A Woman Who ‘Saw A Bigfoot’ Is Suing California After National Park Officials Stated It Was Just A Bear

A California woman, Claudia Ackley, 46, is suing the state of California in an attempt to force the state to say what she actually saw was a Bigfoot.

California’s Fish and Wildlife Department assured her she encountered a bear, not Bigfoot, but she isn’t having it. She insists that it was a Bigfoot that she saw and she wants it officially recognized as a species.

She wants it to be confirmed that the supposed mythical creature that is human in form, but bigger and covered with hair, is real. There are thousands of sightings each year and many more who believe they exist.

There are no comments thus far from the representative of the department, and the hearing is set to begin today in San Bernardino.

Ackley and her two daughters, aged 11 and 14, were hiking in March of last year in the vicinity of Lake Arrowhead. She says that at one point, one of her girls saw a frightening sight.

She claims that a male Sasquatch was peeking at them from behind a tree on the trail. One of her daughters happened to be filming and when she was stopped in her tracks she can be heard saying “I swear to God…Mom?”

Claudia says she swears to the lord above that they definitely saw a Bigfoot, not a bear.

Ackley immediately contacted the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the investigator who was assigned to the case watched the video and said it was just a bear.

Ackley says her kids aren’t scared of bears, that they have seen many bears in their lifetime. They were scared of this.

Claudia also stated that she saw a Bigfoot before this incident as well. She and her ex husband went on a trek to find Bigfoot in Washington state as a vacation back in 2014.

She said she saw a small one, around five feet tall, and even made a mold of one of its footprints.

Claudia said that the encounter helped her realize that life is beautiful and there is much we don’t know. She got divorced and lost 125 pounds. She said she stopped wasting her life and decided to follow her dreams.

Professor Michael Shermer, who is also an author and a publisher, points out that you have to have a body to name a species. Ackley has little chance of winning with just her daughters’ corroboration.

He continues that you can’t see something in the middle of the night on a camping trip and expect to be able to come to court and lay claim to legitimizing it as a species.

Shermer says that you always must respect people talking about things like this, even if you don’t agree. He says listening, respecting and asking questions is key.

He continued that biologists would be ecstatic to discover that Bigfoot is real, as it would the discovery of a lifetime and give credence to all those believers.

Ackley says she won’t be deterred. She says after facing an 800 pound Bigfoot, she’s not intimidated by the anyone who doesn’t believe her.

There are sightings reported all the time. In every corner of the country. There are many people who believe wholeheartedly that these creatures exist. Naysayers point out that there has never been one captured and no dead body of a Bigfoot has ever been found.

Believers insist they know what they saw. There are so many sighting stories. Like this one from 2009.

Early morning Sept. 1, 2009, a woman going to work in Rifle, Colorado pulled over for some air. As she exited her vehicle, she saw movement in the field in front of her. Initially, she thought it was a bear, but the animal stood up, and she saw that it had arms that hung down its sides, like a human.

She said the creature was huge and had fur the color of cinnamon. After some coaxing on the part of the investigator from BFRO, she said that the creature had large breasts. She said she never entertained the possibility until she saw it with her own eyes.

Another encounter happened around dusk on August 29, 2011. A woman was outside on her lawn with a litter of puppies when she heard a whistle, and she said it sounded like the whistle she makes when she’s calling her dogs in.

She said she thought it could have been her parrot, so she whistled back. Next, one of her dogs, an adult Australian Shepherd, began to bark, and there was some rustling in the woods. She looked and saw what she described as a tall, hairy animal. She claimed it was 8 to 9 feet tall.

She said that when it saw her, it stepped back into the trees.

The investigator who spoke to her said that she was a deer hunter and was quite experienced with nature, unlikely to have mistaken the creature for another large animal.

There are thousands more stories like these. Perhaps, one day, a body will turn up and the mystery will be solved once and for all.