YEAR: 2012

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: December

DATE: 20

STATE: Illinois

COUNTY: Cook County

LOCATION DETAILS: We were heading south, this was just north of Vollmer Road on Central Avenue in South Green Belt Forest Preserve.

NEAREST TOWN: Matteson

NEAREST ROAD: Vollmer and I-57

OBSERVED: My wife, daughter and I saw a very large dark figure cross the road no more than 50 feet in front of us. This thing cleared the road in not even two steps. The arm on this thing was long and extremely large. I found some interesting information which leads me to believe they use the forest preserves to move from west to east and vice versa..my heart literally jump this time because it walked directly in front of us and all three of us saw it. Now my wife and I know that we are definitely not crazy.

ALSO NOTICED: No

OTHER WITNESSES: 3

OTHER STORIES: Further away in Homewood and Maywood

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Sighting was at night. Tonight it's snowing but was light.

ENVIRONMENT: Forest trees

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Stan Courtney:

I spoke with both witnesses by phone.

Witness: We were driving through this forest preserve near our house, my wife, my daughter and I. We were driving southbound. Less than fifty feet in front of us we saw a huge dark figure go across the road. I distinctly remember the arms because they were long and very massive. You could see the definition of the muscles. It crossed the road from left to right.

My heart kind of stopped for a second because did I just see what I think I just saw. And my wife and my daughter asked me "What was that?"

You could see his arm, it was well defined, you could see his shoulder, this thing was huge. And it was not a man, it was not a bear because we don't have bears here. It was huge.

In summary:

• The animal was over 7 feet tall.
• The animal was massive and weighed over 600 lbs.
• The hair was very dark in coloring.
• The witness had his car headlights on high beam.
• The witness was awestruck on how huge the animal was.

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