YEAR: 1998

SEASON: Fall

DATE: 11/12/1998

STATE: Georgia

COUNTY: Liberty County

LOCATION DETAILS: North east part of Fort Stewart in a training area. Surrounded by Highway 119, 144 and I-95 This area is relatively swampy with thick vegeation in most parts. Occured on a dirt road. Would have to look at a map of Ft. Stewart to show close to exact area.

NEAREST TOWN: Ft. Stewart

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 144

OBSERVED: Let me set up the story with some information that is pertinent to the situation. I was in the Army stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia. My job at the time was as a gunner on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. My unit was in the field conducting a training exercise which was to last a few days. The Bradley fighting vehicle is an armored tracked vehicle that normally has a crew of three; (Vehicle Commander, Gunner and Driver).

One night around 2AM my vehicle was moving solo along a dirt road (we called them tank trails) in the northeast part of Fort Stewart. We were driving blacked out with no lights on. I was acting as gunner and had my head buried in the thermal sight system which is used to engage targets at night. The thermal sight distinguishes differences in heat signatures and formulates a picture in either white hot or black hot (depending on what you have selected) against a red background. The driver had the hatch closed and was using a night vision device to view the road.

The vehicle commander was standing up out of the hatch looking through night vision monoculars. While moving along, if we encountered an intersection I would slew the turret either left or right (90 degrees) over the side of the vehicle to look down the road and clear it of any simulated enemy. At one particular intersection I did this maneuver, slewed the turret over the right side of the vehicle and looked down the trail.

It was clear and the vehicle made a right turn. After turning we drove approximately one hundred yards. The vegetation was extremely thick in this area due to being a swamp and about 10-12 feet high. As I was looking through the sight I observed something come out of the vegetation, approximately fifty yards in front of us, from the right side of the road and walk across the road to the left and re-enter the vegetation. The dirt road is approximately 15-20 feet wide.

This creature cleared the road in three steps at a normal stride. It didn't seemed bothered by us or in a rush. I don't recall it looking in our direction. Its head and torso were straight and it just walked on. Typically while looking through the thermal sight at a person you can distinguish clothing, hair, equipment they may be wearing, etc and be able to judge their height with the surroundings they are standing in. This creature appeared through the thermal sight to be one constant color from head to foot, have no clothes on and to be fairly tall, approximately 7-9 feet.

The first thought that came to my head was a bigfoot. At the time it all just seemed to make sense. From watching documentaries and reading books as a kid it all seemed to fit. Everything happened very quickly. I was shocked when I saw it and said nothing till after it went back into the woods. I announced to the vehicle commander over the internal comm system that something just walked across the road and it wasn't a man or an animal. He got spooked and told the driver to punch it. I wanted to stop and investigate but no one else was having that. We were never able to go back and now I could only vaguely point out a general area we were in.

ALSO NOTICED: No one else wanted to hang around to check out the area in which the creature crossed. Due to the vehicles noise nothing was heard.

OTHER WITNESSES: I was the only person out of three to observe the creature.

OTHER STORIES: After observing the creature, the next morning at breakfeast I took some heavy ribbing over seeing Bigfoot. A soldier came up to me and stated his father had been stationed at Ft Stewart during the 60's. This soldier was sincere in saying that his father had also observed what he thought was Bigfoot in the same part of the base as I had observed mine. He did not or I have forgotten and other details he provided.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Approximately 2AM. Totally dark with maybe a little bit of lunar illumination. Can't remember about clouds.

ENVIRONMENT: Swamp with thick vegetation on either side of dirt road. Vegetation in area was approximately 10-12 feet at its highest

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Stephen Willis:

Spoke to the witness on Dec. 24, 2006. He is no longer in the military and works as a police officer.

His sighting was very short, approximately 4 seconds during which the creature crossed an 18 foot wide road.

An important element for me is the uniform coloration he observed through his thermal sight. This confirms my own observation with a thermal viewer during the BFRO's March 2006 Redwoods expedition (Northern California). The creature I saw was very tall and had a uniform heat signature. It had none of the bright spots seen on humans in clothes. Humans in clothes (costumes would reveal the same patterns) show noticeable variations in surface temperature. Exposed skin stands out brightly while the loose parts of clothing are cooler and darker . The figure observed with the thermal sight in Georgia showed the same characteristics I observed in the California Redwoods -- a uniform insulation density.

The base camp of the Redwoods expedition was adjacent to a canyon where sounds had been heard earlier in the day. That night I was scanning the perimeter of the camp with a car-roof-mounted thermal viewer I observed a very tall figure walk to the edge of the camp, coming from the direction of the canyon where sounds had been heard a few hours before. It briefly walked out into the open, albeit in the dark, then reversed direction and walked rapidly back to the cover of trees. It had the same smooth gate and pronounced arm swing seen in the Patterson footage.

From my position the figure appeared to walk by a bush which provided scale for a height comparison with a human. So the morning after the sighting I asked a 5' 7" person to walk the same path. The comparison from the same angle showed that the figure I observed the night before had to be at least 8 feet tall. The 5' 7" person was would have come up to the chest of the figure I observed.

About BFRO Investigator Stephen Willis:

Grew up in central West Virginia. Retired from the US Army in 2003. Small manufacturing business owner. Lived for almost 7 years in Germany and 1.5 years in the Mideast.