What is in the woods and what people imagined

San Andreas produced more legends than any other game in the series. Most are false, yet contain a fragment of truth. This page separates the two.

6 claims examined. Last checked on 20 August 2026.

San Andreas has produced more myths than any other game in the series, and most of them survive to this day. Each entry below explains what was actually found — and, for the debunked ones, why so many people believed them.

The rule is simple and applies throughout: anything in the game has a model in its files and can be reproduced by someone else. A claim based on one video that nobody can repeat is not a discovery.

Four verdicts

How we assess claims about the game

In the game 2×

The phenomenon can be triggered in an unmodified game and is documented in the game files.

Explained 2×

The phenomenon is real and was observed correctly. Its cause is not mysterious, however — it is usually physics or a bug.

Debunked 1×

There is nothing of the sort in the game files. The circulating footage was made with a mod.

Unproven 1×

Nobody has provided evidence for or against it. That does not mean it is in the game.

Where it is supposed to happen

Bigfoot in the woods around Mount Chiliad
Cars that drive themselves
The man with the chainsaw
The abandoned wheelchair at Fisher's Lagoon
The shack on Mount Chiliad

A schematic layout, not a navigation map. Proportions are simplified to show that almost every myth is associated with remote countryside and the mountain rather than the cities.

Individual claims

What was claimed, what emerged and why people believed it

Bigfoot in the woods around Mount Chiliad

Debunked

The claim: A large, hairy figure is said to roam the wooded part of the map around Mount Chiliad and Back o' Beyond. Players who drove there alone at night claimed to see it among the trees.
What emerged: There is no such model in the game files. The videos circulated as evidence were made with a mod — on PC, a character can be added in minutes and footage of it is indistinguishable from an unmodified game.
Why people believed it: Rockstar never directly put the myth to rest. In a 2005 interview, co-founder Terry Donovan said there was no Bigfoot in the game — then immediately added that there was ‘something’ in those woods. That one sentence kept the myth alive for years.
What remains: In the end, the myth prevailed by another route: Rockstar later added a Sasquatch to Red Dead Redemption, and one also appears in GTA V. It never came to San Andreas.

Cars that drive themselves

Explained

The claim: In the countryside, players encounter a car that starts moving and keeps rolling despite nobody being inside. It is seen most often in Back o' Beyond and occasionally in a driveway in Playa del Seville.
What emerged: The phenomenon is real and can be triggered in an unmodified game. The cause is mundane: the game deliberately places these cars so that a stranded player can leave the countryside. If one spawns on a slope, gravity sets it moving — and from outside it looks as though someone is driving.
Why people believed it: What makes this myth interesting is that the observers were not wrong about what they saw. They saw it correctly but inferred the wrong cause. Most gaming ‘mysteries’ begin in exactly this way.
What remains: Of everything on this list, it is the only phenomenon you can verify yourself within ten minutes of driving.

The man with the chainsaw

Explained

The claim: A chainsaw is supposedly heard in The Panopticon, while a figure moves through the shadows towards the player carrying it.
What emerged: A pedestrian with a chainsaw does exist in the game — he appears in the mission The Meat Business, and the game can also use him elsewhere. The chainsaw noise heard in The Panopticon during rain is a bug: a sound plays where it does not belong.
Why people believed it: The combination of a real model carrying a chainsaw and a sound with no visible source is precisely the kind of stimulus from which the mind constructs a story. Both parts are real; they are simply unrelated.
What remains: The character acquired the name from the film through the myth. He has no such name in the game.

Piggsy on the roof

Unproven

The claim: The pig-masked character from Manhunt is said to appear on remote rooftops and in abandoned buildings.
What emerged: In more than twenty years, not one photograph or video from an unmodified game has emerged. The character is not present in the San Andreas files.
Why people believed it: The myth seemed credible because Manhunt came from the same studio and sharing assets between a studio's own games is common practice. Nobody has demonstrated that it happened here.
What remains: We list it as unproven rather than debunked: nobody has provided evidence for it, but neither has anyone published a complete file analysis proving the opposite. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence — in either direction.

The abandoned wheelchair at Fisher's Lagoon

In the game

The claim: A wheelchair stands by the water at Fisher's Lagoon without explanation.
What emerged: It really is there. It is neither a bug nor a mod — it is an object someone placed there while building the map.
Why people believed it: Rockstar has never said why. Details like this made San Andreas fertile ground for myths: the game was full of strange, unexplained details, so claims that ‘there is something odd over there’ were often true.
What remains: Many further claims about figures in the surrounding area grew around this location. None has been substantiated.

The shack on Mount Chiliad

In the game

The claim: A shack stands on the mountain and can be reached by road, but nobody is quite sure what it is for.
What emerged: The shack is in the game and is used in a mission. There is nothing hidden inside it.
Why people believed it: Mount Chiliad is the highest point on the map, people drive up for the view, and fog limits visibility. Any building in such a place creates its own myth.
What remains: Rockstar later did use the idea of a mountain with a hidden meaning — on Mount Chiliad in GTA V, where a mysterious mural has a real solution.

Why San Andreas in particular

Five conditions that came together and were never repeated

1
The first GTA with empty spaces
Earlier games consisted only of cities. San Andreas added desert, forests and mountains where players could drive for minutes without meeting a single pedestrian. Empty space is what allows the feeling that somebody might be out there.
2
PS2 fog and draw distance
The console of the time could not render far into the distance, so objects emerged from the fog and disappeared again. Something glimpsed for half a second before it vanishes is ideal raw material for a myth.
3
The game really was full of oddities
The Area 69 military base, a dam, abandoned airfields and unexplained graffiti. When half of the strange things are real, the other half sound plausible.
4
Mods could manufacture evidence
On PC, any character could be added and filmed. Footage from a modified game is indistinguishable from the original unless somebody checks the files.
5
There was nowhere to verify claims in 2004
The game arrived before it became normal for everything to be dissected online immediately. Myths spread in school playgrounds and forums where nobody could verify them.

This is our interpretation, not information from Rockstar. The individual points are supported, from the console's technical limits to real locations within the game.

How to distinguish a discovery from a mod

Four useful questions to ask

Ask for the files, not the video

A character that exists in the game has a model and texture in the files. If somebody claims to have seen something that nobody can find in the game data, they are describing a mod or a mistake.

Can it be reproduced?

A genuine phenomenon has a repeatable method. Anyone can trigger the ghost cars. Nobody has reproduced Bigfoot in twenty years.

Check the game version

The original PS2 release, the PC version, the mobile port and the Definitive Edition are not the same game. A discovery in one version does not automatically apply to the others.

An unmodified installation means a clean one

A single old mod that you have forgotten is enough to make it unclear what you are seeing. Myths should be tested on a fresh installation, not one you have used for years.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bigfoot in GTA San Andreas?

No. There is no such model in the game files, and the videos circulated as evidence were recorded with a mod. Rockstar denied it in 2005 — while also suggesting that there was ‘something’ in the woods, which kept the myth alive.

Are there ghost cars in San Andreas?

Yes, but they are not ghosts. The game places abandoned cars in the countryside so that stranded players can leave. If a car spawns on a slope, gravity makes it roll downhill and it looks as though someone is driving it. This can be verified in an unmodified game.

Who is the man with the chainsaw in The Panopticon?

A pedestrian with a chainsaw really does exist in the game and is used in the mission The Meat Business. The chainsaw sound heard in The Panopticon during rain is a sound playback bug. Both parts of the myth are real, but they are unrelated.

Why does San Andreas have so many myths?

Five factors came together: large unpopulated landscapes for the first time, the PS2's short draw distance and fog, many genuinely strange locations, mods capable of producing convincing videos, and a 2004 internet culture in which claims were not immediately verified.

How can I distinguish a genuine discovery from a mod?

Check the game files and whether the result can be reproduced. Anything in the game has a model in its data, and somebody else can produce the same result. A claim based on one video that nobody has reproduced is a mod or a mistake.

What else is in San Andreas

The myths grew from the space the game provided. That space is divided by city here, alongside the system through which CJ genuinely changes.

Cities and countryside →Character stats