Park Rangers Respond to Shots Fired at 'Bigfoot' in Mammoth Cave National Park

Two Western Kentucky University students, Brad Ginn, 24, and Madelyn Durand, 22, were awakened in their tent by strange noises near their campsite during a weekend trip to Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park at the end of last month, reported WBKO.

When Ginn and Durand left the tent to investigate in the early hours of July 28th, the college students were confronted by a man and his young son who said that something had destroyed their own campsite and tent.

“He said, like ‘I hope you have weapons’, and then he like flashed his gun at us and was like ‘I have this, so if anything happens to you just yell and I’ll come,'" said Durand.

After showing them the gun, the man advised them to “run if we hear shots”, said Ginn.

"They said that it was also Bigfoot country, which seemed a little weird that they would say that," he added.

The man and his son left, but quickly returned.

"A few minutes later we see their lights approaching again," Ginn said, "And as they get closer we hear the man yell something like 'oh my God! Do you see that? There it is!'"

The startled couple watched the man fire his weapon into the darkness.

After that, the man and his son left again, and the couple called 911, having decided to break camp immediately and hike the five miles back to their car.

Molly Schroer, Mammoth Cave Public Information Officer, confirmed that rangers responded to the incident.

"So, Mammoth Cave National Park law enforcement rangers responded to a reporting of an individual with a firearm at one of our back country campsites in the early, early morning hours of Sunday, July 28th. The rangers made contact with all the parties involved. It is an ongoing investigation at this time," she said.

While carrying a firearm within the park is legal as long as the person doing so conforms to all Kentucky laws regarding the practice, discharging a firearm in the park is “strictly prohibited,” said Schroer.

Mammoth Cave National Park is well known among researchers for its Bigfoot sightings, with at least six of Kentucky’s 398 reported encounters coming from Mammoth Cave National Park, according to the Kentucky Bigfoot Research Organization.

Other paranormal phenomena, including ghosts and UFOs, have also been reported in the park’s vicinity, and many speculate that the hundreds of miles of caves sprawling beneath its surface could be hiding any number of anomalies.

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