The engine died and the dashboard lights fell dark.

Although he hadn't applied the brakes, the

pickup truck he was driving stopped suddenly, abruptly, square in the middle of the road there
between the edge of the forest and the scrubby clearcut field.
His headlights cut a hole through the night. He sat wondering what was wrong.
Then he saw the feet, descending. Bird feet. Claw feet. Then the legs, the torso, the chest. And
the wings, folded, attached to the back of the broad shoulders. Then the head. That face.
The creature, nine feet tall. Thirty feet away. Blue-tinted fur, yellowish eyes, turfted ears and
sharp straight teeth.
With a dust-raising thud it landed.
Brian Canfield, 18, held tight to the steering wheel.

He was alone and on his way home - from Buckley to the isolated settlement of Camp One,
located in the Mount Rainier foothills above Lake Kapowsin. He doesn't take drugs. He's a high
school senior know locally as an average, normal kid.
It was standing there staring at me, like it was resting, like it didn't know what to think," Canfield
says. "I was scared, it raised the hair on me. I didn't feel threatened. I just felt out of place."
"It's looking right at me like in a deep stare, like right through me. It's standing perfectly still."
It stood for - how long? - a few minutes. Several minutes. Then its fingers twitched and its wings
began to unfold. Those wings were as wide as the road.
"It turned its head and looked back at me and started flapping its wings," Canfield says. Then
slowly it rose and so great was the trubulence the truck began to rock and sway.
Slowly the creature flew off in the direction of Mount Rainier.
"A few minutes later the truck just started," Canfield says. "I took off as fast as I could."

Received February 3, 1998

It was a dark and stormy night. I had taken a fall and landed not too far from the edge of a cliff.
Being knocked out, I don't know how long I had laid there, perhaps three or four hours, my watch
had been torn off by the fall along with most of my gear.
I was barely conscious when I heard a loud, deep base like yell from the air. The sound was
accompanied by a semi truck horn from below the cliff from which I had almost rolled off, hours
earlier. I gazed below, trying to focus my eyes, to see clearly. My head pounded from the fall I
had taken. It was impossible to realize that the next few moments would change my life forever.
What I saw, I kept secret for many years, mainly because I had a good job and I didn't want to
lose it. Perhaps I shouldn't have kept silent, my silence has caused the death of so many
animals and put a town at risk. At risk of what? I will let you be the judge. I will not come out and
let my name be known. However, I will tell you what happened that night and the following days.
You can be the judge.
I was able to witness a logging truck, filled full of Douglas Firs, hit a large object in the middle of
the narrow dirt logging road. I thought it was a large stump at first sight, but the object, upon
being struck, bounced into the air, almost flying, then fell into the canyon below. It was strange,
because I could have sworn the object was purple and had wings, but I attributed the color to my
blood stained glasses and the wings to my inability to see very clearly at the moment. What I did
see was a cloud of dust from the semi as it's brakes were applied, the driver attempting
desperately to miss the object in the road. At first the truck slid headlong into the object, then as
the truck hit the thing, it must have dazed the driver of the truck, because the long semi abruptly
swung left hitting the cliff wall, then jack knifing. The rear of the trailer, still sliding, slowing as it

swung precariously near the edge of the right side of the road, one hundred feet above the
steep, rocky walled valley below. Then as if in slow motion, the dirt road under the rear of the
trailer gave way and the rig slowly, started moving, falling, trailer first over the edge of the road. It
was as if something had clutched the back of the trailer and pulled it over the side of the logging
road. I desperately tried to see through the cracked windshield of the semi before it too followed
the rest of it's trailer over the edge of the road. Always, I will remember the sound of the twisting
metal, as the truck slid down the valley cliff and crashed to the bottom. There was no explosion,
no fire, just the sound of metal scraping against rock and echoing off the canyon walls. A few
moments later, only silence and a small cloud of dust rose from the valley below me. I couldn't
see the where the truck ended it's slide down the rocks, it had disappeared below the steep
sides of the canyon. The forest was eerie, of all the things a person could think of after such a
terrible accident, what I remember the most is the silence of the forest. There was no wind, no
sound of birds, nothing. It was as if the time had stopped. The forest had ceased to be alive.
Reality finally set in. I thought of how I'm going to go down to see if the driver was still alive. No,
that had to be crazy, no one could have survived such an event. I suddenly realized that I was
sore and bruised everywhere. Now, my reality was coming back to me as I felt the wet blood on
my forehead. I slowly moved my legs, thank goodness I could still move them. I slowly tried each
of my other appendages, hoping I was still in one piece from my fall, how many hours before?
Judging by the sun it appeared to be mid afternoon, the last I could recall it was ten thirty in the
morning.
After assessing I was still in one piece, I cleaned my glasses and began looking for a way to the
floor of the valley. It wouldn't have been easy without a very long rope and some experience in
repelling. I had neither. I decided the best course of action would be to hike back out and get
help. I had gone only about ten feet into the dense underbrush, when I heard and felt an
unusually strong gust of wind. The forest was still unusually quite. I decided to sit down and
enjoy the breeze, hoping it would give me a brief moment of refreshing before I began my
hurried march to get help. As I sat in the dense brush, a large shadow came over my part of the
forest. I gazed out and as incredible as it may seem, I witnessed a large purplish beast descend
onto the very spot where I, only moments earlier, had laid. It had with it another beast, that was
battered and not moving. To my horror, I realized that this second beast was the object the truck
driver had hit on the road. My first thought was to rush up to the beast and ask if it would help
me discover if the truck driver was still alive (Obviously, I had not recovered from my head
wound, at that time). Fortunately, I regained my senses and decided not to go rushing up to this
creature with my arms waving about.
Enough about me, I'm sure the reader would like to know what this creature looked like. It was
purple. Yes, I know you already have guessed that from my earlier description, but when I say
(or write) that it was purple. I mean it was really purple. It's skin, claws, hair, nostrils, everything
about this creature was purple. Like a bad Jimmy Osmond dream. I have known people whom
have disputed that their is such a color as purple, meaning that either purple is a shade of blue
or a shade of brown. If any of them were to witness this creature, they would understand what
the color of purple is. I couldn't describe it as a deep purple nor a dirty purple. Only a purple in
it's purist form.
The creature stood about fifteen feet high when it was sitting, hunched over in front of me. I later
discovered that this creature would measure an easy thirty feet from head to bottom, once it was
airborne. I say bottom, because it didn't really have a tail. The head of the animal was unusually
small compared to it's massive body, the beady purple eyes would remind anyone who has the

misfortune of seeing them, believe that this creature could be of the raton family. While other
characteristics of the head also had many features of the raton family, being of noteworthy
comment is the long pointed ears from which protruded from the top of the creatures head. The
nose was rather small. The most pronounced feature of the nose being it's unusual color of
purple. I believe this is the only creature in the world that has a purple nose. The wing span of
the creature looked very small, as if it couldn't fly with such a small wing surface. However, I later
learned, once the creature was airborne, the wings extended out to form a wingspan of a good
forty feet. The most disturbing feature of the large beast was it's hands. It appeared to have four
sets of them. Perhaps I should clarify that to mean two sets of claws/hands on the wings, about
mid way and another set on the torso, almost as if they were human. (I didn't notice the hands
near the torso until another encounter with the large animal the next day.) The creature was very
frightening to look at and could almost be a cross between a large bat and a excessively large
furry human. I believe the most accurate description would be that given by some of the local
towns folk, whom later had the misfortune of encountering the beast and naming it "Batsquatch".
Well, perhaps I've mentioned to much. My worst fears are that I will be traced by my email
address and someone would know my location. Thus making me a laughing stock of my
community and ending my rather prestigious position within the city. If you would like to hear
more of the story, you may email me. However, should you make any attempt to trace my email
address, I will deny everything.
The Believer