High in the wilderness of Washington’s Mount St. Helens, there’s a place where the trees grow thick, the nights are black, and the silence feels heavy. Locals call it Ape Canyon — a name born not from folklore alone, but from a terrifying encounter nearly a century ago.
It was the summer of 1924 when a group of five prospectors ventured into the canyon in search of gold. They found something else. Something that would send them fleeing for their lives.
Signs of a Watcher
Fred Beck, Marion Smith, Roy Smith, Gabe Bushnell, and John Peterson were no strangers to the rough life of prospecting. But after a few days working their claim, they began to notice… signs.
Massive footprints — far too large to be human — appeared in the dusty ground around their camp. High-pitched whistles echoed through the trees, answered by others farther off. More than once, one of them felt the hair on the back of their neck stand on end, as though they were being watched.
One afternoon, Fred Beck caught sight of a towering, hair-covered figure — roughly seven feet tall — staring at him from the edge of the forest. Its shoulders were broad, its arms long, its face… disturbingly human. Beck raised his rifle and fired. The figure vanished into the trees.
The Night the Rocks Fell
On July 12, the men fortified themselves inside their small log cabin. The day had been tense, the forest oddly quiet. Then, sometime after nightfall, came the first sound.
Thud.
A rock struck the cabin wall. Then another. And another.
Suddenly, the cabin was under siege. Massive stones rained down on the roof and walls. Something — or several somethings — pounded on the logs, rattling the structure. Hairy arms reached in through gaps between the timbers, groping for the men inside.
They fired their rifles into the dark. The gunshots echoed through the canyon, but the assault continued.
🎙 Kreepy Ken: “Imagine the noise — rocks slamming the cabin, the pounding on the walls, the sound of those things breathing out there. You’d be wondering if you’d make it till morning.”
🎙 Ghost Joe: “Or wondering if you should’ve kept your mouth shut after you saw one in the woods.”
The siege lasted for hours. Every time the men thought the attackers had gone, another wave of pounding and rock-throwing shook the cabin. Only as dawn broke did the strange visitors melt away into the forest.
A Desperate Escape
When the sun finally rose, the miners wasted no time. They gathered their supplies, left their gold claim behind, and made their way down the mountain. Later that day, they told their story in the town of Kelso, Washington.
The newspapers pounced on it. “Ape Men Attack Miners’ Cabin” screamed the headlines. The strange encounter gave the canyon its name — and an enduring place in Pacific Northwest cryptid lore.
Theories and Doubts
Some believe the miners were victims of an organized Bigfoot attack — one of the rare cases suggesting the creatures hunt in groups. Others claim it was all a tall tale, cooked up by tired men looking to abandon a poor gold claim. Skeptics point to black bears as the likely culprits, though few bears can throw rocks with such accuracy.
And then there are the stranger theories — that the attackers were something otherworldly. That they could vanish into thin air. That they weren’t entirely flesh and blood.
A Canyon of Disappearances
The legend didn’t end in 1924. In 1969, skier and mountaineer Jim Carter vanished in the area under mysterious circumstances. Searchers claimed they found strange tracks and signs that he had taken a bizarre, erratic route down the mountain, as if being chased. Carter’s body was never found.
The Lasting Mystery
Today, Ape Canyon remains remote, wild, and steeped in its eerie reputation. Hikers still report strange sounds in the night. Some claim to see towering shapes in the trees, watching silently.
🎙 Kreepy Ken: “It’s easy to dismiss old stories. But I’ll tell you this — if you spend a night out there, you might come back with one of your own.”
🎙 Ghost Joe: “If you come back at all.”
Whether the 1924 Ape Canyon Incident was a genuine cryptid encounter, a terrifying misunderstanding, or a story that grew taller over the decades, one thing is certain: it’s one of the most enduring tales of the Pacific Northwest. And it still raises a chilling question…
If the miners were telling the truth, how many of those creatures are still out there?
🔊 Hear the full witness accounts, the rifle shots in the dark, and the theories in this week’s episode of Warped Reality: Paranormal Stories:
💬 Tell us in the comments, email us at ghostjoeny@gmail.com, or call (845) 600-0744 and leave us a voicemail — you might hear it on a future episode.
Comments
Post a Comment