YEAR: 1964

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: November

DATE: 7

STATE: Illinois

COUNTY: Douglas County

LOCATION DETAILS: Approx. 3 miles from Villa Grove

NEAREST TOWN: Villa Grove

OBSERVED: It was a clear cold November mid-afternoon day in 1964 me and my siblings had went outside with our mother to get fuel oil to burn in our stove while playing in the yard.

We seen a upright black figure stand at a far distance in a harvested corn field. We started yelling at it. It appeared to turn towards us then turn back away.

Our dog went chasing after it. We couldn’t see the dog any longer but we could still see the black figure standing at a far distance in the field. Mom came over to see what we were yelling at. She also seen the black figure. She told us to quit yelling at it and get in the house right now. She seemed very frightened and scared so we went in the house, couldn’t see the dog any longer but we could still see the black figure standing at a far distance in the field.

A day or two after seeing the black figure in the corn field my little brother and I went outside to play. We were always playing scavenger hunt. We decided to go into the empty hog pen beside our house and see if we could find anything related to what we had seen just a day or two earlier.

We seen what we thought were weird footprints so we followed them. It led to a hog house. There we spotted one good footprint indented into the ground It had two toes its was big! Looking back now I would say it was 16 to 18 inches long.

We were scared. We had never seen anything like it. We tried to get each other to look in the hog house. I said let's go tell mom what we found. So they all came out and looked and seen the footprint.

Also we got to looking around the hog house to see if we could find any more footprints. But we didn’t find any more, but we did find a clump of hair stuck to a metal piece in the window of the hog house. It had a very stinky musty smell to it, so we keep it and we put it in a envelope and 47 years later we still have it.

In the days between all the these sightings my mother would wake up in the night to sounds. She would wake my older brother because she was scared. I never heard the sounds but one of the stories told was chain sounds on concrete, door handles shaking, footsteps on the front porch, and deep growling noises.

Forty seven years have passed and to this day I think we had a bigfoot.

ALSO NOTICED: Sounds, footprints and hair.

OTHER WITNESSES: Our mother, two sister and a brother.

OTHER STORIES: Yes, my uncle and brother had also seen it.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Light clear day, mid-afternoon

ENVIRONMENT: Open corn fields, hog farms.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Stan Courtney:

I spoke with the brother and one sister by phone. They were 10 & 12 years old when the sighting took place. The mother and another sister have passed away.

In summary:

There was a series of events and sightings by the mother (now deceased), an uncle (now deceased), two sisters and two brothers.

- The animal was described as being black, with long arms.
- The animal was standing on two feet but would walk several yards and then squat, look around for several moments and then get up and walk several more yards.
- When the young girl started yelling the animal appeared to start walking towards them.
- The mother then ushered the children back into the house.
- A couple of days later the children found footprints leading to some abandoned pig pens still on the property. The footprints went from one building to the next.
- The footprints were in the 16 -18 inch range.
- Hair was found on a nail near one of the windows. The family put the hair into a paper envelope. Over the last 47 years the family has kept this keepsake as a memory of that long ago summer. The uncle had sent some of the hair to a university but the family never heard any results from testing.

The hair was sent by the BFRO for analysis and the results showed canine.

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