A Sedro-Wooley tot recently bagged a Bigfoot while playing in her backyard. On December 24, 2010, three-year-old Ashlin Paar was visiting relatives in Sedro-Wooley when, left unsupervised in the back yard, she began toying with her uncle's Beretta BM59 automatic rifle. She managed to discharge six 30-caliber rounds from the tripod-mounted assault weapon just as an eight-foot Sasquatch was passing in front of her, disoriented and apparently spooked by a neighbor's dog.


The Paar family had little opportunity to enjoy their prize, however, because less than an hour later a helicopter landed in the yard, disgorging three federal agents who shoved the hapless creature's corpse into an oversized body bag, threw in some dry ice, and took off with it. Soon Hazmat crews arrived and closed off the property, quarantining the family within the house and digging away at the blood-stained scene with a Bobcat mini-dozer before leaving early the next morning. The family was released from their unusual house arrest shortly thereafter, with the last agent to leave saying reassuringly: "Uncle Sam will contact you."

"I heard the shots and come out and there's brown fur and dirt and smoke and innards everywhere," said Shane, a family member who asked that his real name not be used. "Like all our kids, Ash is pistol-trained, but this was something else. She never fired an automatic before in her life. She gifted." He paused. "Then the helicopters come. And then a drone - here was a little flying saucery thing, about a foot wide, hovers over the scene for a bit, then it were gone too."

This story originally published in the print edition of Mary Jane Magazine #3, Winter 2011.