Albert Ostman was a German immigrant to British Columbia in the early 20th century. He endured an arduous steamship voyage to North America to be a gold prospector, only to get abducted by Bigfoot. We know about his Bigfoot experience because it was originally published by the late John W. Green in one of his books.
My first question is, how does a fully grown man get abducted by Bigfoot? It was not uncommon in the 1920s for miners without tents to sleep in the open air. Ostman claimed one night as he was in his sleeping bag, he was literally slung like a sack of potatoes over a giant wildman’s shoulder.
So far, this sounds far fetched. If it really did happen, a human male would have difficulty balancing and carrying or dragging another human male while in a sleeping bag. So if it was a Bigfoot, the massive being trudged across various landscapes, up and down ravines where they finally ended up in a sort of encampment. Ostman’s story gets more odd when he meets the wildman’s family who seemed confused over his presence. Mama wildman was washing what appeared to Ostman to be leaves.
Even stranger, Ostman said nothing eventful occurred during his time as an abductee. He said the wild family used a chattering language that he could not understand and slept in a shallow cave on the side of a mountain. The floor was dry moss and they used strips of cedar bark for blankets.
He had his gun with him and could have made his escape by shooting his way clear but he said he didn’t feel under threat. Seeing no purpose for staying, but sensing he was there as a prisoner, Ostman said he eventually made his escape by dosing the giant wildman with snuff, which is a kind of tobacco. The wildman became drowsy enough for Ostman to flee. Mama wildman tried to stop him but he fired a warning shot above her head as he made his escape. After many days of searching for civilization, he found a logging operation where he was helped to recover from his ordeal.
The details of Ostman’s experience have drawn a variety of reactions. He appeared to be a credible witness with no overt instabilities. The event is said to have occurred in 1924 and he did not share the story until a 1957 conversation with Bigfoot author John W. Green. That is likely true because such a tale would have drawn unnecessary attention to Ostman in the day’s newspapers. Ostman had no reason to make up such an odd tale year’s later.
But Bigfoot is not known to have a semblance of civilized encampments and typically makes it clear he does not want people near his territory. What is the motive to bring a random man to his home and then show no reasoning for doing so? Not long after Ostman’s event, in 1928, Muchalat Harry, a trapper near Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, also claimed to be a Bigfoot abductee. He also had similar descriptions of the environment where was taken to.[i]
Since the 1920s, plenty of miners and prospectors in remote locations have had interactions with a suspected Bigfoot. But no other similar abduction stories have been able to beat Ostman’s as far as non-sequitur oddness. A feral-like woman washing and stacking leaves does not align with anything Bigfoot-related. It seems more like a hobo family or maybe Ostman had strange dreams or was a sleepwalker and got lost.
[i] Halpin, James. “The Sasquatch”, Seattle Magazine, August 1970, pp. 31-34.