Social Worker Hoopa
Sighting #5 : July or August 1972
During my time in Hoopa I had been going from si ghting to sighting, w it
ness to witness and location to location with additional time spent in the far-off reaches of the reservation and national forest. There had been lit
tle time for follow-up work with governmenta l agencies or making con
tacts with key figures in the community.
It was an afternoon in early December 2006 when
r
found that fish weren't in the ri ver, restau rants were closed and it was time to make some new contacts. I knew there were several people in the Hoopa Tribal Wildlife Management Group that had interesting stories about Bigfoot and they had not contacted me. I heard these stories second and third band and wasn 't able to confirm anything. I walked into the wild life office for the tribe and I was immediately greeted with warm hellos, and several members of the group gathered around for a discussion. This was just the opposite feel ing I bad when 1met the Tribal Forestry Team directly across the hall. This group asked several great questi ons about Bigfoot and some even invited me to come into their offices and look at pictures that their game cameras had taken in the forests. Thi s was all leading to some great stori es.1 made several contacts in the Wi l dlife Group and agreed that we would work together on a few projects and theories, and we set a date to meet in the fu ture. As I was wa lking to my vehicle, one of the biology
Michelle McCardie standing in her front room.The area over her left shoulder is where she saw Bigfoot.
technicians for the tribe followed me to my car and stated that there was a woman who lives on the reservation that I should meet. He stated that she was his grandmother and she had a few fascinating stories about Bigfoot. He told me he didn't know if she would talk, but that ifl would wa it a few minutes he'd give h er a call. J was "all ears."After a wait of several minutes and meeting a few more of the Wild life Management Team , my original contact came back and stated that his grandmother wanted to meet me.
I followed my new friend to the far southem end of the reservation , where we took Schumacher Road to the west and then followed it further south as we paralleled the main highway. We took a small dirt road a few hundred yards and ended up at an old house smTound ed by 5-1 0 acres of open land. As I was drivin g up to the house, I immediately noticed many large berry bu shes that were surrounding it adjacent to the highway, and the beautiful green meadow that was nearby. The house sat probably 200
yards from the base of the mow1tains that SLUTound Hoopa on the west.
These mountains go directly to the coast, a trip of close to 30 miles.
I was escorted into the residence and was initially met by Lee McCardie, the 92-year-old grandfather of my escort. Lee is a retired Humboldt Cotmty Marshall and is also the former constable for the region. He is a frail man, hard of bearing, but very alert and full of inter
esting stories about the region. His grandson told Lee that Iwas there to interview his grandmother. Lee walked to the backroom and brought Michelle to the front room for me to meet.
Michelle McCardie is a 74-year-old former Hoopa first and third grade school teacher. She was also the librarian for the school for many years. Michelle is of Irish, German and Swedish heritage. She spent much of her youth liv ing in Long Island , New York.
In
1949 she attended the prestigious Simmons College in Boston and got her bachelor's degree in home econom ics. Michelle met her first husband when she was in high school. She explained that while she was attending Simmons, her husband was going to Harvard University. After graduating from Harvard be went onto the University of Bu·ffalo Medical School where he interned and became a doctor. She explained that he wanted to practice medicine and legally avoid the draft. Michelle said that he opted for public service and joined an Indian hospital program , and this took them to Hoopa where he worked in the h·ibal hospital.
Michelle stated that in the mid 1960s she divorced her husband and met Lee. They have lived on the same property and in the same house for much of the last forty years. Michelle said that she and Lee bad two children and they all lived in the same house we were presently in , on Schumacher Road.
Back in the 1970s there weren't as many residences , traffic or people and Michelle said it was a much quieter existence. [ should state here that Michelle is a very smart, ale1t and sensible person. She is one of the people Ihave met in the area with the most formal education coupled w ith a high degree of common sense. With her east coast education and upbringing Michelle almost seems out of place in the middle of Hoopa.
Michelle expla ined that her Bigfoot experience started in either July or August of 1972. She told me that she had a good friend who lived in an area above their house on Cheny Flats. We'll call her friend "Mary."
Mary had a few clotheslines strun g in her backyard that were made of heavy rope and tied securely to the side of her house on a large post. Over
the course of several days something was coming into the yard and pur well cared for, had food, water and that they didn't disappear from their pen . Jamie was approximately 12 years old at the time and lived in a base
ment wom to the far rear and sid e of the residence. Jamie 's bedroom win
dow looked out at ground level directly into the pigs ' pen. One night at approximately midnight (duri ng that I 0-day period the puppies went missing) Jamie heard a large commotion in the pigpen. The noise and dis
turbance was so loud that it caused him to wake up, get out of bed and make his way to his b edroom window. He pushed back his drape and was Looking eye to eye with an adolescen t Bigfoot. He was so scared that he screamed and ran into Michelle and Lee's bedroom . Michelle stated that Jamie explaiDed what he saw and said that he wou ldn't leave their room.
Jamie spent the remaind er of the night sleeping with Michelle and Lee.
Michelle stated that Lee was such a sound sleeper that he never woke up that njght, but was completely briefed about the encounter the next morn
ing by Jamie and Michelle.
Early the next morning Jamie told his dad about the frightening inci
dent. After the story, they all went into the side yard and looked at the area in and around the pigpen. Michelle stated that they saw large footprints that were simi lar to a human footprint but slightly larger with bigger toes.
At the urging of a friend who had an interest in Bigfoot, they decided to cast the prints. They state that during the last 40 years they have mis
placed the prints and have no idea where the cast might be.
During the same week as Jamie's sigh ting from the basement, Michelle recounted that she had a front-yard sleepover for her and Ma ry's kids. She explained that the kids had put tents on the grass in fron t of th eir house. It was a warm summer night and there was never a threat of any animals in the area. In the middle of the night. a l l ofthe kids woke up and heard something walking around the perimeter of their tent. The kids were too afraid to look and see what it was, but they were sure that it was
n ·t a bear, mountain lion. etc. The next morning the kids explained to Michelle that they were bothered during the night by something, but they were not sure what it was. Michelle said that as she walked the area look
ing for tracks, there was one specific area, maybe three feel by three feet, near the planter box that bad a horribly bad odor. Michelle stated that it smel led much worse than any skunk she had ever encountered. The odor was confined to one small area close to the tents and it wasn ·l there prior to the sleepover. Michelle stated that the odor stayed in that area for sev
eral days after the sleepover incident.
A few days after the puppies were returned, M ichelle and Maty's kids were playing in Michel le's front yard. Michelle explained that it was in the ear ly afternoon, a typical summer p lay day for the kids. M i chelle was in the house when she heard the kids yelling for her. She stated that she ran out to her front porch and saw the kids pointing to the front area of the yard adjacent to the roadway. Next to their cement house she saw an adolescent-size (5 feel to 5 feet, 2 inches) Bigfoot standing next to thei r berry bush calmly picking and eating the berries w i th its fingers. Mi chel le stated that the Bigfoot had hair/fur covering its entire body except for its face. The facial tone was close to that of a medium complexion Hispanic person. The arrns were longer than a human's arms and its face was more
Looking from the street towards Michelle's residence. The cement shed is on the left. At the time of the sighting the area was filled with berry bushes.
human than animal. She stated that the face did not have a snout like a bear, but was formed more like a human's. Michelle explained that when the creature turned to look at her and the kids, its entire upper body turned and looked. It did not appear to have a neck. Michelle could not deter
mine a sex for the creature. The creature pulled the berries off the bush like a small child, gently but firmly. Michelle said that after the creature saw her, it calmly left the area , not running , but walking slowly. Its arms were not sh·aight when it walked but they bent sl ightly at the elbow like a human 's. Michelle added that the head of the creature seemed to be round at the top and not pointed.
Michelle said that she watched the creature in her front yard slowly walk out of sight and up towards the hills behind her house and up into the area of Mary's residence.
She said that this was the lone time that she actually saw a Bigfoot.
Since 1972 Michelle stated that she has heard five Bigfoot screams
immediately in the area of her residence. She explained that these screams are quite different than those of a mountain l ion, peacock or a young chjld. These screams are excruciatingly loud and come from the area on the other side of the Trinity River.
The area that Michelle indicates that she bas beard the screams is very close in proximity to the screams that Hank Masten and Corky Van Pelt heard when they were on the Trinity River camping. I reiterate that these three people do not know each other and have never been told of each other's encounters.
During this point in the interview I told Michelle that it appears that she remembers this incident like it happened yesterday. She stated that it was something that she will never forget, and it was a significant event in her life. I told Michelle that 1know people will read this story and they will say that she saw a bear, not Bigfoot. Michelle retorts that she has seen hundreds of bears in and around her yard. As recently as the previous week they had a bear get into their garage that they had to scare away.
Michelle was absolutely adamant. "The creature J saw in my front yard eating berries in 1972 was no bear. lt didn 't have a snout Like a bear. 1t picked berries off the vine with its hands and fingers like a human. It did
n 't walk l ike a bear and it was physically quite different from a bear. It was much closer to human than any bear. It looked like a cross between an ape and human. I saw a young Bigfoot."
Michelle stated that she has seen Bigfoot just one time, but others in the area had seen it after her initial encounter. She explained that Shoemaker Road was a very desolate place when Bigfoot made its visita
tion. Today the area SlUTounding Shoemaker Road and the road itself is lined with residences and a new home development. Michelle said those weeks after her Bigfoot visit she ran into people who would walk Shoemaker Road in the early morning hours and sometimes see Bigfoot in the forests and road area.
The early morning encounters of Bigfoot along the Shoemaker Road area match the time and location of th e sighting by Ray 's Supermarket manager (Mularkey) on his way into work.
During the entire interview with MicheUe, her grandson was walkjng in and out of the room listening to parts of the story and helping Lee with chores. As I was leaving the residence , he approached and thanked me for spending the time dragging out an extraordinary story. He told me that
throughout his entire life he had heard bits and pieces of different aspects of the encounter, but had never heard everything and bad never heard how it all intertwined. He did tell me that before Michelle 's son Jamie died , he had several conversations w ith him about Bigfoot. He distinctly remem bers Jamie stating that he had seen Bigfoot looking in his bedroom win dow the night the pigs were making noise and that Jamie was positive it was a Bigfoot.
I was able to finally contact Leanne (Michelle 's daughter and also one of the kids in the yard who w i tnessed Bigfoot) by phone. She is a social worker for the Hoopa tribe and lives in the community. She had spent a munber of years in Los Angeles County as a social worker and is a very intelligent and aware person . She did confirm what her mom stat
ed about t he incident in their front yard. Exact details of the incident were a little vague for Leam1e, but she was quite helpful in confirm ing the inci
dent and confirming the Bigfoot sight i ng. Leanne patiently reviewed her mother's statement regarding the incident in the yard and then later signed an affidavit.
Michelle signed an affidavit on her Bigfoot sighting.
location of Sighting
Shoemaker Road is in a prime area for making a Bigfoot sighting. Hank Masten, Corky Van Pelt and Michael Mularkey (Ray's Store manager) have all had either Bigfoot incidents or Bigfoot sightings in that immedi ate area; many of the sightings center on Camel Creek and the adjacent area. Michelle has told us that sigh tings occulTed after her incidents ended.
The sightings were by people wa l king, jogging and hiking in the early morning hours , and that matches with the Michael Mularkey sighting. This location is at the far southern end of the reservation and is also an area that has seen a significant increase of population over the years. It does appear that as the population has increased , the sightings have decreased . The only sighting or incident in recent times was Michael Mularkey's.
Michelle McCardie's Bigf oot sketches.
Forensic Sketch
Michelle is someone who has stuck very tightly to her stOLy. She i s some
what unusua l to the sighting list because she is n ot from the area , is not a tribal member, and is a professiona l w ith forma l education from the east coast. She is a lady with an enormous amount of credibility.
The week that Harvey and Gina Pratt came to Hoopa I had known that Michelle was just being rel eased from the hospital, and I knew that sh e wasn't feeling well. 1 made several trips to her h ouse to see her, and each time she was asl eep or resting. I scheduled several tentative dates and times for her to meet Harvey, and each time she had to cancel because of her health. Each time, though, she always said to keep call
ing and hopefully she wou l d feel well enough soon to assist with the drawing. As we neared the end of the week it became obvious that Michelle wou ld not be wel l enough to travel anywhere. I. called her on Harvey's last day in town and asked if I could bring him to her residence
and he wou l d do the sketch at her bedside if necessary. She agreed that it would be okay.
1escorted Gina and Harvey to Michelle's residence on Shoemaker Road . We stopped in the front yard and I showed the Pratts the various locations where the Bigfoot was seen and the general layout of the area.
As we walked up and into the residence, Michelle was gett i ng situated i n a large chair i n the fron t room. She was in obvious d iscomfort, but was stil l insistent on doing the sketch. After all oftbe introductions were com
pleted, Harvey got right to work .
1 left Harvey and Gina at the residence with Michelle because the area was very crowded. I did not want to distract Michelle from concen trating on the drawing, and Ialso didn 't want to make anyone feel cramped. I had spent a significant amount of time with Michelle aud her grandson on previous occasions and felt very comfortable leaving Harvey and Gina at her residence.
After completing the sketch, Harvey gave me a call. He stated that Michelle was in obvious discomfort, but provided a valuable Bigfoot tool. She took her time in explaining what she saw. Harvey said that she stated that she felt that the creature was a younger Bigfoot and maybe a female based on the "sweet" face that Michelle had described. Harvey al so told me that it was obvious from the description that the Bigfoot was not ful ly grown, but yet felt comfortable enough to v isit the residence on several occasions. Harvey sated that he fell the drawing was a very accu
rate rendition of what Michel le had witnessed based on her response to his drawing.
Harvey informed me that be had completed two drawings of the crea
ture. He said that Michelle had a good look at tbe creature's face and body structure and he fel t it was complete enough to draw just a facia l render
ture. He said that Michelle had a good look at tbe creature's face and body structure and he fel t it was complete enough to draw just a facia l render