AI Summary
5 min readColleen grew up on Sauvie Island, a 35-square-mile river island near Portland, Oregon, and thought of Bigfoot as a mascot—"like Smokey the Bear." That changed in September 2020, when she and her partner drove down a gravel access road toward open pasture and saw a tall, all-black figure step out from behind trees and cross diagonally in front of their car. It looked at her, held eye contact, and kept moving without changing pace. They stopped and watched it pause about 50–60 feet away, standing at the edge of a blackberry hedge, looking back at them for several seconds before ducking out of view. Colleen says she never thought "monkey" or "primate"—only "hairy person." She estimated its height at six and a half to seven feet, but later realized the blackberry brambles it stood beside were twelve feet tall, making her wonder if her brain had compressed the size into something more familiar.
The slow digestion of an encounter
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:03) **Introduction & Guest Background** - Host Jeremiah Byron welcomes Colleen, a lifelong Oregonian who grew up hunting, fishing, and camping, and who never took Bigfoot seriously until a specific event.
- 2 (06:08) **The First Sighting: A Hairy Person on the Road** - Colleen and her partner drive toward a cattle guard on a dirt road when a tall, all-black figure emerges from a trail and crosses diagonally in front of them.
- 3 (10:01) **The Aftermath: Silence and Disbelief** - Colleen and her partner never discussed the sighting, and their already strained relationship ended a few months later.
- 4 (13:40) **Vindication from a Skeptic** - Months later, the same skeptical friend called Colleen in the middle of the night, terrified because something was walking around his van on the island.
- 5 (16:14) **A Second Encounter: Lost, Stung, and Followed** - About six weeks before the interview, Colleen went for a hike near Skappoose, got lost off-trail, and was attacked by a nest of ground hornets, to which she is allergic.
- 6 (32:18) **Analyzing the "Click Click Clack"** - Colleen breaks down the anomalous nature of the sound, emphasizing its precise, intelligent rhythm and the deliberate pitch change on the third knock.
- 7 (35:04) **Recontextualizing Past Events on Sauvie Island** - After her recent experiences, Colleen re-evaluates strange occurrences from her time on the island, including owl calls that always seemed to respond to her.
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Show Notes
A quiet drive through Oregon farmland turns into a moment that stays with a witness for years.
In this episode of Bigfoot Society, Jeremiah Byron talks with Colleen, an Oregon outdoorswoman who spent her life hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping across the Pacific Northwest. During the fall of 2020 on Sauvie Island, she and her partner encountered a large black, humanlike figure crossing a remote access road in broad daylight. The figure looked directly at them, continued calmly across the road, then appeared to stop and watch them before disappearing into dense blackberry hedges.
As the years passed, Colleen began connecting that unforgettable encounter with other unexplained experiences from across Oregon. She shares reports of mysterious tree knocks while hiking near Scappoose, unsettling nighttime footsteps outside her home on Sauvie Island, possible vocal exchanges she once believed were owls, and recent activity near her current rural property bordering miles of forest. She also reflects on childhood camping trips near Mount Hood and how those memories have taken on new meaning.
This conversation explores what happens after a life-changing encounter, how personal perspectives evolve over time, and why protecting the wild places of the Pacific Northwest has become even more important to her.
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