YEAR: 1955

SEASON: Unknown

STATE: Florida

COUNTY: Hillsborough County

LOCATION DETAILS: Within sight of Florida Ave. and the Hillsborough River on the southwest side.

NEAREST TOWN: Tampa

NEAREST ROAD: Florida Avenue

OBSERVED: In the mid nineteen fiftys I lived in a housing project in Tampa FL. It was called River View Terrace and it was right on the Hillsborough River next to Florida Ave. There was a movie theater on the other side of the river called the Tower Drive-in.
One evening after dark, me and a buddy was watching the movie from the projects side of the river, you could not hear the sound from the movie but at least it kept me off the streets. I had moved over from Lakeland FL because my dad had been killed and my uncle was sort of keeping an eye on us, he lived near there on a street called Flora.
Well anyway we were deep in watching the movie and we heard something behind us and we both turned and saw a large hariy creature between us and the last lamplight that the projects had to offer. It looked like the common version of the bigfoot stereo-type I see today but back then it just looked like the common ordinary "boogyman " to us. We split and never looked back.

OTHER WITNESSES: Yes but i can't remember his name.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was clear and there was a street lamp behind the creature.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Caroline Curtis:

Witness described the location well enough that I could pinpoint it on a map. Very populated now but once upon a time this area would have been perfect habitat with rivers, woods, lakes, creeks and springs nearby. This incident stuck with him for years, assuming it was a very tall man in a monkey suit trying to scare them. The strange thing was that he did not try very hard to scare the boys, no yelling or coming at them. It wasn't until much later when he learned of Bigfoot that he realized that what they encountered on the river that night was most likely not a man in a monkey suit.

About BFRO Investigator Caroline Curtis:

• Worked as an Assistant to a Circuit Court Judge in Florida for thirteen years
• An avid outdoorswoman, growing up in the UP of Michigan on a family-owned fishing and hunting resort
• Certified Visual Tracker, Level 1
• Attended and assisted with numerous public and private BFRO expeditions
• She and the Florida BFRO organized South Florida Expedition 2008, North Florida Expedition 2008 and Central Florida Expedition in 2009.
  
• She and the Michigan BFRO organized the Lower-Michigan Expedition in 2011, Michigan UP Expeditions in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 and Wisconsin 2018
• BFRO Secretary for almost 20 years