OddWA #31 - Slew Foot

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Washington has always been a hotbed of Bigfoot sightings, even before we legalized cannabis. Records and databases list hundreds of Bigfoot sightings in the Evergreen State over the years, so it’s tricky choosing something suitably epic. In my book, the clear winner is the famed sightings in Bossburg, Washington from 1969 and 1970.

Starting on November 24th, several groups of locals ran across a multitude of tracks crisscrossing the countryside near the Columbia River. One foot appeared to be deformed, so it was dubbed Slew Foot.  The tracks caused a sensation that attracted experts and enthusiasts from near and far, including Roger Patterson – famed cameraman of the controversial Patterson Film that kicked off the modern Bigfoot phenomenon. Patterson, a pair of zoologists, a local tracker, a Himalayan explorer, a wealthy financier and others became embroiled in a story filled with action, intrigue and hanging slabs of meat meant to entice the shy mystery hominid. It didn’t work. The fruit basket didn’t work either.

The visitors bid against each other – literally – to learn the location of a Bigfoot who was trapped, a dead Bigfoot carcass in a cave and a frozen Bigfoot… foot someone claimed they had at home in their freezer. Lines were drawn and various camps spied, tracked and even watched each other from the air. Trucks and snowmobiles were rented so the hunters could mostly keep tabs on each other, with every team suspecting the others knew something they didn’t.

It ends, predictably, with no Bigfoot found, several bank accounts greatly reduced and some very unconvincing, grainy footage. Ironically, this last was presented to a skeptical TV audience in 1972 on the show You Asked For It. I’m sure the trappers and guides who made a fortune back in Bossburg couldn’t agree more.

 CK

OddWA #30 - The Singing Barber

Sometimes a couple stories merge and the result just sticks. One classic chestnut from Seattle's Pike Place Market involves a woman who would sing customers to sleep in her barber shop, then lighten their wallets. She met her demise after falling through the floor of her shop, though Market patrons sometimes claim to hear her singing to this day. A little digging turns up a "true" story of a woman who did fall through the floor at Pike Place, though she wasn't a barber and she didn't rob her customers. That seems to stem from a different story. But the tale of the Singing Barber has taken on a life of its own -- and the tale is a firm fixture with "ghost tours" of Seattle.

CK

OddWA #29 – The Soap Lake Sighting

Two cars making their way from Grand Coulee to Soap Lake both stalled and stopped in their tracks on December 7^th, 1957. Eight witnesses described watching a large, fiery UFO fly over the vicinity. Strangely, the dome lights reportedly came on in both cars as the craft flew overhead. 

Sounds like some hot-rodding alien teenagers could use a good talking to, by golly.

CK

OddWA #28 - Grave Robber Rescue

When times got tough during the Great Depression a lot of people improvised extra income by working outside the normal boundaries of the law and societal norms. Bootlegging was common, but other crimes also saw an increase in those desperate times. A strange example of one crime meeting another happened in December of 1932 when two Seattle grave robbers digging into a fresh grave unearthed a woman who had been buried alive by her underworld compatriots. She was apparently fine, if somewhat disoriented. It seems neither party was eager to take the matter to the police.

CK

OddWA #27 - Everett's Phantom Trolley

A compilation of local spooky stories from the early 1950’s tells of a motorist who dodged an oncoming car with one headlight during a snow storm late one night in downtown Everett. As it passed, the driver realized it was actually a trolley. The thing is, no trolleys had operated in the city for decades. It’s nice to know there might be decent mass transit in the afterlife.

CK