Retired Army Sergeant Recounts 1993 Bigfoot Encounter in Oregon

A retired U.S. Army sergeant described his close encounter with what he called nine-foot-tall creatures during a military exercise, as fresh Bigfoot reports surface in Ohio.

Todd Neiss, a former skeptic who once wrote off Bigfoot as myth, now leads the American Primate Conservancy. He appeared on Fox & Friends First to recount the 1993 incident that upended his views.

"All that changed for me in 1993 while conducting a military exercise in the Oregon Coast Range," Neiss said Tuesday. "Those 25 seconds changed the entire course of my life."

Neiss said he and three fellow soldiers were handling high explosives when they spotted three of the creatures watching them.

"Their silhouette was completely disproportionate in terms of the arm length and even the length of the legs as it pertains to a human torso," he said.

"The ones I saw range between seven to nine feet in height. They do tend to have a more human-like face, but obviously just hair-covered, very large, very athletic," he added.

Though linked to the Pacific Northwest, Neiss said Ohio ranks fourth nationwide for sightings.

Investigators from the Ohio Squatch Project checked eight reports from March, aided by the Bigfoot Society.

FOX 8 reported Sunday that witnesses found tracks and audio of unexplained howls, described as new evidence.

Mike Miller, co-founder of the Ohio Night Stalkers Bigfoot Research Group, suggested a tough winter drove the creatures into populated zones or that they were raising young.

Neiss has pursued leads in Northern California, Arizona, Alaska, the Cascade Range and the Blue Mountains.

He attributed the lack of tech proof to the creatures' rarity, saying even many cameras make footage a matter of math and luck.