YEAR: 2002

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: May

DATE: 19

STATE: Minnesota

COUNTY: Fillmore County

NEAREST TOWN: Spring Valley

NEAREST ROAD: County Rd 1 (3 miles away)

OBSERVED: On Sunday, May 19, 2002, my family and I were camping on our land, riding a dirt bike and hiking. While we were taking turns riding our motorcycle, my eleven year old son spotted what looked like a "cave man" sitting near our camp site, about 75 yeards away. The view of it was slightly obstructed by some large straw bales, therefore I didn't see it at first when my son tried to point it out to me. By the time I finally saw it, it had stood up and was walking away towards heavy tree growth and a steep ravine. What I saw was a very large, man-like, reddish brown colored, hairy creature with its back towards me. All I could see was it's upper half, stooped forward slightly, with what appeared to be a very long, muscular right arm. The Head appeared larger than human from my angle. My son saw the right side of it's face, saying it looked like a cave-man like in the books. The face had light brown skin, with no hair on it's face, but slightly deformed-looking. That's about all he can recall. I think it took him totally by surprise. It appeared to be about seven feet tall. After calming down from this we decided to walk in the direction it headed for and found three or four very large foot prints in the creek bed area. They were slightly larger than my size thirteen boots, with five distinct human-type toes.

Later that afternoon while I was riding the dirt bike, it suddenly stopped on me, about a half mile from the sighting. Looking at the wiring on the motorcycle, and alone there in the gully, I heard a very high pitched scream coming from what seemed a quarter to half mile away from me, opposite the direction of our camp. i thought it might be my family, but after getting the bike up and running right away, I quickly discovered it couldn't have been them. They were near our camp to the rear of me. No one else was on the land but us. That evening, our closest neighbor's ( 1 1/2 miles away) dog started barking like crazy around 11:00 pm and was heading our way down thru the woods. I could hear the dog barking all night long, while what seemed he was following or chasing something all over the place. Around 3:30 am, I could hear the dog was about one hundred yards away from us, just going nuts and acting very vicious. All of a sudden, while laying there in our tent, I heard something huge come crashing thru the trees and run right by my head, with what sounded like bi-pedal type footsteps, only extremely fast and heavy (the ground near my head shook somewhat when it went by), with the dog right behind it. I sat up and counted the heads in my tent to be sure we were all accounted for. Then the dog let out a terrible yelp and everything got very quiet. Needless to say, I stayed up and slowly went outside to check on things and light a camp fire for warmth and security.

ALSO NOTICED: Other than that, everything appeared to be very normal.

OTHER WITNESSES: Two

OTHER STORIES: No

TIME AND CONDITIONS: day and night. clear conditions.

ENVIRONMENT: Large Oak trees, very hilly, creeks, swamps, and some open fields.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Andy P.:

I spoke with the witness for over an hour and a half this evening. I found him to be very credible, and his description of his experiences to be detailed and complete.

All of his encounters happened on the same property encompassing twenty two acres that he and his wife bought in November of 2000. He has had other encounters besides those that he submitted, but did not submit them because they were not direct visual sightings, nor was there physical evidence.

I have the following details to add to his report:

- The observation occurred in full sunlight in the middle of the afternoon and lasted for thirty to forty seconds.
- The animal was squatting in the family’s campsite, over their fire pit. It then stood up, began walking away, and then ran.
- He estimates its weight to be around 300 pounds and its height to be between five and seven feet (he felt this was difficult to judge as he only saw the animal from the knees up).
- Its torso was thick and muscled, “like a football player.” Its shoulders were two and a half to three feet wide.
- Its hair was the color, length (three to four inches), and appearance of an Irish setter’s. It appeared to be clean and flowed as the creature moved.
- Its head was round, not conical, and it sat directly on the shoulders with no evidence of a neck. Its face skin was pinkish-brown. He did not get a good look at the facial features.
- Its arms were very long and muscular, hanging with the fingers below its knees when it stood.
- Its thighs were massive and were hair covered as were its buttocks.
- It pumped its arms when it ran and he could see the muscles rippling under the hair on its back. It ran very, very fast.
- They did not detect an odor from the animal.
- It ran away from them to the Southeast, over a hill and down into the ravine.
- Knowing the distances better now, he says that the sighting distance was actually closer than originally reported, about thirty five to forty yards (this also accounts for his slightly changed estimate of its height).
- He had little to add to the events that happened in the night, other than that they were quite frightened and they waited in the tent until there was light. Then he left the tent cautiously and lit the fire.


We also discussed the following encounters:

September 2001:

This event happened near entrance to the property, where he parks his truck. It was early in the morning, before dawn. The area is wooded with a trail going down into a ravine and up the other side.

He was putting on his hunting boots by his truck, preparing to go out to his bow-hunting stand. He heard a noise down the trail and shined his light down into the ravine. He saw two red glowing eyes staring at him. They were about sixty to seventy yards away and about eight to nine feet above the ground. He watched them for a few seconds and even saw them blink. They then turned away and were gone. He finished getting ready and then went down into the valley. He didn’t know what to think of the eyes at the time, having never seen an animal with a red eye-shine before. He was cautious and looked around him as he passed the area, but saw nothing. He walked the rest of the way to his hunting stand and hunted all day with out seeing or hearing anything else. As he came out of the woods that evening, it was still light. He located the area where the eyes were, and was surprised to find that there was no tree in that area. He was shocked and a bit spooked, for he didn’t know of anything in MN that could have stood on the ground and had eyes at eight to nine feet in the air.

One week later he went to the same location to hunt and the same time of day. As he was preparing to put his boots on, he shined his light down the trail again. The eyes were there again and in the same location. They looked at each other again for a few seconds and then the eyes once again turned away and were gone. Again, he went to his hunting spot and saw nothing else.


October/November of 2002:

The witness, his wife, and his son went out hunting in late October or early November. He was armed with his bow and stood at the top of the ravine in their property. His wife and son circled down and around, in an attempt to push any deer up to him. It was late in the day and was getting close to sunset. A while after his family left, he began hearing strange sounds in the brush about thirty yards to his left. It sounded like “a four-year-old child attempting to mimic words,” but he could not understand any of the words; they were gibberish. To his right, something very large came up quickly, and began pacing back and forth loudly in the brush, just out of sight, about thirty yards across the ravine. He had the impression that he was between an adult and a child and he became suddenly afraid. He got up and left as quickly as he could, going to where his wife and son were. They were frightened as well and said that something large and on two feet had run past them, moving very fast, up the ravine towards him. They left the property at that point.

September 2003:

The witness also sent the following report:

"It's been a while since I last contacted you. Since then, my wife and I sold our land toa friend of ours. He is an avid hunter/outdoorsman and will make good use of the land we sold him. I've known this friend for around twenty five years and never once spoke of our sightings on our property. He would have thought we were crazy. You understand."
"Anyway, we were showing him our land late last summer/early fall and started coming out of our woods and into the cornfield when our friend spotted some bigfoot tracks, large ape-like tracks about 18 inches long and ten inches wide. He hollered over at me and said "what the hell kind of tracks are these"? These tracks went accross the cornfield without breaking a single stalk. We didn't know what or how to tell him, but did. He just stared at us and turned white as a sheet after we told him what we thought these might be from. He had never seen anything like it. Throughout the day we very gently told him what we knew of these creatures, since there were two sets of track spotted that day, a large and a smaller set of bigfoot tracks. It took him several weeks befor eit really sank into him what was going on on our land. A month later we went back down there with his grown son, a dis-believer. He too, spotted tracks and was in total shock by what we were seeing."
"Since then, they purchased the land, went deer hunting on it, shot three deer, but saw no more signs of bigfoot. My friend did, however hear a very loud vocalization late one nite out there in while in his hunting shack. He said it was exactly like the sound he's heard on your site."
"He called me on the phone a coule of weeks ago and was re-hashing his new big-foot events with me. He said he would never in his life believed any of this had he personally not seen the tracks or hear the vocalizations himself. Another new, reluctant believer."

I spoke with him about this event and can add the following:

The tracks in the first set found that day were eighteen inches long, ten inches wide at the ball of the foot, five inches wide at the heel, and two inches deep. Each track had five toes. He estimates that the tracks were five to six feet apart, heel to heel. He also made special note of how no corn was trampled as the animal went through the field.

He did not measure the second, smaller set of tracks.

They also found a mangled deer leg that day. It had been twisted and broken in several places.

About BFRO Investigator Andy P.:

Andy P. lives in Minnesota. He is a professional writer with a degree in English and Biology. His interest dates back to his first sighting in 1985.

He attended the following BFRO expeditions:

- 2006 Wisconsin I
- 2007 Michigan
- 2008 Michigan
- 2008 Minnesota (private)
- 2009 Wisconsin
- 2009 Minnesota (organizer)