New Mexico Man's Lifelong Bigfoot Belief Born from Childhood Encounters

# Three Encounters That Shaped a Lifetime: Steve Wallace's Childhood in the New Mexico High Desert There's something about stories from the American Southwest that hits differently. The vast open spaces, the ancient cultures, the highways that cut through land steeped in mystery — it all adds up to a place where the unusual feels almost expected. A recent video surfaced featuring a man named Steve Wallace, who grew up at the end of a five-mile washboard dirt road in the high desert of New Mexico, not far from the Navajo reservation. What he shared is the kind of testimony that sticks with you long after the video ends. ## The Window at 1 AM Steve was around 10 years old when the first incident happened. He shared a bedroom with his younger sister — top bunk for him, bottom for her — in a mobile home with a two-car garage built behind it. A 25-foot pole with a light stood out front, always on. Late one night, around 1 AM, Steve woke up with the unmistakable feeling that something was watching him. Looking toward the window — covered only in sheer lace curtains — he saw a silhouette that took up nearly the entire 3x5 window. The top of the head was at least eight feet off the ground. The shape had a massive afro-style head, and Steve initially thought it was his Uncle Joe messing around, but Uncle Joe was only 5'2". This was something else entirely. Then it turned and looked directly in. The eyes were bright red, with centers roughly 10 to 12 inches apart and about an inch and a half to two inches around. Steve did what any kid would do — he ducked under the covers. When he peeked out 10 to 15 minutes later, it was gone. His younger sister confirmed she had seen it too. Steve went outside to look for footprints and found them — cloven prints, at least eight inches long, each half about two to three inches wide. He compared them in his mind to elk tracks, but these were bipedal, and they led right up to the window before simply disappearing. Red eye reports have been a recurring thread in Sasquatch encounter literature for decades. Witnesses across multiple states have described glowing red or amber eyes, often at distances that make precise measurement impossible, which only adds to the unsettling nature of these accounts. The bipedal cloven prints Steve described are particularly intriguing — split or divided footprints have shown up in a handful of well-documented cases over the years, though they remain one of the more debated pieces of physical evidence in the field. ## Highway 666 The second encounter came a few years later, when Steve was around 14 or 15. He was riding with his stepdad down Highway 666 — the infamous "Devil's Highway" that runs from Gallup to Shiprock — when they spotted a creature running alongside the road, just outside the fence line. The old pickup wasn't built for speed, but Steve's stepdad floored it anyway, his face going white as a ghost. The faster they drove, the faster the creature ran. It kept pace with them for roughly three miles before they lost sight of it. When Steve later talked to his Native friends about what they'd seen, they all said the same thing: it was a skinwalker. Highway 666 has earned its nickname honestly. The stretch between Gallup and Shiprock cuts through some of the most remote and culturally significant land in the Southwest, and travelers have reported strange sightings along its length for generations. In Navajo tradition, skinwalkers — or *yee naaldlooshii* — are figures associated with dark practices and shapeshifting, and they are not discussed lightly. The fact that Steve's friends immediately identified the running creature as a skinwalker speaks volumes about how common these accounts are in that region. ## The Lake The third experience took Steve back to around age 10 to 12, during a family camping trip at Navajo Lake in the four corners area. His stepdad had parked a travel trailer, and the family walked down a steep descent to fish off big sandstone boulders. While Steve was focused on catching bluegill, his brother, sister, and stepdad snuck away and left him alone. When he finally headed back up via the less steep route, he felt it — that unmistakable sensation of being watched. It was different from anything he'd experienced with the wild dogs, mountain lions, or occasional bears he'd grown up around. This was something else entirely. Using what he'd picked up from military movies, Steve stopped, looked, and used his peripheral vision. Nothing moved. He turned his head slowly — still nothing. But the feeling intensified with every step. Whatever was watching him was immense, and it was close. He could feel it at his five o'clock position even though there was nothing visible. That's when fear took over. Steve dropped everything — fish, tackle box, fishing pole — and scrambled up the hill. He made it back to the trailer and backed up against the wheel under the awning so nothing could get behind him. When his family returned laughing about leaving him behind, no one believed his story. The fishing stringer was later found missing. Navajo Lake sits in a remote corner of northern New Mexico, surrounded by sandstone cliffs and piñon-juniper woodland. It's the kind of place where solitude is easy to find, and where the landscape itself seems to hold secrets. Many longtime residents of the four corners region will tell you that the area has a way of making people feel watched, even during the most ordinary outings. ## A Pattern Worth Noticing What makes Steve's account stand out isn't just the encounters themselves — it's the consistency. Three separate incidents, spanning different ages and different locations across the high desert and four corners region, all pointing to the same kind of presence. The red eyes, the bipedal cloven prints, the creature running alongside Highway 666, the invisible watcher at the lake — these aren't isolated data points. They form a pattern that anyone serious about this subject should pay attention to. Steve's story is worth the time to watch in full. He tells it with the kind of detail that only comes from something that genuinely happened, and he doesn't shy away from admitting how scared he was. Check it out and see what you think.