While in the Canadian Tire parking lot, Chris Balatti, a long time acquaintance came up to me and started telling me about three Sasquatch that had been hanging around his property the whole summer the pervious year (2000). when I asked him why he waited a whole year to tell me this, he said that he didn't know who to contact. It was only when his grandchildren saw my name on the web did he learn of my interest in the Sasquatch. Arrangements were made to visit him at his home to get more details.
Chris Balatti's house is the last one on the left hand side of the road. Behind the lot and running back along the street for three quarters of a mile is a large area of undeveloped crown and park land. Behind the houses there is also a natural gas pipeline and the clearing for it is called the Pipeline Road. During the recession of the early 1980's a make work program, the heavy brush and scrub trees were removed and the area thinned out. A number of access trails were made by cutting the trees close to the ground. This area is well used by dirt motorcycles, mountain bikes, horse riders and hikers.
Above: Pipline Road behind Chris's home looking south towards Old Lakelse drive and the bench where it connects to old Lakelse Drive. Drive on the left runs into Chris's yard. Pictures taken in mid January, 2003. a few days later it snowed.
It is in this area, surrounded by houses and buildings that the Sasquatch were for the whole summer.
In early May 2000, Chris's seventeen year old granddaughter accompanied by a large sized dog was walking along Pipeline Road. About 150 feet past Chris's house, towards the hill was a flat area on top. Their dog suddenly pressed against the granddaughter's legs and stopped her. The granddaughter wondering why the dog was acting so strangely, she saw about 250 feet ahead of her, three hairy men crossing the road from the park to the brush on the other side. Two were brown and one was white.
Chris knew what these hairy men were.
Not long after this, Chris decided to take a horse back ride in the park. The horse refused to leave the Pipeline Road and enter the park and it was this way all summer. Also noted was all the dogs in the neighborhood were barking much more than usual.
Several times during the summer Chris walked through the area looking for signs of these creatures. All that was found were places on the moss that had a very strong unpleasant odor where the Sasquatch had apparently bedded down. It was also noted that all the wild berries had disappeared and no bear droppings were seen. A number of times his horse and the neighbors dogs were acting up and nothing could be seen to cause this at night.
During the summer, once he hung out an old work jacket on a high fence post that was on the bush side of his yard which he soon forgot about. When he finally thought about it and went to retrieve it several days later it was stinking strongly of urine and had to be washed. Apparently this is what the Sasquatch think of us humans.
Also during the summer a large tree came down across Pipeline Road and Chris cut it up for firewood. It was wheel barrowed in as it was needed. In mid October around 7:30 p.m. he went for another load of wood. With him was a Husky breed of dog that he was looking after. When he was heading out he noticed a group of kids on the road and they were taking their time in going home as it was getting dark.
When Chris reached the firewood which was at the location where the granddaughter was when she saw the hairy men. The dog was some distance further down the road investigating the roadside. Just as the first piece of wood landed in the wheelbarrow a loud scream came out of the bus across the Pipeline Road from the parkland and where the dog was sniffing around. The dog was paralyzed and didn't know what to do, but came to Chris when he was called.
He could also hear the voices of the concerned kids on the Road. The wheelbarrow was loaded and they started back. As they neared the fence of his property line there was another loud scream from the bush on the same side of the road which made the dog whimper with fear. The kids who were on the road had heard enough. From their scared voices and running feet it was obvious that they were clearing out.
Meantime, Chris was trying to calm the dog and at the same time talk to the creatures in the bush with a soothing voice that meant no harm. By now it was too dark to see any thing in the bush, but there were more screams. What he did was a number of "ough,ough,ough and some chatter which gradually moved away. It appears that there were at least two at this spot. It is my feeling that the screaming was at the dog for being so close and not at Chris.
A few days later, Chris began to make the sounds that he had heard and all the dogs within hearing distance would start barking. By mid November the dogs would no longer bark so franticly, so Chris tired his horse again. This time it went into the park. The dogs and horse knew that the Sasquatch were around even if the people didn't. Even with heavy use, these creatures despite their huge size managed to stay out of sight for the most part.
This is the next report on the Sasquatch. On the previous report Chris had first told me that in mid October 2001 what had happened the previous year (2000). Chris was rather hard to get a hold of at his home. Being retired and a widower, plus living alone he likes to spend a lot of time shooting the bull at the local watering hole. because of this the final details were not obtained until November 24, 2001.
Photo 2 here - TerraceMountain_Photo_2
Above: Terrace Mountain as seen from the road scales looking northwest. The white spot is a rock the graduation class usually paint their year on. The Sasquatch rock was in line to the left in the center of a discontinued power line which is the brown strip.
Photo 3 here - TerraceMountaintele_Photo_3
Above: Another view of Terrace Mountain, a closer look.
During the summer of 2001 there were no signs of Sasquatch in the park area. When mushroom picking season arrived, the park area became rather crowded so he went up Terrace Mountain. he also took his dog with him. while he was looking for mushrooms the dog was doing his own exploring. Chris's dog started a howling session so Chris went to investigate. When he arrived to where his dog was he saw about a 4x6 foot flat rock, on the rock were three big piles of strange looking scat. (animal droppings) Chris knew there weren't from a bear. Also his dog has never showed the slightest interest in bear droppings before. However the dog went owly over these scats. They were not touched but Chris kept a lookout for the creature after that. He has been up the mountain recently and found that recent heavy rains had washed two of them away. One was under an evergreen tree and was still intact. Also he had found three large footprints that has a six foot stride across a slide area. Chris approached Mike to see if he was interested in seeing this and would take him up on the mountain to have a look. Of course Mike was interested in seeing the scat as he felt it could not be faked. The only problems was that Mike is 83 years old and has arthritis in his left knee. Chris felt that Mike could make it by using his cane, so the next day, November 25, 2001 we went up to retrieve the scat, taking along an ice cream bucket and some plastic to pick it up.
Photo 4 here - Saspoo_Photo_4
Above: Alleged Scat picked up November 24, 2002. Weight was one pound, four ounces.
Photo 5 here - Saspoo_Photo_5
It all was as Chris had described it. There were only stains on the rock where the two other scats had washed down the sides. The base of the rock was checked and there was nothing there. I'm looking around and wondering what attracted the creature to this spot so often as there was no food here. Chris had already figured it out. This rock was in the center of a now discontinued power line right of way. a hundred yards below was a good view of a nature hiking trail. Below that was a busy road with a bridge across the Skeena River. It was the ideal place to do some people watching.
The scat was put in the pail and it was off to look at the tracks, there were three in an almost straight line across a narrow shale slide area. The footprints were just oblong depressions, four inches deep and about six feet apart. Chris is 6 ft 2 and weighs 280 pounds and left no visible footprints on the slide area, even just below the Sasquatch tracks. From this observation how much would a 10 foot tall Sasquatch weigh?
The scat weighed one and a quarter pounds. It was loaded with plum stones as if the creature had raided someone's orchard. About 1000 feet away on a bench was a sizeable housing area. Another member who drives a taxi counted nine plum trees in that area. Even though word had gone around that something was in the area .. nobody had reported seeing anything like this creature. During the summer of 2003, full reports were sent to the Washington State University, Oregon Field Guide and a B.C. Anthropologist. None replied even though they regularly appear on TV documentaries. A check was also made to the B.C. government and they have no testing facility for this type of work. And could offer no more help.
The plum stones that the Sasquatch ate are sharp and rough and are in the fasces. There is some headway being made to prove scientifically that the Sasquatch exists. In the meantime the scat was allowed to dry out and is now one third of its original size.
After we had picked up the Sasquatch scat, Chris told me of an incident that took place at the home of a long time mutual acquaintance. Due to the circumstances involved his name can't be given so we'll call him Jim. When I arrived at his home, Jim had been expecting me to drop by. The incident in question took place in summer around 1980. As with most people of that time he really didn't believe in wild people living in the woods.
One night about two a.m. he was awakened by some noise outside his bedroom window. There, silhouetted by the street lights, was a large human like figure that filled much of the five feet long and 3 feet high window. He thought that it was standing on a ladder because its head was near the top of the window which was 10 feet off the ground. Huge hands were on the window sill. The creature that he believed didn't exist .. was here at his bedroom window.
Thinking that the creature was trying to break in and fearing for his life, he hurried to the closet where he had a double barreled shotgun and a box of shells. Quickly loading the gun he went back to the window. There at point blank range he raised his shotgun to the center of the forehead and let go with both barrels. One after the other right through the glass. He then rushed to the shattered window to see the results of his marksmanship. To his disbelief he sees a huge human like figure high tailing it down the driveway to the road. At the speed it was going nothing on legs would have caught it. It would have been foolhardy to go outside in the dark, so the gun was reloaded and he went back to bed. In the morning there were huge footprints under the window but not a drop of blood could be found. The next question asked was about the color of the fur and he said it was white. The last question was if this had been reported to the police. His answer was that the police would never have believed him. There was no body, no blood, and the footprints could be fakes.
He would have probably been charged with dangerous use of a firearm in a residential area. The houses across the street were peppered with bird shot. However enough velocity was lost so no windows were broken. No damage was noticed. And no reports were made to the police.
It is safer to talk about it now as there is less skepticism that the Sasquatch exists. So what happened here ???? We can surmise that the creature saw movement in the room and decided to exit in a hurry. It moved just far enough aside for the hail of pellets to miss its head and ended up with a good scare and badly ringing ears.
There were no more reports of a Sasquatch peeking into any house windows. However, in my talking to loggers, there was mention of a Sasquatch doing similar things on the Queen Charlotte islands. This gives our local report some validity.
Another report came in from a logging crew. While on a logging site they saw at a distance, a human form. They were sure that what they were seeing was not a human.
I would like to request if anyone has been witness to a Sasquatch/Bigfoot I would really like to hear the story. Please contact brian at: hbccufo@telus.net Thank you, Brian Vike - The Vike Factor.
Brian Vike, The Vike Factor (Into The Paranormal) http://the-v-factor-paranormal.blogspot.com/
