| Jackson County, Prospect Oregon |
| (Union Creek) 2001 Back in the winter of 2001 my youngest son and I were on our way from Boise, Idaho to Medford, Oregon. We had a car trailer to his old place in Boise in order to haul his non-running jeep to his new place in Medford. We hit an area of heavy snow in the southern Cascades around 2:00 a.m. It took 45 minutes or so to get down the mountain. We had of course been drinking coffee to stay alert. About 25 miles west of the pass it became obvious that the last few quarts of coffee had to be drained. We stopped at a wide spot in the road near a summer tourist haunt; deserted in winter. There is a gas station and ice cream joint on the west side of the road, closed at this time of year and no town or settlement within 30 miles. This is tall timber country and unsettled. Across the road is a small parking area for the ice cream joint. It is paved and about 200 ft. wide and 80 ft. deep. I pulled in and as I stepped out with .45 on hip, it occurred to me in a flash that grabbing the 590 mossy would be good. As we walked to the far end of the area to be well off the road, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end. The area directly to our front was open with a depth of 50 yards and a width of 100 yards. The night was clear and cold, 8-10 inches of snow on the ground and with a moon that was almost full, so we could see quite well. While standing and taking a leak with my son about 15 to my right I saw, as if springing from the earth in front of us across the open area 10 or 12 creatures moving RAPIDLY back and forth in sort of a thatch weave pattern. These things, not human men, were close to 7 ft. tall, thin, bipedal with long arms, medium length gray fur, and damned fast on their feet. I brought the shotgun up with the safety off, as my son was drawing his .45. I don't know if I can adequately explain the overwhelming feeling of menace, but here goes. I had been operating on pure instinct since I stepped from the pickup, the rotten feeling hit me a split second before the things arrived, the feeling?, instinct?, was that we were prey and subject to a very bad death and to be slaughtered and eaten, not a logical process, gut feeling and massively overwhelming. As they were moving around in front of us, more appeared, and mixed among them, all the while running about fast in front of us. Son and I were backing toward the truck, I WOULD NOT present my back to them some of them peeled off right and left in an encirclement movement. They were rolling in fast from the sides now, I could smell and feel their presence. We got to the truck loaded on adrenaline ready to kill, as we both knew we were in grave danger. We piled into the truck, locked doors. I had keys out and ready as my butt neared the seat, I had the engine lit and trans. in gear and gas pedal mashed in one motion. Adrenaline is great stuff! As we fled, yes fled! something VERY close by let out a undulating scream of rage, and pain. I believe one or more of the group had gotten really close to us in their persuit and I ran over the foot of one of them, yeah they were that close. We rolled onto the highway and I told son to watch the bed of the pickup as well as the trailer, he already was indexed to the rear with the shotgun. We hauled ass for at least 20 miles before the feeling of grave danger started to abate. The feeling that nailed both of us as we discussed soon afterward, was one of being prey and soon to be slaughtered and eaten. I'm not easily and neither believe or disbelieve all the bigfoot, ghost and werewolf stuff, in fact I am skeptical. My son was speaking with a coworker about 6 months later who had grown up in Prospect, Oregon, about 30 miles south of Union Creek where the incident took place. He asked Jake if he had ever heard of any strange goings-on in in the area. Jake went ashy white and pretty much retold the above tale. He says to avoid the place at night. A family friend, a 25 yr. retired cop not given to flights of fancy and an excellent observer, had a tale very similar from a year before. I told my wife of this event of course; she looked at me at the beginning as though I had developed a third eyeball in the center of my forehead. That was from shock, she did believe me, but did not wish to hear any of the details. She said the tale gave her chills. Me too as I write this, hair on the back of my neck and forearms is sticking up. I have NOT gone back to explore and would not without a large group of shotgun and flamethrower equipped men with me. My son and I are sane, sober persons, and not taken to hysteria. We were wide, VERY wide awake as things transpired. We saw and smelled what was there. As a sidebar neither of us heard footfalls from the creatures. They were silent until I heard one as we were getting the hell out of there. To my knowledge, and I have researched, there is nothing that matches these creatures, unless one considers old legends and folk tales of were creatures. To conclude, I have to fall back on Elmer Keith's famous line "Hell, I was there". |