Dog Man Project Director Spots Juvenile Bigfoot Near Creek

If you've ever wondered what it feels like to be in the woods when something out there decides it doesn't want you around, Marcus Ellis just gave us a front-row seat to that exact experience. Over on The Cryptid Podcast, host Dano sat down with Marcus, who serves as the Region Five Director for the North American Dog Man Project, and the stories he shared are the kind that stick with you long after the episode ends. Marcus has spent years doing fieldwork in a wildlife management area roughly seven or eight miles from his back door, a spot his mentor MK Davis turned him onto. The activity in this particular refuge is no joke. The Sasquatch that call it home are known to be aggressive, and Marcus is convinced they can sense when a researcher is actively looking for them. That intelligence, that awareness of being hunted, is something a lot of seasoned investigators have talked about over the years. It's one of the things that makes this subject so fascinating and so frustrating to study. On this particular morning, Marcus arrived right after sunrise and started gearing up. Camcorder, GoPro, Garmin GPS Mini, the usual investigator toolkit. But the second he got everything powered on, the gear went haywire. His GoPro threw an error message the company's tech support had never even heard of, and his Garmin refused to lock onto a satellite for a solid fifteen minutes. Anyone who's spent time in the field knows that electronic interference in Sasquatch country is practically a cliché at this point, but hearing it happen in real-time to an experienced researcher always hits different. Once he finally got moving down the trail, he spotted something odd almost immediately. A large tree limb had been shoved into the side of the trail, skinny end first. Not fallen, driven in. That's the kind of sign that gets your heart rate up before you've even processed why. He pulled out his camcorder to document it, and that's when everything changed. From behind him came a crash so loud and violent he described it as sounding like Superman had picked up a cat bulldozer and hurled it at the back of his head. The woods were exploding with movement. He wheeled around with the camera rolling and... nothing. Not a twig moving. Just silence. That's a classic bluff charge, and Marcus recognized it for what it was. These beings wanted him gone. Instead of pushing his luck, he made the smart call and started heading back to his vehicle. But he didn't make it easy for whatever was out there. He kept stopping, rotating, checking his six every few feet. No backtrail camera on this trip, just eyes and instinct. On his third pivot, he caught movement out of the corner of his left eye. A figure on two legs, humanoid, covered in short reddish-orange hair, came walking out of the tree line. It was hunched over, almost slouched, like it was trying to stay low and sneaky. As it crossed the trail, it dropped even further down and disappeared into the tall grass heading toward the creek, as if it was trying to flank him or link up with whatever had just put on that massive show of force behind him. Marcus estimated the figure at somewhere around six and a half feet tall, maybe a little more, lean and muscular. His gut said it might have been a juvenile, though anyone who's seen these creatures knows that "juvenile" is a relative term when you're dealing with something that size. He was thrilled, he was excited, and he was honest enough to admit he was also scared. There's a difference between hearing bushes shake feet away from you and actually locking eyes with one of them. He got back to his vehicle and headed home, elated that he'd finally had a clear visual after years of indirect signs on his own property, twisted trees, small structures, the usual breadcrumbs. And this wasn't even his first sighting. That story, apparently, is a whole other can of worms. The full conversation is worth the listen. Marcus goes into more detail about the encounter, shares some photos that have been making the rounds, and Dano digs into the Dogman side of things too, which is a whole other rabbit hole. If you're into firsthand accounts from people who are actually putting in the field time, this one is a must-watch.