YEAR: 2001

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: December

DATE: 12/29/01

STATE: Texas

COUNTY: Lamar County

LOCATION DETAILS: see above

NEAREST TOWN: Paris

NEAREST ROAD: FM 1500

OBSERVED: I'm posting this on behalf of my wife, on a friend's computer. Recently my family relocated to land that we own -- upon which we are in the process of bulding a new house. Despite the noise of nailguns, etc., as weird as it might appear, my wife claims that at approx 4:30pm CST, on the last Saturday of the year, 29th?, she went for a walk in the woods. This was not an ordinary walk, because we live right at the edge of a forest/woods that surrounds a lake. We are located NW of Paris, Texas, in Lamar County. Anyways, she went for this walk in the woods because it was her first walk of the season. We are affraid to go down into the woods during the summer, as it is snake infested. So we usually wait until it freezes before we venture... It was down around 30 to 40 degrees that day. Our land is a pretty chunk of property. It backs up within 1/2 mile of the lake. We are the last owners on our road. Uncle Sam is our neighbor. I believe the land is part of the State of Texas' Wildlife Management land, and the Army Corp of Engineers, actually built and own the lake. My friend is telling me now that the area adjoining this lake is approx 19,000 acres +. Anyways, thats the rough conditions here in Lamar County. Heavily wooded and open pasture mix. Lots of snakes. Moderate climate.
My wife walked approx. one hundred yards down to a creek below our property, stopped and sat on a natural log bridge, suspended over this small ten foot creek, which drains down to the lake, usually having a steady but small amount of water. Lots of moss, dead trees, gnarly grapevines, etc., type-setting. She claims that she was looking into the binoculars and saw a "large monkey looking creature." The funny thing was that she told me also that "it couldn't have been a Bigfoot, cause' it was only about your size..." (I'm approx 6 foot4, and 240 lbs. and big and hairy myself!!) So she admitted her perception of Bigfoot is like 8 or 9 feet- maybe he is, maybe he isn't- I don't claim to know. Anyways, that's what she saw. She says that she observed it through binoculars on two feet, and in stride, freeze, and come to a standstill stance that was the forward leg was bent at knee, and back leg trailing- arms (at least one) out along same plane, like literally freezing in stride while sort of stooping. This is the way she described it to me, and is consistent with my own perception of what I would imagine a stance taken by someone or an animal when alerted, and when that something goes into freeze mode (hand-in-cookie-jar stance.) Anyways, that's what she described. No view of head. She said she spotted with binocs, put them down and looked unaided, returned to binocs again and observed again, looked unaided again, but was gone when she looked through the third time. She said that she got a little scared, but remained there for some time, and could not hear it, nor saw it again.
My gut reaction is that she may have saw a Sasquatch, Bigfoot. She is pretty straightup lady. She has her own small business- we work hard. Drink moderately hard, party some, raise a child, work, work.
Over the years, I have heard walking in the woods which never revealed itself. Although there is some hunting, it is not as much as one would suspect. You have to "draw" to be able to legally hunt back there, and there are a lots of better places to hunt around here. Mainly fishermen. Also, I have talked to other individuals who also claim to have had first- hand or second-hand experiences in the general area, over the past 20 years. I'll be willing to talk to someone with credentials. You can contact me through my friend at his email addy.

ALSO NOTICED: see above

OTHER WITNESSES: See above

OTHER STORIES: not enough time...

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Slightly windy and cold, partly cloudy.

ENVIRONMENT: See above

Follow-up investigation report:

I spoke directly to the witness a few days after she had her experience. She stated to me that she saw it through the binoculars two times... in both cases, it appeared hairy, had a round head but she couldn't see the eyes because the view of the head was obstructed by some vegetation. It appeared to be looking right at her approximately 50 to 75 yards away or "half to three quarters the length of a football field."
She said she had her dog with her initially but he turned back to the house and she attributed that to his age (12 years old) and her cat did accompany her on the walk and it behaved normally. There was much vegetation that she looked through but she felt that this thing was seen clearly through the binoculars. She mentioned that it was brown in color, it looked to have frozen in a stance in which it was bent over and staring at her. It may have fallen out of a tree or was picking something up the ground.... or so it looked to her.
Asked about body build, she said "just kind of poorly" indicating not heavily built. It also looked as though it had narrow to medium wide shoulders.
Although curious about its behavior, she continued with her walk without incident about ten minutes after she last saw it. Although the sun was going down and it was getting darker, she really wanted to go for the walk. .