- Alligator and large reptile sightings in Colorado are more prevalent than one might believe (see below).
- In 1978, an alligator of unknown size was captured from the Boulder Country Club in Boulder, Colorado.[iv]
- Two alligators escaped from a roadside zoo and managed to make it into the Colorado River near into the Colorado River near Fruita, Colorado.[v]
- Multiple reports of alligators were made around Riverbend Park in Palisade, Colorado in July of 2010. [From KKCO 11 News]: “…a group of kids playing near the water at Riverbend Park raised the alarm when they say they spotted an alligator on the bank. They say their parents didn’t believe them, but a bystander did. “Everybody thought we were crazy. These ladies said we must be blind or seeing things. But this guy saw it too and he saw it go into the water. And he was trying to tell everyone we weren’t being crazy.”[vi]
- In August of 2016, two girls playing the once-popular Pokemon Go mobile phone game found a two-foot long baby alligator or caiman in Goldsmith Gulch, Colorado.[vii]
- Mysterious Universe published an article in 2016 titled “Mysterious Living Dinosaurs of the Wild West” in which several accounts in Colorado (among other Western states) of large, dinosaur-like reptiles are described.[viii]
- To our knowledge, no living alligator has been known to reach 30 feet, even if the estimated length has been exaggerated by time and memory, it is not out of the realm of possibility that the witness did in fact see an alligator in the shadow of the Spanish Peaks given the number of similar reports from Colorado that continue to the present day.
- The witness also stated that he informed camp staff about the incidents at the time.
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References
[i] http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=4614
[ii] http://www.oregonbigfoot.com/report_detail.php?id=04143
[iii] http://www.ufonut.com/multiple-animal-mutilations-eight-cows-dead-in-walsenburg-colorado/
[iv] https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=221
[v] https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=221
[vi] http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/99511104.html
[vii] http://999thepoint.com/gator-found-in-colorado-while-sisters-play-pokemon-go/
[viii] http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/07/mysterious-living-dinosaurs-of-the-wild-west/
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