In the winter of 1987, an 11-to-13-year-old native youth named Joseph gained permission to drive his father's Arctic Cat Jag snowmachine, leading his two younger brothers (ages nine and seven) on a Yamaha Bravo 340 into the remote tundra islands west of Sophie's Landing along the Nushagak River. Armed with a heavy 8mm rifle and two .22s to harvest small game, the boys successfully dispatched a porcupine on an oblong island of black spruce trees. While processing the harvest, a dense, blinding winter sea fog rolled in rapidly off Bristol Bay. Sent to circle the perimeter for rabbits, the two younger brothers returned panicked and crying, detailing an encounter with a giant 'hairy man' standing in the fog thicket.
Joseph investigated alone with the 8mm rifle, spotting a large, brown hair-covered mass that he initially misidentified as a bedded moose rump. Attempting to flush it out by cutting a loud trail through the black spruce branches on his machine, Joseph returned to his brothers, only for the entire group to watch a massive dark shadow step directly into their exit path 50 yards away—executing an ominous torso-sway. Instructing his brothers to flee to the main river channel, Joseph executed a sweeping high-speed loop to illuminate the target. As his headlight cut the fog, the creature bolted, running parallel to the machine inside the timber line before executing a spectacular burst of speed—estimated at 50 to 60 miles per hour—to cross the open tundra pack and secure a position on the porcupine island slough ahead.
Joseph sprinted to catch his brothers at the mouth of the Nushagak River. As the youth hit his kill-switch to assemble the group, his brothers screamed and pointed behind him; the 9-foot-tall entity had heavily tracked them down the trail, standing a mere 60 feet away in the open slough path while executing a deep, gurgling breathing pattern and a slow sway before the boys pinned their throttles to escape.
