YEAR: 2008

SEASON: Spring

DATE: 13

STATE: Illinois

COUNTY: Lake County

NEAREST TOWN: Barrington

NEAREST ROAD: Inglenook Lane to the east, Hypoint Drive to the west

OBSERVED: Spring 2008 at grid reference 42°10'32.77"N, 88° 5'42.21"W Near 24000 Cuba Rd, Barrington, Illinois.

On the North side of the street is a township building, on the South side of the road is a heavily wooded area close to the road, with some small residential buildings and a large field behind that.

Night/predawn, overcast, slight rain.

Approx: 0430

Background of witnesses: My girlfriend and I are on this stretch of road quite a lot. We frequently stop to look at animals, especially large ones like deer. We are not scared in the slightest of dealing with animals at night. I grew up in the woods, I am an EMT, trained observer, a nature enthusiast and we are comfortable in rural areas.

It was a fairly overcast and rainy night , my girlfriend and I were out driving for a few hours, it was a pretty uneventful night. We saw a few deer, some raccoons and a fox. As we were driving East on Cuba road, just past Ela, at about 0430 Central time, we came over a small rise in the road and saw a large silhouette in HIGH contrast on the right shoulder of the road crossing from the left, behind the animal was reflective road sign that was bouncing the light from our headlights back at us. We did not see the front end of the animal, we could only see from about the mid chest down. The creature was up on its hind legs and seemed to be stooped over. It had very thick, heavily muscled legs. The animal seemed to be a dark gray with little or no hair, we could not tell for sure though. Within a short time, it was across the road and out of direct light, I visually tracked it into the woods on the right side of the road. The animal seemed to have gone up behind a white clapboard house and into the backyard, out of my sight.

I turned to my girlfriend and asked "Did you see that?", she said "Yeah..You saw it too!?!" I asked her "Do you want to stop and look?" As soon as I asked that question I got a feeling of total dread that I have never felt before and immediately told her to go and not stop, we sped away as fast as we could and discussed what we saw while we were driving back to the house.

ALSO NOTICED: Went back later that day and did a quick check, did not find anything.

OTHER WITNESSES: 2 witnesses, myself and my girlfriend.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 0430 Night/predawn, overcast, slight rain.

ENVIRONMENT: Evergreen forest and fields, as well as residential housing.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Stan Courtney:

I spoke with the witness by phone. The following details can be added to his report.

- Although he was unable to see the upper portions of the animal's body the witness felt that the total height would have been around seven foot.
- The animal was dark gray and very muscular.
- The witness was unable to see the face.

About BFRO Investigator Stan Courtney:

Stan Courtney has a special interest in wildlife audio recording. He has attended numerous BFRO Expeditions. See Stan's blog StanCourtney.com for recordings he has collected over the years.

Stan Courtney can be reached at illinois@bfro.net