YEAR: 1988

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: June

STATE: Missouri

COUNTY: Greene County

LOCATION DETAILS: Wooded area near Lake Sprinfield, which is connected with James River

NEAREST TOWN: Springfield, MO

NEAREST ROAD: Hwy. 65 & James River Freeway

OBSERVED: On a real nice night in June about 9:30p.m. myself and some other guys were talking after a softball game on what we wanted to do. So one of the guys suggested that we go to the "old resort" to see if anybody was partying there. The old resort was a abandoned piece of land that had a strectch of driveway from a road that went over a hill down a low part and up again. And on top of that second hill was a old empty in-ground swimming pool and a couple of small collapsed buildings. I havenever been there before but heard of others talking about having a "kegger" there a time or two. So we all loaded up in Dave's van and off we went, there were 6 or 7 of us. When we arrived there we went over a gate down the hill and up the 2nd hill to the old resort. No one was there but I wanted to see this place for myself, the moon was real bright and your eyes adjusted real well to the lighting conditions and after about 20 min. of "exploring " we decided to head back to the van. Now there was 2 guys ahead of us, myself Mike and Gene, and 3 guys in back of us, at about a distance of 25 feet between each of the groups. The two others that were walking with me was Mike and Gene, I'm about 6' 3" and Gene is about 6' 5" and Mike was short. As we were walking west towards the van in between the two hills with woods on both sides of the path back to the road. I started to smell the worse odor that wasn't chemically produced. Something like real bad B.O., musky like and fecal. At that point I said "Gene, what is that smell ? " and Gene said "It ain't a skunk but it's just as bad." Thats when Mike stopped in his tracks and began looking at our right .We stopped as well and Gene looked where Mike was and said "Oh my god, look!" I looked and saw a figure about 20' from our location staring right back at us. Couldn't make out facial features because the moon was behind it but it stayed behind some brush just checking us out. I looked ahead of us and the guys in front were there and looked behind me and those guys was acounted for also. I said "What is that?" and Gene said "I don't know but I can't handle this!" Off he went with me and Mike. After him passing by the guys in front and when Gene got to the gate he climbed it with 2 steps and didn't stop until he got to the van. I know this because I was right behind him. We waited for the rest and told them what happened. Then I began to rationalize that maybe we just smelled a dead animal and maybe it was just a cedar tree swaying in the breeze. So Dave and I went back to the spot and there was no smell and no tree at the spot where I saw it. Whatever we saw was taller than both Gene and I by about a good half foot.

ALSO NOTICED: Found out that the local paper "The News Leader" has published sightings around the Springfield Lake, James River, and Wilson Creek area. But not ours, we didn't have the guts to tell anyone.

OTHER WITNESSES: Gene, Mike and I that saw it but there were others that were nearby but they didn't see it, and they were accounted for at the time of the event.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Nighttime, clear weather and a full moon.

ENVIRONMENT: Very near a old closed bridge, used to be really heavily forested at that time since then there has been a lot of development going on.

Follow-up investigation report:

I spoke with the witness via telephone in regards to the submitted sighting. The following details can be added to the sighting report.

The witness stated that the smell was unbelievable and made them feel like they were going to be sick. Once the witnesses stopped to investigate what was smelling so bad, the friend Gene noticed something standing behind a sapling off to the right on the path. The path was approximately 4 feet higher than the edge of the woods and the animal observed was almost the same height as the witnesses. The best estimation was approximately 8 to 9 feet tall. The animal was observed for about 3 to 4 minutes, swaying side to side, with one hand holding on to the tree, the other hanging down by its side. They estimated the tree to be about 12 inches in circumference and the hand was completely encompassing it. I asked the witness what they thought the animal was doing, they stated that it appeared to be trying to hide. The witness also noted that the animals head was a conical shape. No other discernable features could be seen due to the moon being low and behind the sighted animal.

About 15 minutes after the sighting, the witnesses went back to the sighting location, and saw no animal and noticed no smell. They did not investigate further.

The witness also added that KYTV had produced a program about scary stories, that included bigfoot sightings in this same area at a later time.