If you go by the reports, Bigfoot spent 2026 working his way across the eastern United States: a cluster of sightings in northeast Ohio in March, a viral drive-by in the Virginia mountains in July, a Connecticut encounter that a veteran Bigfoot investigator called credible, two photographs from a pond in upstate New York, and a stroll down Main Street in a small Maine town that ended with a written statement from the police chief. Here are the six stops, what was reported at each, and who said what.
We are not here to settle whether any of it was real. Every stop comes from a news report or the organization that logged it, and where a story has an ending, you get the ending.
Stop 1: Portage County, Ohio, March
The year opened with what CNN called the Ohio Flap of 2026: a run of early-March reports from Portage County, just east of Akron, describing figures averaging 8 feet tall in wooded areas along the Mahoning River. The reports were collected and mapped by the Bigfoot Society Podcast, whose host, Jeremiah Byron, told CNN the surge "stopped just as quickly as it started."
The podcast's own report logs six reports between March 6 and March 10 from Mantua Center, Mantua, Garrettsville, the Headwaters Trail, Windham, and Newton Township, with muddy tracks located and grunts heard at one of them. Mike Miller, who has searched for nearly two decades with the Ohio Night Stalkers, told CNN he was skeptical at first and changed his mind after reading the reports: "The tracks look legitimate, and some of the people sounded terrified when they talked about things."
Portage County Sheriff Bruce D. Zuchowski told CNN affiliate WOIO in March that his office really did get calls. As CNN quoted him: "Ten individual people were like, 'Yeah I was walking my dog at 4 a.m. and I saw this hairy figure and I smelled this musty odor and there was this big thing and all of a sudden it ran.'" Garrettsville Police told the station they had received no calls. Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer, gave CNN the line everyone can agree on: "If you find a Bigfoot, I want to be first in line."
Stop 2: The mountains of Virginia, July
The next stop was a phone video. In July, a father driving with his kids posted a TikTok clip that, Fox News reported, passed 17 million views within days. The text on the video read: "My kids screamed they saw Bigfoot and were freaking out. So I turned around thinking they're full of crap. They weren't." In the 24-second clip, per Yahoo Entertainment, the dad asks "Where's Bigfoot?" and a child answers "There you go" as a dark figure appears among the trees and the kids scream.
Asked where it happened, he answered only "The mountains of Virginia." The comments split. One viewer wrote that it looked like there was a driveway right beside the figure and guessed it was "a cardboard cutout or a metal sheet made to look like Bigfoot." Fox News noted that other doubters called it a yard display set up in the woods, while believers pointed to the blur and the mid-stride pose. Neither side has settled it.
Stop 3: Voluntown, Connecticut, July 5
By the end of July the trail had moved to New England. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the BFRO, posted a report of a sighting in the early hours of July 5 on Wiley School Road in Voluntown, a couple hundred feet west of Forge Hill Road and near Pachaug State Forest, which WFSB notes is the largest state forest in Connecticut at more than 26,000 acres. CBS New York reported that the organization gave the account its highest level of credibility, and Boston 25 quoted BFRO investigator Matt Moneymaker's note on the report: "The witness is credible. He's not lying about what he saw. I could tell from the conversation."
Voluntown itself was less sure. "You know, it's probably a guy running around with a costume on. Who knows?" resident Peter Gautieri told CBS New York. The BFRO's database lists 29 reports for all of Connecticut, next to hundreds for Ohio or Washington, so one credible-rated report there draws a crowd.
Stop 4: Onondaga County, New York, August 10
The most argued-over stop of the year came with pictures. On August 10, a hiker identified by the BFRO only as K.D. took two photos on an iPhone 17 of a hunched figure wading at the edge of a glacial pond and bog in a rural part of Onondaga County, Gray News reported. She said she took it for a naked man until it snapped its head around and looked at her. The BFRO has not released the location, and it has given the subject a name: the Syracuse Figure.
An investigator went back to the pond with her and, using his own height as a reference, estimated the figure at about 4 feet 9 inches tall, Patch reported. His report concluded that in his opinion she had photographed a sasquatch, while conceding that "we cannot rule out the extreme improbability that this was an elderly human wading in this marshy pond." BFRO founder Matthew Moneymaker put it this way in a post quoted by Fox News: "The Syracuse Figure does not look like a classic bigfoot, but it does not look like a normal human either." He added, "It might be an old man, or it might not be." As of early September, per Patch, no one had come forward claiming to be the Syracuse Figure.
Stop 5: Damariscotta, Maine, September
Then Maine, where the story has an ending. On Tuesday, September 1, the first day of school, police in the mid-coast town of Damariscotta received about a half dozen calls reporting a Bigfoot or Sasquatch-like figure walking around town, NBC Boston reported, seen along Main Street and at the school during morning drop-off.
Officer William Smith responded to Main Street and found a man in what the department called a "very convincing costume." Some people had called the police; others stopped to take pictures while the officer was talking with him. No charges were filed. Chief Erik Josephson said "nothing nefarious or criminal" was taking place, and the man, a Maine resident some locals recognized from a past TV appearance, was not named.
The chief then wrote the department's update himself. "After a lengthy, exhaustive, and completely serious investigation, members of the Damariscotta Police Department have reached a conclusion: Bigfoot is not real," it read. "We understand this may be disappointing to some." It closed: "Case closed. Bigfoot remains at large... provided he puts his costume back on." The Boston Globe carried the statement too.
Stop 6: Whitehall, New York, where the law is on his side
The last stop is the one place on this map where Bigfoot has legal protection. Whitehall, in Washington County in upstate New York, passed an ordinance in 2004 making it a municipal offense to hunt, carry out violence against, or harass a Sasquatch within town limits, and a 2023 historic marker there says plainly that local law protects them. The town held its tenth annual Sasquatch Festival and Calling Contest on September 26, ten days after Hard Mountain Dew put a $1 million bounty on proof that he exists, a prize the bounty's own rules say is not intended to be awarded. Both stories are in our Bigfoot bounty and Whitehall sanctuary article. If he was anywhere on this map in 2026, that is where we would advise him to stay.
Why the off-road crowd keeps score
There is a reason Bigfoot rides on so many spare tires. He is the patron figure of the places off-roaders actually go: creek corridors, state forests, glacial bogs, and logging roads where the cell signal quits. Ford leaned into it when it named the Bronco's off-road hardware the Sasquatch Off-Road Package, and the name stuck because the crowd already got the joke. Our cryptids-by-state guide maps the public land where the big legends are said to live.
If your rig is already on his side, our new guide to the best Bigfoot stickers and decals for a Jeep or Bronco ranks eight of them, and the full Bigfoot and Sasquatch collection has the rest. Keep the camera charged. Judging by 2026, the reports are not done coming in.
Checked October 6, 2026. Every stop links to the report it came from; we have not verified any sighting ourselves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Bigfoot most commonly seen?
Washington, by the numbers. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization's public database listed 734 reports for Washington as of October 2026, ahead of California at 471, Florida at 348, Ohio at 335, and Illinois at 305. Dense forest with water close by is the common thread, which is why Ohio's Mahoning River corridor and Connecticut's Pachaug State Forest fit the pattern.
Were there Bigfoot sightings in 2026?
Reported ones, yes. They included a cluster in Portage County, Ohio, in March; a Connecticut sighting on July 5 that the BFRO rated credible; two photographs of the so-called Syracuse Figure in Onondaga County, New York, on August 10; and a figure in Damariscotta, Maine, that police identified as a man in a costume. The BFRO database shows its most recent Connecticut and New York reports dated July and August 2026.
How many Bigfoot sightings are reported each year?
There is no official count, because no government agency tracks them. The BFRO organizes its public database by state and county rather than by year, and the totals on its index page are cumulative, so a single-year figure means counting the individual listings yourself.
Is Bigfoot real?
No scientific body or wildlife agency recognizes Bigfoot as a species. Groups like the BFRO treat eyewitness reports as evidence worth investigating. Skeptics such as Benjamin Radford of Skeptical Inquirer argue that a real population would live, die, and leave remains, and that someone should have found one by now. In 2026 the clearest finding came from the Damariscotta, Maine, police, who concluded that their Bigfoot was a man in a costume.
What is the Syracuse Figure?
The Syracuse Figure is the BFRO's name for a short, hunched figure photographed wading in a pond in a rural part of Onondaga County, New York, on August 10, 2026. A BFRO investigator estimated it at about 4 feet 9 inches tall and suggested a juvenile sasquatch, while the organization also allows that it could have been an elderly man wading. It has withheld the exact location so that anyone who was there can prove it by naming the spot. As of early September, nobody had come forward.
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