YEAR: 2011

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: October

DATE: 15

STATE: Florida

COUNTY: Suwannee County

LOCATION DETAILS: It's my land... I am here when i'm not working.

NEAREST TOWN: Live Oak

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 90

OBSERVED: I was out behind my house smoking, walking my dogs around 6:30 pm, just before dark. My back yard is grass for about 100 yards then it is medium to heavy woods (about 4 acres total).

My dogs just froze in place looking towards the woods. I was asking them whats wrong, what do you see? They stayed still, gazing into the woods for about a minute. I also looked towards the woods but saw nothing but trees and I could make out a large tree stump, then they both ran from me back into the house through a the doggy door on the North side of my house. When looking towards the woods they are to the East of me. I kept staring at the woods looking side to side while still seeing nothing. My cigarette was done, I tossed it onto the ground and went to step on it when I noticed some movement about 20 yards in the woods. It was towards the tree stump...I watched as this stump, which was about 3 to 4 foot tall stand up and double its size... I was in shock, it seemed like it was not real.

I stayed motionless while watching this thing, which clearly was NO tree stump start to walk deeper into the woods, heavy steps each time it walked, it was between 7' or 8 feet tall, had hair/fur covering it. The way I could tell this is because it was walking in a zig zag motion, purposely I guess to try and hide from me behind trees. The sun would only shine in spots through the top of the trees and I could see the hair/fur shine maybe every 5 seconds or so/ This thing made noise/sound only twice from itself, once when it first rose up, I interpreted it as a "Damn now I have to move" moan/grunt... second when he/she looked at me right before it got to the gas line road (which is a dirt, right of way road for the gas company) almost to tell me, you stay where you are, don't follow me and I had no plans on that....

I went back out the next day, dogs refused to go with me, to see if there was something it was doing in the woods and found nothing. Also went to the dirt road looking for prints but found only a part of one because of deer and other animals walking over them.

I believe this thing, and others follow the deer here for food, the [Suwannee River] State Park has a no Hunting buffer I think that is 5 or 10 miles out from the park. The deer know this and I am sure if these things have been here for a while also know that people don't hunt around here.. I have been away from this house do to selling it but recently purchased it back. Only one of my dogs is still with me and will still not walk in the woods like we used to...

This thing had medium to dark reddish/brown hair/fur, when it snarled/growled at me. I saw fingers, no hair on the palms because I could see skin, no facial hair. It did not stink as bad as I read about. It smelled more like wet dog and pine sap..I have been back here about 3 weeks but see no signs of this thing but did hear its growl two nights ago, I was on my front porch that faces west, smoking before going to bed. My dog was laying by my side. What ever it was scared my dog and me also. It sounded like an owl at first but turned into a growl at the end. Weird... I will wait to hear from you if you would like to know more.

ALSO NOTICED: I sold the house but recently purchased it back.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just myself and my dogs

OTHER STORIES: Yes, stealing chickens and pigs..

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Late afternoon, it was still light outside, cool little to no breeze

ENVIRONMENT: My Land, about a quarter mile from the Suwannee river, mostly pines and Oak tree's, [Suwannee River] State Park is about a mile away.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Benjamin C.:

I conducted an in-depth call with the witness over his sighting and found him to be highly credible and sincere. The witness was driving to the airport at the time of our call, but he recalled many the same details that he had submitted in his original report of his sighting nine years ago. Based upon the content of our conversation, I would like to add the following information to supplement his original statement.

At the time of the sighting, the witness had taken his two dogs, a pitbull lab mix and a dachshund, to go for a walk in the forest behind his house. The witness took the time to state that his dogs were not afraid of any animals, and they had in the past chased and treed both black bear and bobcat in the woods behind his property. The witness stated that he walked forward from his house for roughly twenty feet only to realize that his dogs were not with him, which struck him as odd as they were usually eager to go into the forest. He turned back and saw that both dogs were frozen in place staring at the wood line. He called for them to come to him, only to have both dogs bolt and run back into the house.

The witness was confused by his dog’s behavior and turned to the wood line to see what had scared his dogs. Not seeing anything, the witness walked forwards until he was less than ten yards from the forest edge. The witness stated that as he was walking, he kept noticing one tree stump approximately four feet tall that he did not remember being there. When he was within twenty yards of the tree stump, the tree stump stood up, the creature making the irritated grunt as described in the witness’ original statement above.

The witness initially made eye contact with the creature and observed it for approximately fifteen seconds before the creature moved out of sight as described above. The witness stated the creature stood roughly 7 feet tall, was at least 3.5 feet wide at the shoulders, and weighed perhaps between three hundred and four hundred pounds. The witness bases the weight of the creature off the sound of its movement through the forest. The witness said that he weighed two hundred fifty pounds at the time of the sighting and the breaking of underbrush by the creature as it moved off sounded much louder than what he himself could make. The witness did not see a neck, as the head appeared to sit on the torso. This statement is further reinforced by the witness’ description of the creature turning its torso rather than its head to look at him as it moved away. The torso of the creature was described by the witness as V-shaped but solid.

The witness described the creature as being covered in dark reddish brown hair approximately 2” long. The hair was also observed by the witness to be matted in many places by pine sap, similar to how a dog’s fur becomes stuck together and shiny when pine sap adheres to it. The witness did not see any sexual characteristics on the creature so he could not state definitively if it was male or female. The creature was very muscular in appearance, with large muscles on its upper and lower arms, with the arms as a whole hanging proportionally lower on the creature than they would on a human. The witness particularly remembers the biceps of the creature as being big. The hands were as described in his initial report. The feet and legs were not observed due to the brush that was in the way.

Of the facial characteristics of the creature, the witness states that he mainly remembers the eyes, which he stated as being “big and dark.” He does not remember if a brow ridge was present or not. The hair on the top of the head appeared to be thicker than the hair on the rest of the body, and appeared to have almost a part on the top. The top of the head appeared to be slightly conical. The face was described by the witness as being a mix between a person and an ape, with the creature possessing a strong, square jaw, with a regular human type mouth. The witness does not remember if the nose was prominent or not, he can only assume that it was flat. The witness does not remember the exact skin color of the creature, describing the skin on the face only as dark, but not as dark as the eyes.

The witness stated feeling in a state of shock, describing a ‘fight or flight’ reaction. The witness remembers taking several steps forward to get another look at the creature, at which point the creature uttered a deep bass like grunt that the witness described as “similar to a car with a bass sound system, you feel it in your stomach.” At this point, the witness stated that he turned around and returned to his house. The witness mentioned that he always carries a sidearm, but that the thought to shoot the creature never crossed his mind because it looked ‘too human.’ The witness stated that it was a week or more before he could muster the courage to go back into the woods again. He did search the spot where the creature stood up, but could not find any footprints or hair. The witness is familiar with the north Florida woods and the animals that are known to live there, and emphatically stated that what he saw was not a bear, and it was not a man.

The witness did tell his story to a few other people, most of whom looked at him with incredulity. However, the witness did share his story with a sheriff he knew from a nearby town, who had complained to the witness that something large was stealing his chickens. The witness said he asked his friend if he could describe what was taking his chickens. The friend responded by looking down and throwing up his hands and walked away from the conversation. The topic was apparently never brought up between them again.

The witness stated that he had several other experiences on his property. At the time of his sighting he lived there with his son and two daughters. His daughters would complain that something would occasionally come up and bang the side of the house outside their room at night. The witness did not know what it was and at the time tried to rationalize the impact by telling his daughters that it was only a falling branch. While nothing was ever seen conducting this behavior, the description is congruent with other reports of bigfoots hitting the sides of houses or cabins.

A year and half after his first sighting he and his dogs were again walking through the forest behind his house. There is a power plant near to where the witness lived, and deer would come to graze on a pipeline access road that runs away from the plant through the forest. The witness had spotted a group of four deer when suddenly one jumped and ran and was quickly followed by the other three. He heard brush move, and from approximately one hundred yards away at the witness’ best estimate, saw a 5 or 6-foot bipedal creature with dark reddish brown hair moving through the forest after the deer. He described it as a “mini me” of the first one that he saw behind his residence, as it was half the girth and approximately two feet shorter. The witness only glimpsed this creature for a few seconds before it disappeared from view, and the witness quickly left the area out of fear that a larger one might be nearby, not knowing if the creature he saw was a juvenile or the mate of a supposed larger one. Oddly, he remembers his dogs acting like they did not notice this creature, which is a departure of behavior from the original sighting. The witness could not explain his dogs’ behavior.

The witness’ main sighting occurred on a four-acre plot of land very close to the Suwannee River, to the north east of Live Oak, Florida. The witness has since sold the property and moved away from the area. However, the location is within a mile each of the Twin Rivers State Forest and Suwanee River State Park, combined encompassing over twenty thousand acres of swamp and lowland forest. The location is also only several miles from the intersection of the Suwannee and Withlacoochee Rivers, respectively two hundred forty-six and one hundred fifteen miles in length, both of which possess heavily forested floodplains that range from a quarter mile to almost two miles in width that are essentially devoid of human habitation. Wildlife is abundant in the area, to include populations of whitetail deer, feral hog, black bear, wild turkey, bobcat, and many smaller animals.

About BFRO Investigator Benjamin C.:

B. has attended multiple BFRO expeditions: North Georgia 2018 Fall, North Georgia 2019 Spring, Tennessee 2020 Fall, South Carolina 2021 Spring, and Pennsylvania 2021 Fall, Pennsylvania 2022 Fall, New Jersey 2022 Spring and Fall.

He has also conducted private expeditions in New Jersey, Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, and southern Georgia. His area of responsibility as a BFRO investigator is central Pennsylvania.