YEAR: 2018

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: January

DATE: 21

STATE: Ohio

COUNTY: Belmont County

NEAREST TOWN: St. Clairsville

NEAREST ROAD: Crescent

OBSERVED: In mid September 2017 at approximately 1:00 am while taking a small dog out I heard a scream that sounded as if a woman was in some kind of trouble. It was very loud and blood curdling. At the same time, I had a larger dog in the yard, and as she heard the scream immediately ran out of the yard and wanted inside. I did not stay out and went back to bed.

I live in a rural area three miles outside of St. Clairsville Ohio, with plenty of homes, but also a significant amount of hilly wooded area with creeks nearby. The sound came from an area that is very woody and hilly situated below my house towards the town of Barton, Ohio. Behind me is about 120 acres of open space that has homes on it. Each lot is five acres and borders the hilly wood area. The homes have all been built in the last five years and for 30 years the property was used for corn and hay.

There is an abundance of deer in the area, as I have counted 30 in one viewing. Also, the area has turkeys, but around September, I noticed that they were not around. I once counted upwards of 60 turkeys in one sighting. Also, coyotes are frequent and their barking can be heard often.

A couple of days or so later, as my wife and I were taking a drive, she told me that she had taken the dog out at about 1:30 am, she heard the most god awful scream that scared her. She said that when she got back to bed, she could not fall asleep as the scream bothered her so much. She did not wake me as we both worked the next morning. I told her that I had also experienced the same thing the night before.

In mid October while sitting around a fire in my back yard with two other couples with music playing, I heard a faint howl. I asked the other couple if they believed in Bigfoot and my friend said he thought they might exist. My wife and relayed our stories of the screams. At that point, I asked my friend to come up on the deck. I had kept two 4 by 4's on the deck and I did three knocks. Within 30 seconds, we heard two and one half howls. The last howl stopped half way through. My friend's comment was "that was not human" The friends stayed another half an hour or so and I stayed out. Over the next 45 minutes, I heard an additional three howls.

Over the course of the next three months, I did knocks every week, but heard no responses. Over the past, I had occasionally heard other sounds from the woods, but thought nothing of them.

On January 20, 2018 as I took my dogs for morning walk around 10 am, there was snow on the ground for a few days, five or six inches and it was starting to melt. Within 50 yards or so of my normal walk area, I noticed tracks in the snow that I had not seen before. The tracks were headed to a nearby neighbor's residence who always has corn out for the deer.

The tracks were rather deep in the snow and had just began to melt. I could see two different sets of tracks, one larger, the other slightly smaller. I could also very clearly see what I thought was more like "footprints". There were deer tracks also in the area. At that point, I felt fairly sure that they were from a bigfoot. The tracks appeared to be three toes and were distinct. I did take several pictures on my phone. After walking the dogs, I did a Google search on three toe bigfoot tracks and found it was possible.

My son was home visiting, he lives in Atlanta and we went back out to the prints. The snow had melted a bit more and I could now see more than three toes and was able to see five in some prints. My son was in awe and he agreed that they were not human, deer or bear. The tracks were primarily in front of each other and the two separate animals had walked fairly close to each other. We took more pictures.

My son wears size 17 shoes and the prints were larger than his shoes. We took a picture as comparison.

We were able to trace the prints back and the prints came out of the woods, went through the vacant grassy lot. All told I would guess we saw 300 yards of prints.

During the previous night, I slept in a room that overlooks the area. The room has plenty of windows and my dog was sleeping in front of one of them. At 4:30 am, she started growling and growled for 45 minutes. She did not bark, but she did wake me up with the continuous growling.

The next day, my son went into the wooded area and did find a couple of tracks in the muddy area that showed two prints similar to what we saw in the snow. He did take pictures.

That night, we did a few knocks around 8 pm, but no responses.

Additionally, on February 13, within 20 yards of the January prints, I found two sets of prints again after a 7 inch snow fall. I am comfortable stating that there were two sets of prints and I could see toes in them. They came within 20 yards of my fence and then circled back. My wife and I do discard bread, apple peels into that area from time to time to find the deer.

In summary, I have watched enough Bigfoot TV shows, read enough about them to feel comfortable with what I have heard and seen.
Although, I am no expert, I have not been able to humanly explain the events. Additionally, I am well educated and have been an executive in banking for 40 years.

ALSO NOTICED: I have continued to put apples and meat out into the woody area.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just one witness to the howls
My wife also heard the screams

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Both day and night.
September and October, fairly warm
January and February, cold snow on the ground

ENVIRONMENT: Steep woody area, creek and pond nearby

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Jason Kovalski:

Investigator Jim Thompson and I went to meet with the witness in February 2018. Upon arriving, I asked him to explain the events to Jim so he had a better understanding of the situation. I also played some howls for him to use as a comparison to what he had heard and the 1994 Ohio Moaning Howl was nearly identical. He also explained the screams he heard which sounded like a woman's screams. After he told us what all had happened since early Fall, we walked out to the area where he had seen the tracks and heard the screams and howls. Having grown up in the area, I am familiar with the terrain and lay of the land.

This particular hollow ties together several small communities and eventually leads to the Ohio River area. The hollow stretches for approximately 20 miles with several other deep hollows and ravines branching from it. There are several creeks, streams, and ponds as well as an abundance of wildlife. The majority of these hollows follow Wheeling Creek. At times the terrain can be very hilly and thick. One other report filed with the BFRO (currently under investigation) reports a road crossing about 3-4 miles from this location.

Looking down into the hollow:




Photos of the tracks taken by the witness on January 21:







Photo of a possible track remnant taken by the witness a few days later:



We walked over to the area of the woods he stated the tracks came out of to get the vantage point of any animal that would be leaving the woods to come into the open.

Photos of one's vantage point as you would approach the edge of the wood line (where the tracks came out of):





It was a well hidden area that I could see about a 270 degree view of what was in front of me with little chance of anyone seeing me. An animal, creature or human could easily duck into cover quickly if they needed to remain hidden. There were remnants of possible tracks when we were there, but there were several days of heavy rains prior to our investigation, so they could not be casted. The witness was very sincere about what was going on and agreed to keep in contact with me if any other evidence appeared.

About BFRO Investigator Jason Kovalski:

I am a K-12 public school administrator with a strong background in biology. I am married with two children. My interest in bipedal cryptids has spanned the last 30 years.