MySource:Jlchaff/Flickering Memories: Folklore In the Bear Lake Valley

1972: BIGFOOT ENCOUNTER IN SOUTHERN IDAHO

Until Justin 'Judd' Phelps, resident of St. Charles (Idaho), disclosed his 1972 sightings, the Bigfoot phenomenon had not been reported outside of the Pacific Northwest. Phelps, a lineman-engineer on the Union Pacific Railroad, claims to have seen the creature in the depths of a canyon near St. Charles on January 2, 1972.

His (Bigfoot's) tracks were similar to a bear's but slimmer and about a size 13 in length. They sunk about a foot into the snow. Each time the creature was sighted, it stamped its feet and shook its head like a child in anger. Measured against a nine-foot (2.7 meter) tree, it measured six feet (1.8 meters) tall.

In hopes of catching a glimpse of the creature again, on January 2, 1972, Phelps left his St. Charles home on a snow machine and arrived at the place of his previous sighting around noon. It was bitter cold, so he built a fire.

He had been there about two hours and the fire was getting hot, so he decided to put a little snow on the fire and then he got a feeling that he was being watched.

It was between 1:30 and 2 p.m. He looked up from where he had been resting, stretched on his snow machine, and saw just 100 yards away, an ape-like creature with grayish-brown hair returning his gaze.

It was standing by a young pine tree, and when it saw Phelps look his way, it waved its arms and stomped its feet and headed for the deeper woods.

The first time Phelps saw the creature it frightened him and he fired above its head.

This time, however, he spoke soothingly to it and attempted to take a picture. When he pulled the self-developing (Polaroid) film from the camera, there was no figure on the scene, possibly because he had an older-model camera and his hands had been shaking while attempting to capture the creature on film.

Upon investigating the spot where he had seen the creature, he found tracks which had sunk about a foot (30 centimeters) into the loose snow. The snow at the site was six to eight feet deep, about two feet being new snow. He did not follow the trail.

Phelps tried two days later to make contact with the creature again but was unsuccessful.

(See FLICKERING MEMORIES: FOLKLORE IN THE BEAR LAKE VALLEY, Volume 2, by Bonnie Thompson, Printers Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, 1977, pages 59 and 60.)

(Editor's Note: Bear Lake, which straddles the state line between Utah and Idaho, is also the home of a Loch Ness-type plesiosaur, which has been seen sporadically during the past two hundred years. St. Charles, Idaho is the boyhood home of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who carved Mount Rushmore.)