The real " Navajo Bigfoot story"

Bigfoot's stomping grounds

There's more to Upper Fruitland than Northern Edge casino

By Cindy Yurth
Tséyi Bureau

FARMINGTON, January 26, 2012

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(Courtesy photo - Brenda Harris)

TOP: Brenda Harris of Upper Fruitland, N.M., found this footprint, nearly 18 inches long, in her yard in 2008, starting her on a mission of tracking the elusive creature.

BOTTOM: This photo by Brenda Harris of Upper Fruitland, N.M., shows a figure she believes is a Bigfoot walking behind a cornfield near the San Juan River. Harris, who has investigated dozens of sightings and strange phenomena in her chapter, believes there is at least a family and possibly a whole colony of the creatures living in the mountains north of Fruitland.

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Meet the Navajo Buffy.

She's not a pretty cheerleader, she's a pretty middle-aged mom. And she's not a vampire slayer, exactly ... she's more of a live-and-let-live type.

But if you live on the northern edge of the rez, and there's something strange in the neighborhood, who you gonna call? Brenda Harris.

Since finding an 18-inch long footprint in her yard in Upper Fruitland, Harris has investigated dozens of complaints from neighbors about strange livestock killings, hairy upright beings looking in windows, and odd giant footprints.

She has photographs and even hair and blood samples.

Her conclusion: Bigfoot is alive and well. In fact, there are almost certainly more than one of them living in the mountains north of the San Juan River, including some youngsters.

And that's not at all. There is something else out there.

According to Harris, a recent spate of sheep and goat killings in Upper Fruitland reveal a killer that punctures a tidy hole in the neck and sucks the blood, then neatly slices open the abdomen along one side.

Harris's obsession with monster tracking began in August 2008. Her son and nephew were up late, sitting out in the yard laughing and chatting.

"About 1 a.m. they came running in saying, 'We found something,'" Harris recalled.

She went out with them and was astonished to see a quasi-human-looking footprint 18 inches long and four inches wide. There were two of them, a left and a right, four feet apart.

"I thought, 'Anything with that wide a stance is really big,'" Harris said.

She shooed her family in for the night, but not before taking measurements and photos.

About a week went by before the next encounter. Harris's sister came by at about 10:30 p.m.

"I could hear the dogs going nuts, but not in the usual way when someone comes over," Harris recalled. "You can tell when something is really disturbing your dogs."

Harris and her sister went out to investigate.

"We could hear something ... heavy steps coming toward us," Harris said. "I said, 'Let's climb over the fence.'"

They heard the steps again, and then they saw a shape rise out of the gloom.

"Huge," said Harris. "Very, very hairy ... long dark hair and no neck. Kind of a pointy head. The chest was really wide, very muscular. It dropped down on all fours and started running that way. It was surprisingly fast."

Harris noticed the weeds, which grew almost above her 5-foot-2-inch frame, hit the creature at the waist. She estimated it was about 12 feet tall.

Telling the story to her neighbors, Harris found they had all seen the creature, but didn't want to talk about it.

"Among the Native people, we're told not to talk about things like that," she said. "You just leave it alone. But I was worried about my animals and my kids. I felt like we should be talking about it as a community.