Matthew Recounts Bigfoot Encounters Across Pacific Northwest Wilderness
Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2026
By Squatchable.com staff
Packwood Lake, Washington is one of those locations that keeps popping up in Sasquatch research circles, and a recent interview on the Bigfoot Society YouTube channel dives deep into a witness's experiences in that exact area. Jeremiah Byron sits down with Matthew, a Pacific Northwest native whose life has been quietly shaped by encounters he didn't even fully understand until adulthood.
Matthew's story starts way back in the early-to-mid 1980s when he was just a kid in third grade. His family used to hunt in the Starky Unit in Oregon, near a spot called Fly Creek. One night, he remembers his dad and grandfather arguing about something involving "red eyes." His grandfather tried to play it off by saying grizzly bears have red eyes, and his dad's wife quickly redirected the conversation. The family had killed several deer that trip and hung them up to process. In the middle of the night, they turned the truck lights on the deer. Matthew doesn't remember much else about that specific moment, but when he asked his dad about it years later, his dad confirmed it happened. What's even more telling? His dad stopped hunting entirely after just a couple more trips to that area. He never really explained why.
Growing up, Matthew's house had a hallway lined with bookshelves, and his dad always kept books about Bigfoot around. Back then, the term "Sasquatch" wasn't really in use. It was just Bigfoot. Matthew says he didn't even hear the word Sasquatch until much later in life, which is interesting because the terminology shift matters when you start digging into older encounters.
But the real meat of the conversation centers around Packwood Lake. In 1993, before Matthew and his buddies even had driver's licenses, they backpacked into Packwood Lake on Memorial Day weekend for his friend's birthday. They were into fly fishing and float tubing back then, so Matthew hauled in an old-school metal frame float tube along with canned goods. The hike was about five miles, and back then, the lake was practically empty. There's a little cabin on the front side, but they hiked around to the back where the creek feeds in from the Goat Rocks and Johnson Peak area. That's where they set up camp.
Matthew mentions that he didn't really connect the dots on what had been happening to him throughout his life until he stumbled across the Crypto PTSD podcast and started hearing other people's stories. That's when things started clicking. He describes being "tagged" or "marked" and experiencing strange events in different parts of the world over the last four or five times he's been in the woods. His personal take? He thinks it's less about being marked and more about frequencies and energy. He believes these beings can recognize certain people who are more open to these kinds of experiences.
The Packwood Lake area sits right in the heart of some prime Sasquatch territory in Washington state. The Goat Rocks Wilderness is nearby, and Johnson Peak is part of a rugged landscape that sees very little human traffic. For researchers and enthusiasts, this region has long been considered a hotspot, and Matthew's account adds another layer to the ongoing conversation about what's really happening in those woods.
The full interview is worth checking out over on the Bigfoot Society YouTube channel. Matthew gets into details about the Packwood Lake incident that didn't make it into this summary, and his perspective on what these experiences actually mean is genuinely thought-provoking. Whether you believe in the frequency theory or the more traditional tracking approach, his story raises questions that don't have easy answers.
Packwood Lake itself has a fascinating history beyond Sasquatch research. The lake was actually created by a landslide dam, and the area around it has been used by humans for thousands of years. Indigenous tribes in the region have their own oral traditions about the wild beings of the forest, and some of those stories align remarkably well with what modern witnesses describe. Matthew even mentions attending events at Chief Alpowai as a kid and seeing the Wild Woman of the Woods dance performed, though he didn't fully grasp the significance of those traditions at the time.
What's compelling about Matthew's account is how it spans decades. He went from a kid hearing arguments about red eyes in the Oregon woods to an adult who has had experiences across multiple locations and is now trying to make sense of it all through the lens of energy and frequency. That's a journey a lot of witnesses share, and it's part of what makes this community so interesting. People don't just have one encounter and move on. These experiences tend to follow people, and the patterns that emerge over time often tell a bigger story than any single sighting ever could.
If you're into Pacific Northwest Sasquatch reports, this one's definitely worth your time. The Bigfoot Society channel has built up a solid library of witness interviews, and this one stands out because of how Matthew connects his childhood memories to his adult understanding. It's not just a "I saw something in the woods" story. It's a lifetime of piecing together what these beings might actually be and how they interact with certain individuals.