YEAR: 1979 -'84

SEASON: Fall

DATE: The first sighting I wrote occurred in September of 1982. The second one I wrote of occurred the fall of 1983. The sounds, or calls, I wrote of occurred every fall from about 1979 thru 1984.

STATE: West Virginia

COUNTY: Wayne County

LOCATION DETAILS: This incident occured just north of the town of Fort Gay, on top of a wooded hill approximatly 1/4 mile north on Hewlett Branch Rd. from where it connects with the Big Sandy River Rd. about 4 miles west of Rt. 152 ( better known as the Tolsia Hiway). There is a clearing just above an old cemetary that lies at the top of the first hill on Hewlett Branch Rd. Both Hewlett Branch and Big Sandy River Rd. are dirt roads. The area is very rural.

OBSERVED: Myself and four others had driven to this spot just after 9pm (roughly) to hang. We had just arrived and everyone had gotten out of the car, it was a clear night and a little cool. The car was parked about ten yards in front of a barbed wire fence and about ten yards beyond the fence the hill sloped off steeply and was covered in thick brush.

One of the girls had perched herself on top of the car hood and she and I were talking while the others were goofing around near the rear of the car.

All of a sudden we heard the dogs over in the hollow below the hill begin to bark like crazy then, just as suddenly they stopped cold. The girl and I remarked to eachother how strange it seemed.

About one minute after the barking stopped we heard something moving through the brush just over the hill. I stepped forward to the fence and was able to make out the shadow of what I thought was the owner of the barn (that was where the dogs were at - down in the hollow) coming up to tell us to leave.

I called out to the figure and it was about then that "it" stood up at the edge of the hill and huffed and grunted! This thing stood about seven feet tall and it looked like a pro basketball player that was covered in a dark brown fur, I couldn't make out it's facial features.

The girl was already screaming and in the car and my other friends were piling in too when I made it to the drivers seat. I started the car and turned on the lights and when I did this "thing" covered it's face, as if to shield it's eyes from the car lights and quickly hurried behind some trees and thick brush.

I still didn't get a look at its face as I was working feverishly to get the car in gear! Needless to say we got the hell out of there! When we got back to town nobody said anything for the longest time. Later we discussed it a bit but not in much detail. I don't know why the five of us never really talked about it.

ALSO NOTICED: I have been told that the area of the first sighting was at one time considered sacred by indiginous indian tribes.

OTHER WITNESSES: Talking or hunting.

OTHER STORIES: I would also like to add something that has been stuck in my memory for several years.

From about the time that I was fourteen in 1979 till my first year of college, in 1983, we used to hear these long, moanful, howling noises coming from the woods on the hill that faced our house.

These always seemed to take place in the early fall, during the high school football season. I remember it this way because my father, brother and I would sit on the front porch after returning from games sometimes and try to figure out what was making these howling noises. We never did.

Then I heard those same noises on a Bigfoot special that A&E aired a few months ago. They are the same long, moanful sounds I heard on one of the Moneymaker sights I came across.

I have no doubt about what made those sounds now. I also know of other families in that area that have heard those sounds. One fellow who heard them was spooked so much that he ordered his family in the house and sat on his porch with a rifle for the next three days, he never saw anything.

ENVIRONMENT: These sightings occurred in a very rural, densely forrested area of Wayne County WV, in the ares north and east of the town of Fort Gay.