YEAR: 2012

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: December

DATE: 3

STATE: Illinois

COUNTY: Montgomery County

LOCATION DETAILS: Backyard backs up to woods. On the other side of woods is Lake Lou Yaeger.

NEAREST TOWN: Litchfield

NEAREST ROAD: Interstate 55

OBSERVED: I found tracks in the mud last week a few days after my sister said she had one behind her house. So I went out last Monday and tracked it for about a half mile until I lost the trail. She said there is a smell that she smells before she sees. It smells like a skunk mixed with cow crap. I was there for three nights trying to find it and I couldn't find it. The day after I left to go back home it came back and she tried to get a picture of it before it ran off in to the woods.

ALSO NOTICED: The smell, the height because I'm 6' 6" and the thing it was using as a back scratching post was a foot over my head.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: There my sister saw one at 3:30 am in the street light then my nephew saw it a couple days later around dusk.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Stan Courtney:

I spoke with both witnesses by phone. I asked the sister to explain to me what she saw:

Witness -
" I've only been staying at this house for a little while, since December 1st. I have had surgery so I have been getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning. I like to look out the window and like to see if I can see deer. I was looking out the window, there is a light outside. There was this thing standing out by the clothes line, by the pole. I had only been here for a couple of days and I thought it looked like a tree in front of it. It is big and brown and I thought that looks awfully weird, I never noticed that before there. Then it started moving, and I mean this thing was like a foot taller than the pole. It looked like it was scratching its back on the clothes line pole. And its front was towards the woods. When you look at them they freeze, they look like trees. I measured the pole and it is 7'8". This thing was a foot taller than the pole. So when I seen this thing, I mean it started to move, I was sort of aghast, I was like "Oh My God". It took like two steps and it was in the woods. When I seen it it stepped into the light better when it was going towards the woods. Like the whole top of it was brown, it kind of came to a "V" in the mid-section, and the rest of it was grayish, kind of white-gray, it was like speckled black with gray towards the legs. It moved kind of like hunched over. It was huge. And it has this stench to it. It reminds me of cow poop and skunk mixed together. I could smell it in the house. It is like twenty feet from the window to the clothes line pole. I don't think it saw me at all, it kind of moseyed back into the woods."

In summary:

• The animal was about nine feet tall standing a foot taller than the 7' 8" clothes line pole.
• The witness could not judge the weight, saying only that it was huge.
• The hair was brown with areas of gray.
• The witness was unable to make out any facial features.
• The distance from the clothes line pole to the window is twenty feet.
• The witness observed the animal for about five minutes before it stepped back into the woods.
• The 10 year old nephew had also seen the animal, but as it was almost dark could not make out any details.

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