YEAR: 2012

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: September

DATE: 13th

STATE: Arkansas

COUNTY: Miller County

LOCATION DETAILS: County Road #10 about one mile east of State Highway 237.

NEAREST TOWN: Fouke

NEAREST ROAD: Miller County Road #10

OBSERVED: A family member was driving west around four am in the morning, when the creature crossed the road in front of the car. She is not inclined to repeat the old stories she has heard all her life and has never thought it was real. Well today she has a new respect for those stories, she has said that she was driving on County Road 10 in Miller County, Arkansas going west about a mile or so from Hwy. 237 in Fouke, AR, when it crossed the road right in front of her car.

ALSO NOTICED: I went to where she said she had seen it and looked around the edges of the road but found no prints. Also note it had rained for two days, before I got there and the land around the sighting is posted so that kept me from looking any farther.

OTHER WITNESSES: no

OTHER STORIES: No.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: around 4 am

ENVIRONMENT: Wooded area, near creek

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Tal H. Branco:

On 11-30-12 I spoke by phone with both the person who filed the report and with his relative who observed the animal. The details of the event and the witness' description of the animal she saw are shown below.

The witness was driving west on Co. Rd. #10 and had crossed over Four Mile Creek a few moments earlier. It was about 4 a.m. and her small vehicle was rounding a curve to her left. She then saw in the beam of the headlights a tall, hair-covered bipedal animal that had just stepped onto the right side of the narrow roadway. She applied her brakes and slowed to a near stop about fifty feet or less from the animal. She stated the animal quickly crossed the road in long but unhurried strides, then stepped over a barbed wire fence and disappeared into the woods south of the road. She said that at the time the driver's side window was down, but she immediately rolled the window up, locked the doors and sped away from the location.

She stated the animal was a "good eight feet tall", with very long, and muscular legs. The witness said the movement of the animal was smooth and without much movement of the arms. Its body was held erect as it walked. At all times her view was of the profile of the animal's left side. She said it was looking straight ahead as it crossed the road and never turned to look at the vehicle. She also mentioned that for a "split second" the animal's left eye reflected a distinct red glow from the car's headlights.

She described the animals torso as being "big and thick, and its stomach was not fat." Its hair was long, most of it being dark brown, but with portions being a lighter brown color. The hair appeared neat without any mud or forest litter clinging to it. She saw nothing to indicate the sex of the animal.

She stated that the animal's head sat closely on its shoulders, and its head appeared to be shaped like that of a large human's. She stated her attention was primarily fixed on the animal's torso and legs as those were the parts of its body most visible in her normal driving view of the road. She said she had to tilt her head back slightly to glance at its head.

The witness stated she was very surprised and frightened by her encounter. After our conversation about this incident, I believe she is a credible observer.

Based on the witness' observations, and the topography of the area, it is very likely that the animal was following the Four Mile Creek bottoms southward. From the sighting location it is about five miles south to that creek's intersection with Boggy Creek. From that intersection it is about two more miles south to the point that the combined flow from both creeks enter the Sulphur River. The wetlands adjoining that stretch of the river contains oxbow lakes, swamps, sloughs and bayous. The area has significant populations of deer, feral hogs, raccoons, swamp rabbits and other smaller animals and waterfowl typically found in such southern wetlands.

Miller County residents have generated numerous reports of sightings of large, hairy, manlike animals for many years. The reported animals have also been the subject of many news media articles and at least one movie.

About BFRO Investigator Tal H. Branco:

Tal Branco is a lifelong resident of AR. He began hunting, fishing and tracking many years ago in south AR. Since he was a teenager, his outdoor activities have been primarily conducted in the Ouachita Mountains, although during the past forty years he has also conducted field investigations of reports of enigmatic and unclassified animals in the southeastern U.S. and in the Amazon Basin of Brazil.