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Geographical Index > United States > Illinois > Henderson County > Report # 23983
 
 Report # 23983  (Class B)
Submitted by witness on Wednesday, June 11, 2008.
Possible eye-shine and sighting at a rural home near Stronghurst

YEAR: 2002/2003

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: April

DATE: April or May

STATE: Illinois

COUNTY: Henderson County

LOCATION DETAILS: Heavily wooded terrain, with an old train tressel about 2 miles in the back of the woods. Rural, paved road runs over a creek, and woods are on both sides. As a younger child, my friends and I would explore them all the time, but never heard or saw anything strange. My dad still likes to take his dogs on walks in that area.

NEAREST TOWN: Stronghurst

NEAREST ROAD: On North St. headed west out of Stronghurst.

OBSERVED: I was coming home from my girlfriend's house around 12:00 a.m. or 12:30 a.m. I was a junior or senior in high school (2002/2003) at the time. My house is situated outside of a small town in Henderson County, Illinois. My girlfriend's house is located outside of a small town about 12 miles from mine. I was about 1/2 a mile away from my house going down a large rural hill when I casually saw about 15-20 cows grazing and sleeping along a treeline. They all had the same white eyes on all the same level. I then noticed about 3-4 feet above a row of cows 2 menacing yellow eyes. It seemed to look very strange to me, and I had a high powered flash light in my car. I backed my car up, and opened my car door. As soon as I opened my car door, the eyes moved about 4-6 feet to "its" right in a very quick instant. I knew this was no raccoon or opossum, and I decided to jump in my car and take off. As soon as I pulled in my drive way, I took out my large flashlight and decided to walk down the road with my very large part grand mastiff/st. bernard. Within walking 150-200 feet down the road my large dog started to growl, but did not run after whatever it was growling at. My dog chases anything that comes around the house, as he has no natural predator out there, and loves to chase off coyotes from the surrounding fields by my parent's house. I tried to move the flashlight towards the direction of the barking, but I saw nothing. I walked back to my house, still looking back, but saw nothing else. My dog just followed myself home. I will never forget those yellow eyes, and I have told other people my story, and I'd even heard of few people that have heard strange things late at night. The only somewhat large wild animals in this area are coyotes, and thats it. No bears or wolves are found in this part of the country (Illinois). As with our county, there was word when I was in grade school of a few bobcats being released in the northern part of the county, but this was no bobcat.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just myself.

OTHER STORIES: My freshman or sophmore year at college, my mother called me one day and stated that she couldn't sleep one night, and went to the back of the house to sit in a sofa/recliner, and was just taking in the scenery on a great night. We have great big windows that show our backyard, pasture, and 2 large cornfields to the West and North. My mother said all of a sudden our two dogs went crazy in the house, and wanted out. So my mom let them out the back door, and turned on the back porch light. She said she saw something very large jump over our backyard fence and into the pasture, and take off northwest through the field. My mother was a high school teacher for years, and I believe what she saw. For some reason, however, as I've read stories, my dogs wanted to try and go after the person or "thing" and my mother said they didn't seem to be afraid.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 12:00/12:30 a.m. somewhat cloudy sky, but vision was good. No fog or anything of that sort.

ENVIRONMENT: Decidious forest.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Eric Lester:

This sincere witness insisted the eye-shine was not located inside the tree-line, but on the edge of the woods. When he initially stopped to take a closer look he was about 10-15 feet away. He noticed this 'taller' eye-shine was higher than the cows by about 3-4 ft and reflected less moonlight.

In reference to his mother's story, the creature did a quick 'hop-step' over the 4-5 ft high fence.

This location is very close to the Mississippi River and a reported sighting Report #4099.

About BFRO Investigator Eric Lester:

Eric Lester is a medical professional and has been investigating possible Sasquatch sightings since 2004.
BFRO expeditions include: