E-Paper
America's most famous Bigfoot hunter Claudia Ackley who sighted and filmed the ‘terrifying’ cryptid dead at 51
Claudia Ackley, who had sued the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to prove the existence of the animal, was found dead at her Tennessee home on July 3
Prominent Bigfoot hunter Claudia Ackley, who claimed to have filmed the cryptid, has died at the age of 51. Claudia, who had sued the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to prove the existence of the animal, was found dead at her Tennessee home on July 3. A heart attack is suspected to be her cause of death, her partner Ed Brown confirmed to The US Sun.
A cryptid is an animal whose existence is unsubstantiated, like the yeti. She claimed that she first sighted the cryptid nearly a decade ago. Since then, she devoted her life in an attempt to prove that the mythical, hairy humanoid exists, and is dangerous.
Claudia’s partner, Ed, said that the Bigfoot community "lost a soldier" after her death. Ed was out of town for work and became concerned when he did not hear from Claudia for an unusually long time.
"I had a friend of mine check on her who said the dogs were barking but nobody answered the door, then he looked through the window and saw her lay on the bed like she was asleep," he said.
"She wasn't moving so the police were called and discovered she had passed away. That was Thursday, July 2. Her last messages were on Thursday so I assume at some point that evening she passed away,” he added. "More tests need to be done, but according to police, she died of cardiac arrest.
He added, "It could be caused by hypertension or an issue with her medication. but there is nothing to suggest anything untoward or anything related to any conspiracy theory. It is so important to me that is made clear. I want to protect her legacy, she was a great person with a heart the size of Texas and she wanted to help everybody. She would give everything she had to help people who needed it.”
Claudia Ackley’s Bigfoot sighting
The mom-of-two claimed to have seen the cryptid on March 27, 2016, in the mountains of Big Bear, California. The day following the sighting, Claudia went back to the same tree and found a 22-inch footprint and a 13-inch footprint near the site. Both the feet had five toes.
Claudia went on to ask locals with similar stories to get in touch, and soon began receiving calls. One hiker even said they regularly heard screams that sounded like “a woman getting raped.”
Upon researching the issue, Claudia found that there were thousands of similar sightings across the US. She set up a PTSD group for survivors of Bigfoot sightings.
Claudia described her experience during the Bigfoot sighting in a conversation with The Sun in 2018. “It was terrifying - a life-changing experience,” she said. “It was about 6.30pm at night and we decided to go on a hike along this trail after dinner - we were having a great time, my daughter was making lots of silly videos on her iPhone and we were taking photos.”
“All of a sudden, I see my youngest daughter frozen and she looked at me with a look of fear on her face - and I immediately thought there was a bear in front of her. Then my eldest daughter caught up with her and she too was frozen which confirmed to me they’d seen something,” she continued.
“As a mom, you’d die for your kids, so I immediately ran about 20 feet in front of them and as I'm looking straight at the trees in front of me there was an enormous creature - this thing is about 800 pounds with a huge head - like three of ours - with huge ears and black almond-shaped eyes. He was like a Neanderthal man with lots of messy hair. He was kind of perched about 30 feet up between two branches of a tree and I'm looking at it, trying to register: ‘What is it this? What am I looking at?’" she added.
Ed said after her death that Claudia’s goal was to prompt “real investigation and research.” "Not only did she believe what she saw, she had verifiable photographic evidence, she had multiple witnesses who saw the same thing and she had video,” he said.
He added, "No matter what you believe, she collected everything she could to go forward with this and come hell or high water she was out to prove they existed."
