My husband was a preteen living near the Snake River in California, when Big Foot visited that area. The kids were playing hide & seek & Perry looked up to see a hair-covered man-like upright walking beast, quietly watching the kids play.
Perry yelled, jumped a fence & quickly gathered up his buddies & they ran home to their trailer homes in "Pole Line Trailer" Camp. Being intrepid kids, they rounded up weapons (guns, knives an eclectic collection & went Big Foot hunting.) Fortunately, they didn't encounter it.
Near that time some teens from the same trailer camp: (on a date) were parked in their vehicle, hugging & kissing, when a Big Foot came up to the car, grabbed it, roared at them & violently shook the vehicle. The frightened teens quickly left the area.
The next day the frightened teens took adults to the sight of the incident. On a tree near the parking area, were long claw marks, way up on the tree. (Too high for a human to reach.) Adults told the teens, "Awe, you saw a bear." The terrified teens insisted it wasn't a bear but a hairy man/ape looking creature.
A few days later two trappers caught a hairy man/ape looking creature in a trap. They loaded the trap into their pickup & headed to town, to show the Sheriff. Apparently, the beast wasn't really aggressive toward them. On their way to town, they had a flat tire. It was depression time, so they had no spare tire, so they checked the hasp on the cage, covered it with a tarp, & walked to town.
When they got back, the cage/tarp looked undisturbed, but when the tarp was removed, the cage was empty. The hasp was fastened. All they could guess was the beast was intelligent enough to unfasten the cage, exit the cage, & then refasten he cage, replace the tarp & leave. The thought the creature was that intelligent really scared them as they wondered what they had caught in their trap., because no animal they'd ever caught looked like this creature & no animal had the ability to escape & then rearrange the trap.
When I asked Perry what the creature looked like, he said it's face was kind of like a lion & a bear combined. That he couldn't find words to accurately describe it as it was unique. He was a hunter, & he'd never seen anything like it. He said it walked upright like a man. He said it seemed more "curious about their behavior, than anything else, that it simply was intently observing the kids at play. Perry is gone now but he was an honest man, & whatever he saw left a lifetime impression on that stoic man.
RMSO responds
Obviously the one in a trap was a youngster, doubt the one your husband or the couple in the car saw would have been captured in a fur trap or fit in a mobile cage.
