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Maine is the most north-eastern state in the US, known for its beautiful, if wild, scenery. This undeveloped landscape is perfect for anyone, or anything, wanting to live a life of seclusion. That’s why it’s not surprising to find records of Maine Bigfoot sightings predating the state joining the union in 1820.
Stories of creatures matching the general description of Bigfoot are familiar to the Native Americans who’ve lived in the area for countless generations. For example, the Penobscot spoke of the Kiwaka, a cannibalistic giant that lived in the forest and the Passamaquoddy told tales of monstrous creatures called the Apotamkin.
The Micmac described in detail their fearsome neighbor, the Chenoo or Djenu. According to legend, they were a tribe of giants that preferred the cooler climate of the area and had a piercing shriek that was fatal to some who heard it. While they were very difficult to kill as their ‘hearts were solid ice’, it’s been said that a rare few were able to befriend the creatures.
“Camping Out,” written by C.A. Stevens and published in 1873, detailed half a dozen sightings of Bigfoot-like creatures known as the ‘Injun Devil’, or Pomoola by the Abenaki Indians. One of these accounts mentions a trapper who was ripped apart and beaten against a tree trunk, perhaps marking territory and providing a warning to future newcomers.
Even before the popularization of the term Bigfoot in the 1950s, people were reporting encounters and sightings with creatures matching the description. In her 2010 book “New England Graveside Tales,” author TM Gray tells a story from the early 1900s of friend’s father who saw a strange hairy man run out of the woods and cross the road, causing him to break suddenly. He and fellow lumberjacks searched for the creature but could find no trace.
There was a flurry of sightings in 1973 known as the Durham Gorilla Sightings, which started when a group of kids saw a strange creature resembling a chimpanzee when biking along the Shiloh Road to Durham. The sightings lasted through July and August, but the cause of them remains a mystery today.
In 1984, while trout fishing, a fisherman, and his uncle got a good look at a creature not more than fifty feet way. The men said it stood seven to eight feet tall, was covered from head to toe with dark brown hair and they guessed it weighed four to five hundred pounds.
Researcher Bill Brock has details of a recent sighting from just last year that he rates as one of the most convincing ever. The witness is a 12-year-old boy who saw something walk across a track on a rural property accompanied by strange whooping noises. Accompanying the footage is pictures of the tracks made in the snow, clearly twice the size of an ordinary man’s foot.
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