The McDowell County Bigfoot 911 Sighting and the "Don't Shoot Bigfoot" Warning

Bigfoot 911 was formed in 2014 in Marion, North Carolina. It has about 50 members. Its founder and "commander" is John E. Bruner. The group searches the woods of McDowell County, near the Pisgah National Forest, at a spot it calls "research area number one."

Friday night. Just before 11 p.m. About seven members had spent two hours in the woods, working as three teams and setting out glow sticks. Then came movement. "Three steps at a time." A glow stick moved through the trees. About 30 yards away, Bruner said, "The angle of the moon was shining straight down on the road and something big stepped into view."

He switched on his headlamp. He saw "a large bi-pedal animal covered in hair." It took one step into the woods, and Bruner ran after it. "I knew it was my chance to see it up close." The figure stood about 30 yards to his right, its right hand on a tree broken off 9 feet above the ground. "I didn't appear aggressive. We had eye contact for 5 to 10 seconds."

Its face was "solid black, no hair on it." The eyes were "farther apart than human eyes." The hair "looked shaggy all over." There was no foul smell. Then it turned and took five steps to the bottom of a hill. Bruner "could see the gluteus maximus flexing with each step." It was not seen again. As the team left, something or someone kept throwing rocks at them. Nobody was hurt.

Bruner posted the account to the group's closed Facebook page. By Monday, 7 August 2017, it was on local television and in the Charlotte Observer. The next morning the Greenville Police Department in South Carolina responded on Facebook. It shared a video from "nearby Boone, North Carolina," and offered some advice. "If you see Bigfoot, please do not shoot at him/her, as you'll most likely be wounding a fun-loving and well-intentioned person, sweating in a gorilla costume." It was a joke. Days later, it looked like a prophecy.

Around 10 August, Gawain MacGregor came forward. He is a Minnesota man who was on vacation in western North Carolina. He calls himself a shaman and honours Enkidu, from the Epic of Gilgamesh, whom he sees as an ancestor of modern Bigfoot. He wanders the woods in a suit of animal skins, reciting a "sasquatch prayer." Most reports said raccoon. One headline said squirrel. "That night not too long after I started wandering I ran into a couple of people little ways away," he said. He says he believes in Bigfoot, and has seen it seven times.

Bruner would have none of it. Not MacGregor, he said. Not any human. He pointed to the size, the speed and that hand on a tree snapped 9 feet up. "I believe this man is... looking for a way to get some air time to promote his blog." The accounts do not fit neatly. MacGregor met a couple of people. Bruner's team numbered about seven. No photo, video, cast or hair came from the night, and the BFRO database never listed it. Neither version has been independently confirmed.

Bruner went on to found the WNC Bigfoot Festival in Marion, first held in 2018. In 2019 his group posted grainy photos of a figure on the shore of Lake James. The McDowell County night stays unresolved. A hairy figure on a moonlit road. A witness who is certain. A shaman who says it may have been him.