A Bigfoot “soldier” who dedicated her life to proving the existence of the large mythical creature has died aged 51.
Claudia Ackley was found dead at her Tennessee home over the weekend, according to her partner Ed Brown. The cause of death is suspected to have been a heart attack.
Ms Ackley, who is survived by her two daughters, claimed to have seen Bigfoot hundreds of times and in 2018 sued the California Park Service to prove Bigfoot’s existence after it claimed that what she had seen during a hike in the state was a bear.
The incident connected to the lawsuit involved her walking with her daughters when she claimed she saw an alpha male Sasquatch with her daughter capturing the incident on video.
“I swear to God, on my life, we ran into a Sasquatch,” she said in the footage which was reviewed by an official from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, who concluded that what the family had seen was a bear.
“My daughters have seen bears. They’re not scared by bears,” she said at the time, according to MailOnline.
The lawsuit was dismissed about a month after it was filed.
But Ms Ackley said that the sightings of Bigfoot had changed her life and her partner said she had a big heart and was trying to protect people by looking into the beast’s existence.
Claudia Ackley appears in a 2018 video by the Press-Enterprise— (Screenshot / The Press-Enterprise)
“Her lawsuit’s goal was to force the state of California and the fish and wildlife authority to take sightings seriously and investigate them properly, rather than just say, ‘It was a bear,’” Mr Brown told the US Sun. “The goal was to get them to do real investigation and research.
“Right up until the very end, she believed in what she saw and she wanted to help other people who had experienced something similar,” he added. “The community — regardless of anyone’s views — has lost someone who was willing to stand up and fight for their beliefs. The Bigfoot community lost a soldier.”
“She spoke to hundreds of people who had seen similar sightings to her from all over the country and some from other parts of the world. She was on the phone literally all the time, talking to people about Bigfoot or watching videos of Bigfoot,” he said.
