Signal Maintainer Describes Close Encounter With Bigfoot at West Virginia Crossing

A railroad signal maintainer with 14 years of experience under his belt had an encounter he will never forget while working an overnight shift at a remote Appalachian grade crossing. The detailed first-hand account, shared on the Watchtower Files YouTube channel, reads like something straight out of a cryptid investigation file, and it's got the community buzzing. Evan Ror, 42 at the time, was tasked with troubleshooting a recurring false activation issue at Blackwater Crossing in the southern West Virginia coal fields. The crossing had been giving drivers false warnings during rainstorms, and his supervisor wanted him to reproduce the problem while the county road was closed overnight. Standard railroad protocol gave him exclusive occupancy of the track between milepost 42 and 43, meaning no trains could enter his work zone. What the protocol could not do, however, was keep whatever was lurking in those wooded slopes from stepping onto the rails. Ror arrived at the crossing around 11:45 PM. The setup was classic remote Appalachian rail: a single track cutting through a narrow valley, an equipment bungalow about 20 feet from track center, gate masts on either side of the road, and thick rhododendron and young hardwood crowding the drainage to the south. The nearest traffic control crew was stationed a mile away at a barricade. From the crossing, their truck lights were invisible through the trees and bends in the road. Ror was, for all practical purposes, alone. At 12:25 AM, he activated the crossing's local maintenance state. The alternating red lamps came alive, the bell struck, and both gate arms descended across the empty county road. That's when things got interesting. Around 33 minutes past midnight, the red warning lights illuminated a shape standing about 45 feet from him beside the rails. Ror estimates the figure was nearly 8 feet tall. The far gate mechanism, which he had worked around for years and knew reached just above his own waist, barely cleared the bottom of the creature's ribs. That kind of scale reference is exactly what makes this account stand out. This wasn't a shadowy blob in the distance. This was a man who knew the dimensions of every piece of equipment around him, using those familiar objects to measure something unfamiliar. The description Ror gives is consistent with countless Sasquatch reports from across North America. A low brow. A broad, dark muzzle that wasn't quite a muzzle. Black rain-matted hair along the sides of the head. Hands hanging where a man's knees would be, heavy and broad with fingers he could separate even at that distance. The creature stood upright without the forward balance of a bear. Its eyes, caught briefly in the red flash, were simply dark, close-set, and fixed on him. No unnatural eye shine. Just a steady, unblinking gaze. Then it whistled. Ror watched the creature pull air into a chest deep enough to fill a barrel. Its lips narrowed, a cloud of breath pushed through, and the sound struck the lowered gate arm hard enough to seem as if it had come off the metal. Whistling has long been reported in Sasquatch encounters, particularly in the Appalachian region, where witnesses have described everything from soft, melodic tones to sharp, commanding blasts. Some researchers have suggested the vocalization may serve as a form of communication or territorial warning. Whatever its purpose, Ror had no doubt where the sound was coming from. It was coming from the thing in front of him. What makes this account especially compelling is the procedural detail. Ror kept his dispatcher, Clare Donnelly, on the radio throughout. When she asked if the subject was human, he told her no, describing it instead as a "large non-human animal." He deliberately kept the word Sasquatch off the radio because he knew it would force her to decide whether he was joking or injured. Instead, he focused on his location, the road closure, and the deputy coming from the Oak Haven side of the valley. That kind of冷静 thinking under pressure speaks to his professionalism, but it also gives the account an unusual layer of credibility. This is a man trained to document his surroundings precisely, and he did exactly that. The creature moved closer with each flash of the warning lamps. One step at a time. Ror retreated into the equipment bungalow and pulled the door shut. The whistle ended as suddenly as a valve closing. Rain took over on the roof. Then he heard weight settle onto the ballast outside, one tie closer than before. The full story, including the procedural background, the radio exchanges, and the slow, methodical approach of the figure across the crossing, is worth hearing in Ror's own words. The video runs long, but the pacing matches the tension of the night he describes. Anyone interested in credible witness accounts from working professionals, particularly those with no background in folklore or cryptozoology, should definitely check it out. Encounters like this one are a reminder that Sasquatch reports don't just come from campers and hikers. They come from linemen, signal maintainers, game wardens, and others whose jobs put them alone in remote places at odd hours. These are people trained to observe, measure, and report. When someone like Evan Ror describes what he saw at Blackwater Crossing that November night, using the scale of equipment he had worked around for over a decade, it deserves serious attention. Watchtower Files has the full account uploaded. Definitely worth the listen.