YEAR: 2005

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

DATE: 14

STATE: Ohio

COUNTY: Geauga County

LOCATION DETAILS: Location edited at the request of the witness.

NEAREST TOWN: Chesterland

NEAREST ROAD: Rt. 322

OBSERVED: I had been told about recent Bigfoot sightings in this area, so I’d been on the lookout for Bigfoot and sign ever since. I knew that many sightings had occurred after rainfall. One night last August, after a day of bad storms that ended by evening, on a whim I decided to drive to this park at night. It was an eerie night with distant lightning flashes in the sky. There’s a road that leads to a parking lot. At one point the road sharply veers to the right into the parking lot. If you were to go straight, you would be driving down a private drive.

As I turned down this road, looking straight ahead down this private lane, I saw big eyes looking back at me. There was one set of very large, close together, blue-white eyes high off the ground. They almost looked cartoonish in shape, they were so large. They were oval and sort of cocked toward each other like a cartoon figure. They were totally unthreatening looking – in fact, my impression was of a gentle and frightened creature. Halfway down this large creature I saw several smaller blue-white eyes. I never saw a “pair”, though. They were just random blue-white dots in several places halfway down the creature. When I first saw the eyes, I stopped my car and just stared in disbelief. The eyes didn’t move for several seconds. Then the tall big-eyed creature’s eyes started to sway back and forth. When it did that, the shorter eyes all started to move, appearing and disappearing and moving around in a smooth and floating manner. I never saw figure shapes or fur. Just eyes. When everything started moving, I panicked unfortunately, turned my car around and got out of there as fast as I could. What can I say? I’m a female and I was alone at night in a park looking at strange eyes.

I went to my sister’s house 10 minutes from there and told her about it. She got her son and his girlfriend, and the four of us went back to the sighting area to explore it with flashlights. We saw nothing – no prints or sounds or smells. However, it was a noisy night insect wise, but when we walked in the sighting area, it was eerily quiet. Two things I noticed. By seeing my nephew and sister in the same spot where I saw the eyes, it was apparent that the adult creature was much taller than they are. Also, I was able to clearly see my relatives’ shapes and clothing. I couldn’t see the creature’s shape, so it (they) must have been very dark from top to bottom. My general impression was that I stumbled upon a female with her young children out walking around after the heavy rains that day.

ALSO NOTICED: On Halloween weekend of 2005, several relatives and I went to this park to explore in the afternoon. I’ve found lots of tree sign and wanted to show them. We took the main trail and came to a spot where the main preserve begins. There’s a swamp there and a foot trail or two going into the preserve (no main trail). At this spot, my brother began doing his Bigfoot calls which he does very well. My niece began making wood knocks with a large branch. This went on for several minutes as we walked around having fun. Suddenly a few of us heard a low growl coming from in the preserve. There was talking and day noises going on (the area is not secluded but in the midst of civilization), so it wasn’t heard by everyone in our party as we were scattered as well. Also, the growl was not high pitched. It was very low and rumbly and I could feel the vibration of it. My brother said whatever was making that growl had to be a very large creature. The growl happened approximately three separate times in a row. We were amazed. We never saw what was doing the growling, but I felt it was definitely a warning growl from a Bigfoot to make us stop imitating their sounds and knocks. My brother put it like this (from the Bigfoot): “Okay, you know we’re here and now you know we know that you know. Now get the hell out and leave us alone!”

Last summer at night (around 10:00 or so), a girlfriend and I were at the park (parked near where I had my sighting). We do this often to see if we can hear anything unusual. When we first got there, we decided to walk around. We got out off the car and immediately heard a distinct, low “whoop” sound. My friend, who has never heard the big foot sound recording, said “That was unusual”. I recognized it immediately from your recordings. Now, there are houses and private drives in this area right at the edge of the preserve, but there are also lots of trees and a cliff running along the preserve edge -- lots of hiding places, especially at night. We walked around and then got back in the car to listen some more. Heard coyotes howling, owls hooting, and mourning doves cooing back and forth, which we found unusual at night. At one point, we both heard heavy breathing fairly close to our car. To me, it sounded like a gorilla breathing heavily. My friend agreed. We never saw anything. Later on we heard bipedal footsteps coming near our car. At that point, we became afraid and left the area.

This past spring I went for a walk in this park around 9 a.m. It was clear, cool weather and there was no one else in the park but me. I hadn’t walked far along the trail when I began to hear Canada geese honking in the preserve (I couldn’t see them). Not unusual at all, but the honking continued and became louder and grew into such a crescendo of noise, it was as if the geese were screaming. It was above and beyond the normal racket they make. I stopped and listened, wondering what was going on. After a minute or so, the noise began to die down. Then right afterward when it had stopped, I heard sharp wood knocks. It happened three times and each time it was three knocks. Knock knock knock – pause – knock knock knock – pause – knock knock knock. The hair on my neck stood up. I knew that Bigfoot was “on the move” in the preserve, possibly hunting geese and signaling to each other afterward. It was thrilling.

In the year that I’ve been exploring this area (mostly alone), I’ve had several minor incidents that I believe are Bigfoot related. I’ve had a snowball thrown at me that hit the top of my head, heard various wood knocks, had two large rocks thrown into a creek while I was standing on a bridge with my back turned (saw the two big ripples from the rocks that came out of nowhere), have found a suspicious footprint from time to time (nothing dramatic), and have seen tree sign progression (one day a large tree was pushed over onto the trail, the next day the park sawed it up into large sections, the next day I came back to find a large section of the tree jammed high up into another tree (impossible for a human to do this). In all the time I’ve spent there, I have never once felt terrified or threatened in any way. If anything, I’ve felt like many of these happenings were caused by playful juvenile bigfoots, but I have no proof.

OTHER WITNESSES: One witness driving.

OTHER STORIES: No, just what I was told by one of your people when there was a sighting in Chardon last year.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Approx. 10:30 p.m. It was wet but not raining. Very dark (no moon).

ENVIRONMENT: Near a parking area of a park. Forested, swampy, mostly flat land, but there are some cliffs.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Mark Maisel:

I met with the witness and performed a site evaluation.

The sighting of the possible eyes occurred from a distance of three hundred feet.

The growls occurred down the trail near a swampy area. The area is not easily accessible. The growls were heard down an animal path about one hundred feet from the trail. A crab apple tree was nearby.

The witness parked her car near the start of the trail and as they were sighting there they heard the whoop, and also encountered the heavy breathing. While this was going on they both entered the vehicle with the windows down. They noted what they thought were footsteps heading away from them to the northwest.

The wood knocks occurred in another swampy area that has one residence on the far side set into the forest.

The area is primarily marsh and a habitat to many animals. Orchards, farms are nearby.

About BFRO Investigator Mark Maisel:

Mark Maisel is employed in the medical field in Ohio. He has attended the following expeditions: West Virginia, New York Adirondacks, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina. Expedition organizer of the 2009 Ohio expedition and assisting with both of Eastern Ohio's in 2012 and Michigan UP 2012. Attended WV 2013