My Bigfoot Encounter — Wood Knocks, Chest Gumps, and the Ridge Roar at Elk Meadow June 21–22, 2014. First annual Bigfoot Community Campout at Elk Meadow, 67 miles north of Willow Creek. Deb, Dee, and I spent about 24 hours there. I walked north alone past an empty campsite, continued 300–400 yards, and stood still on a large fallen tree. I heard a clear wood knock to my right. I waited motionless for about 35 minutes. When I took a few steps down the log, another knock rang out — substantial and singular, not a woodpecker. I waited another 10 minutes, heard nothing more, and headed back. When I returned, Thom said Jackie, Dee, and Deb had walked south along the road and heard strange noises near a burned section. Deb had felt uneasy about the spot and said so. They heard what we called a “gump” — a deep gulp crossed with a very low-frequency thump felt in the chest. Jackie said it reminded her of gorilla sounds. She howled and knocked trees, but only more gumps came back. That night around the campfire I whooped and we wood-knocked. Later we heard one very large tree break from the southwest. We also heard a delicate “coo” and a “whoop” that seemed to come from just the other side of the creek. Deb and Dee, sitting side by side, thought the coo was right over their shoulders. Dee got up unsettled. Deb went to the tent. To us it sounded like a young female because of the sweetness and gentleness of the tone. I missed the coo (I was getting firewood) but I clearly heard the whoop. I looked at the others. It was “WHOOOP.” Not an owl, not a bear. We had just been saying the same thing into the brush minutes earlier, and we heard it answered back. The next morning Deb, Dee, and I walked south along the road. About half a mile in, Deb said she felt ill and that they didn’t want us going further. Moments later we began hearing and feeling the gumps. It was the first time I heard them. Deb turned back. Dee and I continued to a bend in the road and got gumped more — 5 or 6 per burst, bursts 1 to 3 minutes apart, coming from down the slope west of the road and resonating in the chest. Dee tried to record it on her phone. The frequency was too low to register. We started back, cracking some logs hard against trees and stopping to listen. Nothing answered. We picked up the pace. Then a protracted roar howled from the upper ridge above and east of the road. It lasted 15–20 seconds. As it ended, Dee looked up to her right and said, “OMG something is coming down the mountain at us!” We both froze. Immediately the gumps started again, this time from behind me to the west. Whatever had been gumping earlier had followed, or there was more than one. That was the point where the coincidences stopped working as an explanation. We waited, then returned to camp. We described what happened. Three very loud tree knocks answered — the third so hard it sounded more like a crash. Deb later told us that on her way back alone she had been followed by chest-thumping from both the west and the ridge to the east. She finally said out loud for them to leave her alone and go pester Dee and me instead. The thumping shifted to us. I asked Thom if any animal up there made that gumping sound. He said there was a bird that made something similar, but it started slow and increased in frequency. What I heard was fixed frequency, and birds don’t produce infrasound that feels like a bass drum in the chest. There were a few other things I can add in replies, but this is the bulk of what I found most significant. I already believed these beings were real. What I wanted was my own experience to bring it more fully into my scope of reality. This did that. It was a life-changing event for me.