Woman describes a childhood encounter outside a tent on the edge of Lake Shasta witnessed in Shasta County, California

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I was on a family camping trip. There were a lot of us. I was 13 at the time and I had never heard of Bigfoot. The way our camp was laid out was that all of us girls (two sisters, their friends and a friend of mine) were all staying in one big army tent. My brother and his friend were in a smaller tent off to the east closer to the drop off to the lake. Then my parents were in their own tent at the far west end of the campsite. There had been a lot of trouble with bears that summer so all campers were advised to hang their food high up in the trees. My Dad did that and I remember him standing under the bag of food a good three feet over his head about 10 to 15 feet from the door to our tent to the left. My Dad was 5'10". As for myself, I really wanted to see a bear. I was a very outdoorsy kid and would have preferred to sleep outside of the tent actually. I had little fear of the dark, or the night, and it was my goal to see a bear. I am quit sure we were there for two weeks that year and as I remember it, my sighting occurred about a week in to being there ... since I spent several days after that looking for traces of what I had seen. I slept closest to the door and somewhere during the middle of the night I heard a little stirring outside. Everyone else was asleep and I didn't wake anyone since I had already been informed (emphatically) that no one else wanted to see a bear. I very quietly and carefully crawled to the door of the tent and cautiously stuck my head out the door. I looked over to where the food bag was hanging and saw something that was unquestionably NOT a bear. What I saw was two dark hairy creatures just standing there under the food bag like they were negotiating how to get it down or something. One of them was a good foot taller than the other. My Dad would have come to the bottom of chest of the biggest one. They were just huge! The smaller one was probably just a head taller than my dad. I had that as a gauge after all since I had seen my Dad standing there in the very same spot under the bag, and he hung the food bag in the same place every night. They were VERY tall and very upright. I had never heard of a Bigfoot at that time, but I knew these were not bears. Bears are pear shaped and standing upright isn't a position of comfort for them. For that matter, they don't just 'stand' next to each other like they are carrying on a conversation. The incident took place very quickly. It was fast, but I was VERY impressed and it was clear to me immediately that I was seeing something extraordinary. What happened was that as I saw them, and saw that they were something unexpected, I did one of those surprised intakes of breath ... a true 'gasp' I guess you could say. They heard that and both turned and looked at me. Then, they turned and looked at each other, looked back at me again, and then ... they were just gone. They made not a sound. One moment they were there, and then they were not. I did not go out of the tent. I did think about it, but ... I laid awake all that night thinking about it. I had absolutely no idea what I had seen. The next morning the first thing I did was go out in the direction I saw them leave to see if I could find tracks, but the earth was very hard and dry there. I didn't see anything. It might be that someone more skilled than I was at the time might have found some trace, but I didn't. I did spend a goodly amount of the remainder of that vacation watching and walking in the woods. I recall I even passed on water skiing a few times to go search the woods. I didn't tell anyone what I saw until a few years later. I told NO ONE at the time. I was the youngest in my family and already endured a considerable amount of teasing on a regular basis ... you know, kid stuff. I was not about to tell anyone I saw a 7 foot (or so) tall hairy man creature in the campsite. It would not have gone well. Oh, what I saw of them ... Hairy, with long hanging brown to black hair. I didn't catch any gender features. I just assumed the smaller one was female, but I have no reason to think that since I was mostly just seeing their height ... and the fact that they looked at me ... they LOOKED at me. Uh ... there just aren't words. I did catch that the arms were quite long and they were very big in the chest, shoulders and upper arms, not so much in the hips. Nope these were not bears at all. I do not recall if there was any strong scent associated with my sighting. I didn't know what I saw until a year or so later when I saw a picture of the famous movie footage. I was so excited to see something that looked like what I had seen. I am 49 now ... I will never forget.