National Guard Veteran Shares Decade-Old Bigfoot Trail Camera Footage

A video recently surfaced on YouTube that has the paranormal community buzzing, and for good reason. It features night vision footage allegedly captured by a U.S. soldier back in 2013 at a remote communications relay station deep in the Bitterroot National Forest of Montana. If the location sounds familiar, that's because the Bitterroot range has long been considered one of the most active hotspots for Sasquatch activity in the Pacific Northwest, with countless reports spanning decades. The footage comes from a trail camera mounted along a perimeter fence line at a facility the soldier refers to as "Relay Station Kestrel." According to his account, the station was staffed by a small team operating under unusual circumstances, with personnel whose affiliations were never clearly explained and communication protocols that were strictly controlled. The isolation was extreme, with the nearest paved road being 11 miles of gravel switchbacks away and the only reliable access being a contractor helicopter on an unpredictable schedule. What makes this footage particularly compelling for researchers is the timestamp and the behavior captured. At 2:47 a.m. on August 14th, 2013, the infrared camera recorded a bipedal figure moving along the tree line approximately 60 feet from the lens. The soldier describes the gait as a "long loping stride that ate ground faster than it had any right to," a description that will resonate with anyone who has spent time studying witness accounts. That distinctive traveling gait, where the figure covers ground with an efficient, almost gliding motion, is one of the most commonly reported characteristics in credible Sasquatch encounters. The soldier goes into considerable detail about the atmosphere of secrecy surrounding the station. He mentions paperwork with consequences he "could not appeal and would not be told the nature of," and describes how men in plain tan gear with no name tapes later confiscated portions of his reports and told him he had never been there at all. He claims to have kept this footage buried on an encrypted drive for over a decade before deciding to release it. What stands out to anyone familiar with Sasquatch research is how the soldier's observations align with patterns reported by other witnesses in the region. He mentions that local hunting outfitters had quietly stopped guiding clients into the creek drainage below the ridge years earlier. He describes his younger colleague refusing to approach one particular camera alone, even for simple tasks like retrieving an SD card. These are the kinds of behavioral details that suggest something had been affecting the people stationed there long before the camera captured what it did. The footage itself is described as black and white infrared, showing a 10-second burst with a running timestamp burned into the frame. The soldier states he has kept it hidden for 11 years, fearing repercussions, but has decided to release it because he can no longer carry the weight of the secret alone. For those interested in military involvement with Sasquatch research, this video touches on themes that have circulated in the community for years, including the idea that certain remote installations serve dual purposes and that personnel are sometimes assigned to locations without full knowledge of what they are monitoring. The Bitterroot region specifically has been the subject of numerous investigations and has produced some of the more intriguing pieces of evidence over the years. The video is worth watching in full, as the soldier provides extensive context about the facility, his fellow personnel, and the events leading up to and following the capture. His account of being told he was never there, of having his reports physically taken from him, and of living with this knowledge for over a decade adds a human element that is often missing from footage releases. Whether one views this as definitive evidence or an intriguing story, it adds another piece to the ongoing puzzle of what may be moving through some of the most remote forests in the Pacific Northwest.