Bigfoot in New Hampshire: The Legend of the Forest

The fabled Bigfoot is feared and revered in New Hampshire

5 hours ago

Emily Reily,

Bigfoot Illustration Final — Illustration by Rich Woodall

Every region has its urban legend: The Mothman terrorizes West Virginia; Champy the lake monster calls Lake Champlain home; the Yeti roams the Himalayas.

Then there’s Bigfoot.

Estimated to be around 8 and 10 feet, covered in hair, and smelling like wet dog and rotting pine, Bigfoot lives in secluded, heavily wooded areas in New Hampshire, especially in Coos County, where he’s sometimes called a woods devil. You might know him before you see him; he may leave behind gargantuan footprints or visible damage to tree branches.

Of course, Bigfoot has never been scientifically proven, so for now, he exists as a cryptid — a hidden, unexplained animal that lives on in anecdotes and unsubstantiated photos and videos.

The Pacific Northwest has a high number of sightings, but in New England, New Hampshire ranks second in Sasquatch-spotting.

But does he really exist? The lack of concrete evidence hasn’t stopped the flow of sightings; reports abound on Bigfoot podcasts and private Facebook group pages.

Former New England resident Jeremiah Byron started the Bigfoot Society podcast in 2019 to better understand cryptozoology, but now it’s a site where people can safely share their Bigfoot encounters.

“These witnesses need a place where they can share what happened to them and not be ridiculed or made fun of,” Byron writes in an email.

Byron first learned about Bigfoot from a 1977 episode of “In Search Of,” which includes images from Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin’s 1967 film, which is still debated today. Byron says he encountered Bigfoot in the Oregon Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest.

“In 2024, I was 30 miles out in the wilderness and we were roar / screamed at by something. In the same area, I found 16-inch footprints that were in a straight line coming out from the woods and stopping at the edge of a meadow,” Byron says.

Byron, who has interviewed more than 1,000 people about the beast, says Bigfoot sightings don’t discriminate.

“Encounters can happen to anyone, from farmers to law enforcement to software developers,” Byron says.

Recent New England sightings have made news headlines. Kevin Klimas reported seeing a “two-legged, 8-foot-tall creature covered with greasy, long brown hair,” while driving through the Connecticut woods on July 5, according to Boston.com.

The Granite State is no different.

“New Hampshire itself is full of Bigfoot reports,” says Byron, including one involving a “Marlborough Monkey” in southwest New Hampshire.

“Those sightings have gone on for years,” says Byron, who hears similarities among the stories.

“Things I usually hear are, it is a hair covered bipedal creature that is 8 to 10 feet tall, it is not bothered by them and crosses roads very quickly. Its arms are much longer than a human’s, and it has a large head with pronounced brow ridge and leathery type gray skin to its face,” he says.

The area around Bear Brook State Park is another Bigfoot hot spot.

“I have talked to more than a few hunters on my show where they have seen dark humanoid type figures in the woods, had rocks thrown at cabins and seen strange unexplained orbs in the woods,” Byron says.

And in Nottingham, someone reported “an 8-foot-tall Bigfoot standing beside the roadside as it was exhaling breath visibly in the cold air before retreating into the woods,” in 2018.

“There is definitely something in the woods of New Hampshire that people are experiencing — something that is tall, covered in hair, and that may be much smarter than we are willing to admit,” Byron writes.

Aleksandar Petakov, a documentarian and outdoor adventurer, created the “Bigfoot: Beyond the Trail” docuseries, through his production company, Small Town Monsters. Petakov also searches for cryptozoological subjects like UFOs, “lake monsters” and “mystery big cats” in caves, abandoned sites and mines.

Petakov has been interested in Bigfoot since he was a child, and remains adamant something is out there. He’s gathered stories from all around New Hampshire.

“I’ve interviewed people in person across the state, gotten emails and messages about sightings which I’ve followed up on. I’ve even helped organizations like the BFRO (Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization) bust a hoax of alleged Bigfoot footage from NH by using my drone to determine it was a stationary object filmed from a distance,” Petakov writes in an email to the magazine.

One potential sighting from around 2000 involved a camper in the White Mountains who saw a large hand moving across the other side of his tent. Then he heard a “terrifying guttural noise that vibrated his chest,” Petakov says.

At the time, the witness didn’t think it was Bigfoot, but years later, he heard about a similar incident witnessed by a wildlife biologist in Wyoming, and it sealed the deal.

“I can’t tell you how many stories like this I’ve heard from across North America at this point,” Petakov says.

Petakov acknowledges he’s never actually seen one, but has seen behaviors similar to other reports, including strange “wood-knocking” sounds and/or rocks being thrown.

“There is truly something strange going on in North America’s wild places, New Hampshire included,” Petakov adds.

Like Byron, Petakov has heard from all walks of life. “Credible sightings have happened to biologists, scientists, former military, law enforcement officers, hunters, fisherman, hikers and others, to those with no formal education to those with advanced degrees,” Petakov writes.

He has also found striking similarities among accounts.

“Of the top 10 witnesses I’ve interacted with since 2015, virtually none of them were looking for it. They were hunting, hiking, camping, on a job or somehow recreating in the woods. They were in a rural wooded area and encountered a large hairy man-like creature(s) that we are told aren’t supposed to exist. Therein lies the enigma,” Petakov writes.

But breaking down Bigfoot sightings frame by frame is only one side of the coin. The Bigfoot name and the mystery it evokes can draw curious onlookers and become a unique tourist and business draw.

Bigfoot festivals are common nationwide; Charmingfare Farm in Candia holds an annual “Scouting for Bigfoot” event, which includes guided tours, interactive forest activities and a Bigfoot Calling Contest.

Since 2022, the Rochester Main Street Bigfoot Scavenger Hunt event has been held during the summer to promote what the city has to offer.

But it doesn’t hurt that it’s Bigfoot-themed.

Rochester Main Street Executive Director Jeffrey Bisson says the idea hatched in 2022, when the city’s website, the Rochester Post, ran the story “Mysterious family of Bigfoot spotted in downtown Rochester.”

The town was gobsmacked when the post went viral and flooded the city’s website.

Jeffrey Bisson, Executive Director of Rochester Main Street, stands by a wooden Bigfoot cutout in the downtown Rochester area on Monday August 17, 2026. The Bigfoot cutout is part of the city’s Bigfoot Scavenger Hunt. Photo by Mark Bolton

“A lot of people didn’t realize it was promoting a scavenger hunt. So many people clicked through to the city website that it actually crashed. It was phenomenal,” Bisson says.

“We absolutely did not anticipate how much attention it would get. The story started getting shared all over the country,” Bisson adds.

The scavenger hunt includes 11 wood cutouts; each with a big foot attached with instructions for an individual challenge. For an extra layer of fun, the 12th Bigfoot has been hobnobbing around Rochester. If the Big Man shows up, kids can doodle or draw on the imposing cutout.

“Most of the challenges involve taking a photo or video doing something specific. One of them is simply joining our newsletter so that we can track that entry,” Bisson says.

The organization is always refining the scavenger hunt. This year, Rochester Main Street has created an extended family of Bigfoot cutout creatures and a story arc, including “Bigfoot’s old college friends — Alien and Mothman joined us last year — and this year, Bigfoot brought his cousin, the Grinch,” Bisson says.

Many were painted by Rochester Main Street organizers; last year, kids from the Maple Street Magnet School helped out.

“They did an incredible job on them and put a lot of extra care into decorating and sealing them,” Bisson says.

To keep the event going, the organization relies on sponsorships and sales of the cutouts. Those funds go toward new Bigfoot cutouts to keep Sasquatch clean and safe from New Hampshire’s harsh weather elements.

But despite logging miles of reports with no hard conclusion, another question lingers: Why do people continue to look for him?

“It is (one) of the world’s greatest mysteries. Mankind longs for the adventure that has been taken from us as more technology becomes prevalent,” Byron says.

Bisson calls the hunt for Bigfoot a “modern-day fairy tale.”

“I think there is something pretty universal about people wanting to believe that there are still magical, mysterious, or fantastical things somewhere out in the world that we haven’t discovered yet. Bigfoot has become a great representation of that,” Bisson says.

“I think relatively few people are willing to say with absolute certainty that something like that could never exist,” Bisson says, pointing out that some animals once thought to be extinct are later rediscovered.

For example, the coelacanth, an ancient fish once determined to have gone extinct in the Late Cretaceous period, was found alive in 1938.

Bisson says that fact means nothing is certain.

“It leaves just enough possibility to make the idea exciting,” Bisson says, though the discovery of such an animal would be extraordinary.

“Obviously, discovering a 10-foot-tall, gorilla-like humanoid would be on an entirely different level, but those real-world discoveries leave that little bit of ‘what if?’ It’s the mystery and the unknown,” Bisson says.

Despite the lack of evidence that Sasquatch is real, mankind’s reactions to the prospect of an unknown, possibly dangerous, animal lurking in the woods elicits a fundamental reaction.

“No matter if it is a hiker or a home owner, there always seems to be a primal response in the witness — like as humans, we know about these creatures and how we should react to their presence. There seems to be a primal awakening of fear or apprehension that always comes up,” Byron says.

Petakov says that now with AI’s footprint increasing across social media, it’s even more difficult to authenticate a sighting.

“Most of what you hear online nowadays regarding Bigfoot is bogus and largely fake, especially in the era of AI. Like social media, largely it has ruined our abilities to communicate properly, and empowered bad actors to seek attention far beyond Bigfoot and the paranormal. The most interesting stories and pieces of evidence about Bigfoot are almost buried under a mountain of garbage,” Petakov says.

But as technology evolves, humankind’s need for adventure and the search for the unknown remains.

“I believe that Bigfoot is the one way we can get that adventure back in our life and return to where we should be, which is the great outdoors,” Byron says.

Petakov loves the adventure aspect a Bigfoot search brings.

“I’ve found possible footprints and a handprint, heard other strange vocalizations and chronicled many witness encounter stories. These handful of experiences are enough for me to continue the pursuit and enjoy the adventure,” Petakov writes.

Bigfoot Sourdough is big business in Milford

Naming their bakery was easy for owners April Repoza and her daughter Bailey since they already had one foot in the cryptozoology world. April Repoza’s son, Doug Pedroza, formerly worked for the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine, now in Bangor, Maine. A picture of Doug with the museum’s Bigfoot replica, Crookston, is proudly displayed inside their “Bigfoot bread shed” in Milford.

With the hash tag “Bigfoot Bakes Different” and the logo of a menacing, gorilla-like person wearing a T-shirt that’s two sizes too small (illustrated by Repoza’s friend), the shop makes sourdough pretzels and bagels, half-moon cookies and of course, sourdough bread.

“We are not the normal sourdough bakers. We have quite the following by Bigfoot lovers, that’s for sure. We’ve had people come from all over New England,” says April in an email.

The oversized name has also snagged the attention of print and TV news media as well as Bigfoot watchers. Repoza says customers often leave behind “presents” like Bigfoot-themed signs, statues, stained glass, and even earrings.

“We are known for our crazy creations. We call it kind of our Bigfoot chaos,” says Repoza.

Instagram: Bigfootsourdough • bigfootsourdough@gmail.com

Whether you believe in Bigfoot or not, there are signs of him (or her) all around New Hampshire in the form of special events, festivals and statues, along with numerous podcasts and YouTube pages. There’s also a Bigfoot statue in Hinsdale, on Northfield Road, Route 63, 2 miles south of Route 119, near Ashuelot Rail Trail.