YEAR: 2006

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: November

STATE: Iowa

COUNTY: Washington County

NEAREST TOWN: Wellman

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 22

OBSERVED: I was hunting in my uncles timber. The time was about 5:30 so I decided to head out. I was walking back to my truck following a well traveled trail and heard a noise on the north side of the dried up river bed. I looked over and drew my gun thinking it might be a deer. as i followed it with my scope, I noticed it was way bigger than a deer. It probably stood 2 foot taller than a deer or human. It was sollid black, covered in hair, and was running away from me at an incredible speed. the reason i'm saying that is because it was in dense brush. i got scared, because i couldnt explain what i had just seen. so i ran to my truck and left.

OTHER WITNESSES: no

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 5:30 the light was still good enough for me to see perfectly

ENVIRONMENT: oak and maple forrest

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Steve Moon:

In a phone interview witness added important details to his report. The dried up riverbed that was between witness and the creature was 30 to 40 yards wide, with trees in the bottom. The creature was therefore 30 to 40 yards away when observed. Witness returned to the area with a friend and stood next to trees where the creature had been seen. His height was nowhere near the height of the creature. Witness could not see the face of the creature as it was running away, but it had an elongated head. It was running very fast, like a person would move, through dense woods quite easily even though there was no trail. The creature held its arms up at shoulder height and made boxing-like movements as it ran. Its arms were muscular and good definition could be seen through the back hair. The same was true of the legs, with the lower legs as thick as the upper. Witness has not been able to go back into the woods without someone else, stating that something with that much mass could do a lot of damage. Once the creature was out of sight witness took off in a dead sprint back to his truck. Witness was 24 years old at the time of the sighting and has a lot of outdoor experience. The witness is credible.

The area of the sighting is a small third order perennial river that drains into a larger tributary river of the Mississippi River in the southeastern portion of Iowa. The valley is densely wooded and surrounded by farmland. The greenbelt formed by the timber along the river is contiguous all the way to the Mississippi River which is approximately 30 linear miles away if you follow the general path of the rivers. The weather was unseasonably warm in the Upper Midwest during the fall of 2006, with a mean average temperature in the area of the sighting of 51 degrees Fahrenheit in October and 44 degrees Fahrenheit in November.

About BFRO Investigator Steve Moon:

A native of southeast Iowa, Steve has long been a cave explorer and outdoor adventurer. He became involved in bigfoot research in 2008. Steve organized BFRO IOWA Public Expeditions in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016, and is currently organizing a 2017 IOWA expedition. Steve is an artist, photographer, farmer, anthropologist and professional researcher. His primary research areas are the river basins of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and all of eastern Iowa.