Creatures, Myths & Legends

Mystery hominid encounter had profound effect on military veteran

By T.K. Randall
May 7, 2026 ·  29 comments

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) Speaking recently on Fox and Friends First, Todd Neiss - a former Staff Sergeant in the Army's 1249th Combat Engineer Battalion - had an experience in 1993 that would stay with him for life.

He had been taking part in a military exercise in the Oregon Coast Range when he allegedly encountered three large hominids standing up to 9ft tall.

"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 recalled.

According to Neiss, the three creatures seemed to be curious and watched the exercises taking place.

He was so taken aback by the sighting that, upon retiring from the military, Neiss founded the American Primate Conservancy - a nonprofit organization dedicated to studying the Bigfoot phenomenon.

He has since been tracking and looking into sightings across the United States.

Most recently, there has been a spate of sightings in Ohio."Ohio is actually, believe it or not, ranked number four of all the states in the United States that have sightings, so it isn't really all that unusual," he said.

"This isn't the first time we've seen something like this."

But does all this really point to the existence of a species of large bipedal ape-like creature in the wilds of North America, or could these sightings have an alternative explanation ?

If such a creature did exist, would we not have concrete evidence of it by now ?

According to Neiss, capturing a clear photograph of Bigfoot is extraordinarily difficult.

"They're just a very rare species," he said.

"It's just the odds of getting one to fall just right through that particular picture zone."

"It's very, very difficult."

Source: Mail Online | Comments (29)

Tags: Bigfoot