Buena Park Bigfoot - Brea Creek

by Steve
Saturday, December 29, 2007

Does anyone remember the "Bigfoot" of Brea Creek, in Buena Park?

Well, an anonymous OCThen reader does. This person submitted the following memory to us (he was also the same guy that sent us the Wham-O Superball story), describing a tall hairy beast spotted in a drainage channel in Buena Park...

Wow I wish I had found this site earlier.. I hope I get to find out more about the Superballs..

In the meanwhile another funny thing I remember was the Buena Park "bigfoot". It had to be very early 80s because I was attending Beatty Elementary School. Down at the northern-most end of Western, there's a drainage channel that used to run parrallel to the back of McComber Jr High. People claimed to have seen a "bigfoot" there. There was even a story in the Register, and a composite drawing of "it".

It turned out to be a very tall and hairy homless guy.. It was even on TV and I remember my friend got to wave at the camera.... Weird stuff.

I remember that kind of thing.. I could go on and on, Buena Park was still just a small place, there were lots of apartments, but not like now.. A lot of the houses are gone. Things like The Buttery or the Farmhouse resturaunts are now car lots, there's no more chickens running around Grand Avenue any more either..

I did some Googling on the Buena Park Bigfoot, and found a brief mention in the September 20, 2001 edition of OC Weekly...

IN SEARCH OF . . . BUENA PARK

Brea Creek. Site of Orange County's only reported Bigfoot (yes, that Bigfoot) sighting. In 1982, residents on nearby Franklin Street reported a smelly, hulking figure prowling around the drainage channel. Police took plaster casts of immense footprints and determined that the culprit was just a particularly large and unkempt transient. At least, that's what they want you to believe. Brea Creek underpass at Franklin and Beach.

I also found the following mention on page 90 of a book entitled, "Mothman and Other Curious Encounters" by Loren Coleman, published by Cosimo, Inc. in 2002...

In recent years, sightings of the strange three-toed Bigfoot have been reported from surrounding areas of southern California, notably the smelly eight-footer seen emerging from a drainage ditch in Buena Park, in May 1982.

Hmmm, so let's see, an eight-foot tall, hairy, human-like creature living in a drainage channel in Buena Park. I guess that explains how Knott's Berry Farm came up with the name "Bigfoot Rapids".

Labels: Bigfoot, Brea Creek, Buena-Park