OK then, I have to bite. I can't say I believe or disbelieve. I've known credible people, first or second hand, with no reason to lie, who have lived and worked in bear country their entire lives, who have had extraordinary experiences and who believe and have credible stories of their extraordinary experiences.
One case-my very own no-nonsense down to earth ranch-raised university graduate school major professor included, and two seasoned experienced wildland firefighting 20-man crews, different ethnicities, who had similar experience to buster, same night, same very big fire, crews in separate locations camped out for the night working the fire, no contact between them. the two crews didn't know each other, were on different parts of the fire, came from very different home communities far apart, different states even.
Major professor saw what wasn't a bear, in broad daylight while travelling down a mountain highway in northwestern MT with his family on a Sunday afternoon-no family member saw what he saw and he didn't tell them, he just stared in his rear view mirror at the big black thing on the rock above the highway as he drove past. Quietly related the story to a van load of science-oriented graduate students in animal and plant biology, Masters and PhD track, about his experience one day. Never forgotten that day. Man was 50+ years old at the time he told the tale, as quiet and taciturn as any typical Montana-raised ranch boy-not a drama queen by the remotest stretch of anyone's imagination.
The fire crews had similar overwhelming sensory experience buster had. Horrific smell. fire crews run into bears on a fire all the time, they know what a bear smells like-smokey bear got his name from a real bear cub who was found by firefighters on a big forest fire, right? fire crews and bears known each other for decades. both 20-man crews (40 men total) swore what they smelled that night wasn't a bear-it was horrible. both crews flipped out, independently, each crew wanted to go home the very next day they were so freaked out. Even tho firefighting might be the best money they make all year-how some people survive the off-season.
Took extraordinary measures by management to get each crew calmed down again enough to stay and keep working the fire. took very different efforts to settle each crew due to different ethnicities and cultural beliefs about sasquatch, I kid you not.
I heard the fire crew story second hand from 2 different sources, different years, no contact whatsover between the storytellers I heard that story from.
The second time I heard the story was several years later from a younger family member of a person on one of the crews. She didn't know I'd ever heard the story previous, had no way of knowing I'd heard it, it was not something I ever talked about, and she'd just met me for first time that week, on the job. She was a tribal member of a regional tribe, so was her relative. was from her I learned about regional tribal beliefs about sasquatch-he normally lives in 4th dimension, per their tribal beliefs. and yes tribal parents think sasquatch would not harm a child, but misbehaving children are told not to stray in the woods even so.
