Blog Post: The Ape Canyon Attack of 1924 – A Brush with the Unknown

Author: Juniper Ravenwood
Published: May 28, 2025

Deep in the shadowed gorge of Ape Canyon, near Mount St. Helens, Washington, a group of gold prospectors faced a night in 1924 that would haunt history. The story of the Ape Canyon Attack, explored in Episode 118 of The Shadow Frequency, is more than a Bigfoot tale—it’s a chilling encounter that challenges what we believe about our world. As the producer of this spine-tingling episode, I dove into the details with host Matt Wilson, and what we uncovered feels like a glimpse into the paranormal.

In July 1924, five miners—Fred Beck, Hank, and three others—were working their claim in a remote wilderness. For weeks, they’d noticed unsettling signs: massive 19-inch footprints, eerie whistles echoing across ridges, and thumping sounds like a creature beating its chest. Then, one fateful day, Beck and Hank spotted a seven-foot-tall, hairy figure watching them from behind a pine tree. Its human-like face and muscular build were unlike any animal they knew. When Hank fired his rifle, the creature fled, seemingly wounded, tumbling into the gorge.

That night, the miners’ cabin became a battleground. Massive boulders crashed against the walls, shaking the ground. Heavy footsteps circled in the darkness, and a powerful arm reached through the logs, groping for an axe. For five hours, the men endured a relentless siege, firing into the night at what they called “Mountain Devils.” When dawn broke, the attack ceased, leaving only footprints and a battered cabin. The miners fled, abandoning their claim, and their story sparked the Great Hairy Ape Hunt of 1924, with newspapers and hunters flooding the area—yet no creature was ever found.

What makes this story so gripping is its paranormal undercurrent. Fred Beck, in his book I Fought the Apemen of Mount St. Helens, described these beings as more than animals. A psychic by nature, he believed they were extradimensional entities, perhaps guardians of a sacred place. Native American legends of the Selahtik—wild, ape-like beings of the Cascades—echo this, suggesting the miners trespassed into a realm they weren’t meant to enter. The coordinated attack, the eerie whistles, the sheer power of the creatures—it all feels like something beyond flesh and blood.

But there’s another side. In 1983, speleologist William Halliday proposed the attack was a prank by YMCA campers throwing pumice stones, their voices distorted by the canyon’s acoustics. While intriguing, this theory falters against the miners’ accounts of heavy boulders, massive footprints, and their own terror as seasoned woodsmen. Could fear have amplified their perception, or did they face something truly otherworldly?

The Ape Canyon Attack lingers because it resists easy answers. Was it Sasquatch, a creature we’re still chasing? Or did those miners brush against entities from another dimension, angered by their intrusion? As I produced this episode, I felt the weight of that night—the isolation, the fear, the sense that something was watching. If you visit Ape Canyon today, the gorge still feels alive, as if it holds secrets it’s not ready to share.

Listen to Episode 118 at shadowfrequencypodcast.com, where you can also leave a voicemail about your own eerie encounters. What do you think the miners faced? Drop us an email at shadowpodcast@protonmail.com or join the conversation on our socials. Until next time, keep your eyes on the shadows.