Remembering Bigfoot hunter, Claudia Ackley, claimed she saw the creature in Lake Arrowhead
Former Crestline resident and Bigfoot hunter Claudia Ackley, who claimed to have encountered the creature while hiking near Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino National Forest, has died.
The 51-year-old Ackley was found dead at her Tennessee home on July 3, following a suspected heart attack, her partner Ed Brown confirmed to the U.S. Sun.
Over the last decade, Ackley drew national attention during her pursuit to prove the beast’s existence and while studying the mythical creature's history.
Brown told the Sun that Ackley’s death meant the Bigfoot community had “lost a soldier.”
“I want to protect her legacy, she was a great person with a heart the size of Texas and she wanted to help everybody,” Brown told the Sun. "She would give everything she had to help people who needed it.”
Encounters with Bigfoot
In 1997, Ackley heard a growl outside her tent while camping at Yosemite National Park. When she looked outside she saw a bipedal, hairy creature walking away, The Press-Enterprise said.
The encounter sent her on a quest to study the creatures, which included leaving recordings in forests in an attempt to teach them human speech.
Ackley said her life-changing moment came in 2014 during a Bigfoot expedition in Washington, where she locked eyes with what appeared to be a small, 5-foot-tall Bigfoot in the trees.
Lake Arrowhead sighting
Ackley told the New York Post that in March 2017, she was with her two daughters, ages 14 and 11, and dog at a trailhead near Lake Arrowhead when one of her children saw something that made her freeze in her tracks.
When Ackley hurried to see what was wrong, she claimed that she witnessed an alpha-male Sasquatch leering at her from behind a tree.
Ackley described the creature as having a huge head and ears, and black almond-shaped eyes. He was like a Neanderthal man with lots of messy hair.
She said the creature was perched about 30 feet up between two branches of a tree.
After the incident, Ackley called authorities to report the Bigfoot sighting, but they insisted she had seen a bear.
In 2018, The Sun spent time with Ackley in the San Bernardino Mountains, retracing the steps through the forest where she said she filmed an 800-pound ape-like creature during a hike with her daughters.
After Ackley began researching the issue, she found there were thousands of similar sightings around the U.S., which she began to investigate. She even set up a PTSD group for survivors of Bigfoot sightings.
Suing the state
A frustrated Ackley filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the state Natural Resources Agency in 2018, accusing the state of failing to protect Bigfoot and infringing on her constitutional rights.
"The lawsuit was canceled with prejudice but she had the right to refile with another attorney,” Brown said. "Right up until the very end, she believed in what she saw and she wanted to help other people who had experienced something similar.”
Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at 760-951-6227 or RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Remembering Bigfoot hunter, former Crestline resident Claudia Ackley
