As far as I can tell, Washington’s Ape Canyon is a gorge on Mount St. Helens that is neither shaped like an ape nor inhabited by one. The odd name comes from an incident reported in July 1924…
Ape Canyon’s Bizarre 1924 Bigfoot Attack | Bizarre and Grotesque Bizarre and Grotesque Menu Skip to content Home Disappearances Ghosts Lists Monsters UFOs Unsolved Murders Contact Search Search for: Ape Canyon’s Bizarre 1924 Bigfoot Attack January 15, 2020January 15, 2020 / Tristan Fred Beck, veteran of America’s most horrific Bigfoot battle As far as I can tell, Washington’s Ape Canyon is a gorge on Mount St. Helens that is neither shaped like an ape nor inhabited by one. The odd name comes from an incident reported in July 1924, when five miners claimed that they were attacked by a group of apemen. The story goes that a member of the mining party, a man named Fred Beck, took a shot at one of the creatures after being spooked. Later that night, the monsters appeared at the miners’ cabin, tossing boulders and rushing the door to break it down. According to The Oregonian, the first paper to break the story, the apemen were covered in long black hair. They stood at 7 feet, weighed over 400 pounds, and possessed great strength. At one point, they made a hole in the cabin’s roof and dropped a rock inside, knocking Beck in the head. Despite the apemen’s mastery of rock-throwing, the gun-toting miners were able to hold their ground. By the morning, the creatures had retreated, allowing Beck and the other humans to run out the log-fort and return to civilization. Yes, the miners’ tale was likely just a campfire yarn, but how could newspapers resist a showdown between giant apes and gold prospectors? At a time when the word “Bigfoot” hadn’t been coined yet, people referred to the miners’ violent apemen as “mountain devils” and “gorillas.” As word of the ambush spread, the story also became increasingly outlandish. A skeptical mention in the Engineering and Mining Journal put the number of combatants involved at “more than twenty animals,” while one Native American editor tied the apemen to the Seeahtik, a mythical tribe who used hypnotism to hunt for their game. Although the Washington media’s interest in the Bigfoot assault eventually faded, the gorge where it happened was christened “Ape Canyon,” ensuring that the battle remained a part of local folklore. After the modern conception of Sasquatch took off in the late 1950s, researchers like journalist Betty Allen rediscovered the Ape Canyon incident and incorporated it into Bigfoot mythology. Probably encouraged by this new Bigfoot mania, Fred Beck sat down with his son Roland to create a memoir of the failed 1924 siege, titling his 1967 booklet “I Fought the Ape Men of Mt. St. Helens.” Despite the long passage of time, Beck remembered the greatest Bigfoot brawl of the century rather well. Before that fateful day in July, Beck and the other miners had already come across large, unfamiliar tracks. The week of the incident, they heard whistling outside every evening, as though two creatures were trying to communicate with one another. During his description of the attack in the booklet’s first chapter, Beck clarifies a couple details that were misreported in the press. It was actually his friend “Hank” (a pseudonym) who shot the first apeman, for example, and it wasn’t true that Beck was hit in the head by a rock. At most, Beck and his mining party saw only three apemen at a time, although there might have been more. When things quieted down in the morning, the miners came out of their cabin, and Beck spotted one of the creatures standing near a cliff. He shot it three times, sending the damn dirty ape over the edge, down to a fall that was four hundred feet below. After fleeing to a park ranger station at Spirit Lake, Beck wanted to keep the whole ordeal a secret, but “Hank” couldn’t keep his mouth shut. The story spread, journalists requested interviews, and curiosity-seekers and law officers scoured the area for signs of the attackers. In the second chapter of the booklet, Beck reprints a 1964 news article about the Mt. St. Helen apemen, mentioning his own incident and the 1950 disappearance of a skier on the mountain. Further on, he admits to having been clairvoyant since childhood, noting a history of “visions” and “spiritual meetings.” Because a psychic element just wasn’t enough, Beck completely twists his story and speculates that the apemen were beings from a lower plane of existence. As a lost link between humans and their ancestors, the apemen sometimes manifested into our own dimension, anxious to ascend their petty state. They are curious, largely harmless critters, and are only searching for a higher consciousness. This spiritual gobbledygook, although not entirely unwelcome for entertainment purposes, is entirely absent from the original ’20s reportage. There’s been debate over how much influence Roland had on his father’s written account, and even whether Fred Beck could remember the story as accurately as he thought he did. In terms of more practical solutions, a logger named Rant Mullins admitted in 1982 that he rolled rocks onto a cabin in the Mt. St. Helen area in 1924. Mullins had also faked giant footprints for decades, suggesting he was responsible for another important part of Beck’s “ambush.” Another theory argues that the miners mistook a rock slide that hit their cabin for the monsters, and yet a third maintains that the assailants were teenagers from a local YMCA, who couldn’t be seen clearly due to the time of night. As for the Bigfoot that Beck shot and sent down into oblivion, this was either the case of an overactive imagination, or the brutal assassination of an innocent apeman attempting to reach a higher consciousness. Personally, I don’t believe in Sasquatch or its cousins, so I’m going to opt for the former explanation. If you enjoyed reading this article, please consider supporting my work by buying my book “Forgotten Lives” on Amazon here. My first collection of short stories includes such sugary sweet tales as “The Society for the Preservation of Vice,” in which a group of decadent artists attempt to pull off a human sacrifice, and the heart-warming “A Gourmet’s Confession,” in which a glutton resorts to cannibalism after he can’t eat conventional food anymore. Although not appropriate for everyone, the book is a favorite among apemen, and has been a popular item to toss at miner cabins. Advertisement Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:Like Loading... Related The Hibagon: A Japanese Bigfoot That Might Also Be A Marketing PloyIt's a general fact of the world that every culture must have at least one story of a hairy ape-like creature. We're all familiar with Bigfoot and his snowy cousin the Yeti, and we can find more far-fetched tales of their relatives from across the globe. The Chinese have encountered…April 26, 2020In "Monsters"The Wildman of ChinaAccounts of Bigfoot-like creatures in China date back nearly 3,000 years. One of the best-known of these creatures in modern times is the yeren, or "Wildman", in the central province of Hubei. The earliest report of a Wildman appears in a local chronicle of Hubei's Fang County in the 17th…October 3, 2015In "Monsters"The Disappearance of J.C. Brown, a Man Who Allegedly Found Lemurian RuinsIn 1864, the English zoologist Philip Sclater noted that lemur fossils had been found in both India and the far-away island of Madagascar. To explain this geographical discrepancy, Sclater proposed that lemurs and similar primates must have originated in Madagascar, which at one point must have been connected to India.…January 22, 2020In "Disappearances" Monsters Ape Canyon, Bigfoot 1924, Bigfoot battle, Bigfoot fight, Fred Beck, Sasquatch fight, Washington Bigfoot Post navigation ← How a Nobleman (Partially) Solved the Disappearance of a Purloined PlateThe Disappearance of J.C. Brown, a Man Who Allegedly Found Lemurian Ruins → 9 thoughts on “Ape Canyon’s Bizarre 1924 Bigfoot Attack” Pingback: Ape Canyon’s Weird 1924 Bigfoot Assault - KRIPTIQ Pingback: The Disappearance of J.C. Brown, a Man Who Allegedly Found Lemurian Ruins | Bizarre and Grotesque Pingback: The Hibagon: A Japanese Bigfoot That Might Also Be A Marketing Ploy | Bizarre and Grotesque Pingback: The Hibagon: A Japanese Bigfoot That Might Also Be A Marketing Ploy • 10ztalk Crime Marc Myrsell April 29, 2020 at 8:45 pm Thanks for your article on this. It was actually the Longview Daily News, dated July 12, 1924 that was the first to report on the incident. LikeLike Reply Tristan April 29, 2020 at 9:53 pm Thanks for the tip! I’ll update the article soon. LikeLike Reply Pingback: El Hibagon: un Bigfoot japonés que también podría ser una estratagema de marketing | Marcianitos Verdes Tyler June 2, 2020 at 3:13 pm If you really want to have your mind blown by these guys then read the story where they followed a lady in white or multiple of them to find the mine as well as the Bigfoot and the lady in white are coupled together with orbs.. it’s out there but it’s one help of a read! LikeLike Reply Stephen Martin January 15, 2021 at 8:19 pm I simply stunned that, after all the evidence in recent years of the existence of bigfoot, you scoff at such a thought. There is more evidence these creatures exist than not. Educate yourself. LikeLike Reply Leave a Reply Cancel reply Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Email (Address never made public) Name Website You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change ) Cancel Connecting to %s Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Δ Follow Blog via Email Enter your email address to follow Bizarre and Grotesque! You'll get an email every time I make a new post. Email Address: Follow Join 134 other subscribers Search for: Like Us On Facebook! Recent Posts Flying on an Alien’s Back Across the Middle Kingdom The Evil Satanic Cult (Supposedly) Behind Cattle Mutilations The Hibagon: A Japanese Bigfoot That Might Also Be A Marketing Ploy 5 Strange Tales from Pandaemonium,a 17th Century Book on Demonology Wilbert Smith and Project Magnet, Canada’s Unintentional UFO Research Study Archives Archives Select Month July 2020 April 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 March 2019 September 2018 August 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 Top Posts & Pages The Case of Juan Pedro Martinez Gomez, Europe's Strangest Disappearance The Disappearance of J.C. Brown, a Man Who Allegedly Found Lemurian Ruins 6 Creepy Unsolved Japanese Murders 15 Creepy Pictures from the Japanese Side of the Internet 20 Bizarre and Disturbing Japanese Woodblock Prints Ape Canyon's Bizarre 1924 Bigfoot Attack The Inokashira Park Dismemberment Incident Did CIA Agents Kill Hollywood Screenwriter Gary DeVore? Elizabeth Klarer and Her Handsome Alien Lover from the Planet Meton The Jackie Hernandez Haunting Blog Stats 857,002 hits Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Follow Following Bizarre and Grotesque Join 134 other followers Sign me up Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now. Bizarre and Grotesque Customize Follow Following Sign up Log in Copy shortlink Report this content View post in Reader Manage subscriptions Collapse this bar Loading Comments... Write a Comment... Email Name Website Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy %d bloggers like this: Advertisements Powered by wordads.co We've received your report. Thanks for your feedback! Seen too often Not relevant Offensive Broken Report this ad