Two men from Oregon have died after they went missing in a nearby forest amid a search for Sasquatch — a legendary ape-like creature also known as Bigfoot.
On Tuesday, Dec. 24, the individuals — whose identities have not been shared — went “searching for Sasquatch in eastern Skamania County,” the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post shared on Saturday, Dec. 28.
A day later, during the early hours of Wednesday, Dec. 25, authorities were called by a family member, who “reported the subjects missing and endangered.”
Using license plate readers, police said they were able to locate “the associated vehicle with the missing/endangered subjects.”
In the three days that followed, police “acquired over 60 volunteer search and rescue personnel, including canine, drone and ground searching teams.” Authorities also got “an air asset” from the United States Coast Guard.
Volunteers searching for the two men in the forest.
Skamania County Sheriff’s Office
However, after what police described as a “grueling, three-day search over difficult terrain and harsh weather conditions,” the two men were found dead. Both individuals — a 59-year-old male and a 37-year-old male, each from Portland — were discovered “in a heavily wooded area of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest,” police said.
“Both deaths appear to be due to exposure, based on weather conditions and ill-preparedness,” they added.
In their social media post, the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office gave a shout-out to “the exceptional volunteers who sacrificed time away from their families during Christmas to assist our agency with this mission.”
“These phenomenal volunteers also fought through freezing temperatures, snow, high water levels, heavy rain, downfall and heavily wooded terrain,” the department continued. “Their exhaustive search efforts resulted in bringing family members home to their loved ones.”
The Skamania County Sheriff’s Office then expressed their “deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of the loved ones lost in this tragic incident.”
