Woman who swears she saw and videoed Bigfoot is suing the state of California to recognize her sighting after national park officials told her she had seen a bear.
Claudia Ackley, 46, sued the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to get it to recognize bigfoot — the enormous humanoid creature allegedly seen by thousands of eyewitnesses — as an actual species.
Her first court hearing is set for Monday, in San Bernardino, however a spokesman for the department would not comment on ongoing litigation.
Last March, Ackley was out for a hike with her two daughters, 14 and 11, near Lake Arrowhead, California. She says they were at a trailhead with their dog when one of her daughters saw something that made her freeze in her tracks.
Claudia says she saw an alpha-male Sasquatch looking at her from behind a tree, apparently one of her daughters had been taking a video at the time.
In the video Ackley's daughter says: 'I swear to God...Mom?'
Ackley is adamant: 'I swear to God, on my life, we ran into a Sasquatch.'
She saw what she thought was a small, 5-foot-tall Bigfoot in the trees and locked eyes with it. She even made a plaster mold of an alleged footprint.
'They're supposed to be there to protect the public. They're not doing their jobs,' she says. 'If I can save one life, it will be worth it.'
'I realized at that point, looking at the creature, that there's so much of life that we don't know. Life is so beautiful, and I'm wasting my years,' she says. 'I lost 125 pounds and decided to get a divorce . . . It motivated me to chase my dreams and live my life.'