Bigfoot Reports From Colorado, New Jersey and Idaho: What the Records Say

Three Bigfoot claims reached local news in the first week of November: a woman who says she saw a tall figure beside a Colorado highway, a New Jersey couple who describe a creature crossing a rainy road in the Pine Barrens, and an Idaho deer hunter who heard knocks and smelled decay but saw nothing. None comes with a photo or physical evidence, and only in Colorado did a wildlife agency comment publicly.

Colorado: a figure at the tree line on Slumgullion Pass

Cowboy State Daily reported on Lori Bowling of Lake City, Colorado. She says that at 3:41 p.m. on July 28 she and her husband, Bill, were driving down Slumgullion Pass on Colorado Highway 149 in the San Juan Mountains, towing a trailer, when she saw a figure near the tree line. She first took it for a person in camouflage. She estimated it stood 7 to 9 feet tall, with dark brownish-black hair and very long arms. “I saw this critter take four, five big gliding steps before it left my view due to the road curve,” she said. Her husband, who was driving, did not see it. She submitted a report to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), though the article gives no report number or class.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) responded in the same article. John Livingston, the agency’s Southwest Region public information officer, said CPW never received a direct report of her encounter. “If she saw anything, our best guess is that it was a domestic sheep herder moving sheep through the high alpine, because that was happening during that same time,” he said, adding that herders often wear scraggly clothing and keep out of sight in the trees. The article notes that a local game warden sets out remote cameras each fall to survey lynx; Livingston wrote in an email that they have recorded “never anything close to a squatch sighting.”

We manage 960-plus wildlife species in Colorado. While that list continues to grow, bigfoot is still not one of them.

John Livingston, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, to Cowboy State Daily

Bowling stands by her account. In a video her husband posted online, she said, “I saw what I saw.” She also said a game warden had passed other sightings to the sheriff; Livingston said the agency has not discussed that, and the sheriff she named is no longer in office. The article adds that none of the BFRO’s 398 reports from five Rocky Mountain states is scientific confirmation. More on Colorado.

New Jersey: a road crossing in the rain

The New Jersey case is BFRO Report 82683, rated Class A, the group’s category for a clear sighting. It is filed under Burlington County, on Route 542 between New Gretna and Wading River. Witness Keyara Klawitter submitted it on October 11, 2026, the day of the sighting. She wrote that she was driving with her husband and their children, who slept through it, when, at the bend where Loveland Lane joins Route 542, their headlights picked out a large figure coming out of the woods on the right. The page lists the conditions as dark and raining.

She described a bulky creature about 8 feet tall, with black fur that looked soaking wet, long arms and human-like hands, crossing so quickly it seemed to glide. Her husband, Jason, confirmed he saw the same thing. Cat Country 107.3 covered it on November 7. According to the BFRO write-up, the couple called the State Park Police and the state environmental department; both said they did not handle such incidents, and the department referred them to the BFRO.

BFRO investigator Jacob Korbel and a colleague met the couple at the site a week later. He wrote that a well-used game trail runs along both sides of the road, and that they found some broken branches and a few ambiguous impressions “but nothing we could confidentally connect with the sighting” (his spelling). He noted that heavy rain could have washed away any tracks, that a re-enactment put the sighting at about four to five seconds, and that the couple did not see a face. He estimated the height at 7½ to 8 feet against a telephone pole, and wrote that both investigators believed the couple to be credible. Credibility is not identification: the report records what the couple saw, not what it was. More on New Jersey.

Idaho: knocks and a smell, but nothing seen

The Idaho report is BFRO Report 83680, Class B, the category for possible encounters that fall short of a clear view. It comes from Benewah County, about 10 miles southeast of St. Maries, and was written by deer hunter Gabe Coder on October 20. Around 5 p.m. at dusk, walking a trail in clear, calm weather, he heard loud knocking on a tree from a creek bed that sounded 200 to 300 yards away. The smell came almost at once, what he called “a super strong smell of death,” and the knocking went on for five to ten minutes. He wrote that the odor was “as if you were standing right on top of a carcass.” He also heard, briefly, “a really deep voice” whose words he could not make out.

He saw no animal, found no carcass that could explain the odor, and reported no human footprints or other sign of people. OutKick (Fox News) reported the story on November 3 and KEZJ of Twin Falls on November 4; only KEZJ mentions “loud grunts.” The page has no investigator follow-up, and neither outlet quotes an official or expert. Because nothing was seen, another hunter (though he saw no sign of one), an animal or a carcass out of view all remain open. Earlier 2026 Idaho reports are in Idaho’s Bigfoot Summer; Idaho has its own page.

Three kinds of claim

The cases sit at different points on the evidence scale. Colorado is a sighting from a moving vehicle, with an official offering a specific ordinary explanation and no field investigation. New Jersey is a Class A night sighting with an investigator who found the witnesses credible but no physical trace. Idaho involves sounds and a smell, with nothing seen. In each, the identification as Bigfoot remains a claim. For how researchers weigh such material, see How Scientists Test Bigfoot Evidence.