YEAR: 2018

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: April

DATE: 21

STATE: Ohio

COUNTY: Clermont County

LOCATION DETAILS: Southern side of Eastfork Lake area.

NEAREST TOWN: Bethel

NEAREST ROAD: US 125

OBSERVED: One night this past Spring at about 10:00 PM, when it was warm enough to be outside at night without a coat and with just shorts and a t-shirt on, and when the leaves on the trees were budding but not fully grown-in, our Border Collie/Australian Shepherd was out near the front of our property which is just across the street from the East Fork State Park woods, barking his head off.

Often, even at night, I will just ignore him because he barks at every little thing. But this bark definitely sounded like he was saying there’s something HERE and I want to let the whole world know. I was in an outbuilding, went inside, and grabbed my high-powered flashlight. When I came back out our dog was still barking loudly and remained laser-focused as he stared at something in the woods across the street.

I shone my light between some trees, and bam, got some bright eyeshine right back – not the red eyeshine you so often read about, but bluish-white, I think. Now, at no point did I have my glasses on which I use for driving at night, but, here’s my point – the eyeshine was at a height that I guessed to be about ten to twelve feet up. The eyes stayed fixed on me at that point, blinking – sometimes both eyes at once, sometimes one eye then quickly the other. My wife came out and said “Oh, it’s just an owl,” but I wasn’t convinced. My voice was trembling a bit because I’ve read the other stories on this website about sasquaches living in the area, especially the one pertaining to the bigfoot standing along the entrance road to the park being only about two miles from our little property below the lake.

Besides, I thought, “Why would my 11 year old dog be going crazy over an owl perched on a branch fifty feet away from our fence? How would he even hear an owl gliding so silently onto a branch in the woods at night?” It’s also hard for me to believe that he would have happened to see an owl gliding onto a branch at night, but . . . maybe. It just seems far-fetched. Well, at that point I went inside and grabbed my b.b. gun. Probably not the best idea, as I do not yet own a handgun or other weapon that could actually provide some protection if things went south.

So, I went to our front door, opened it a crack, held the flashlight in my teeth, kept a fire extinguisher next to me just in case it came rushing out of the woods at me – at least I could try to fill its face with something it would definitely not like to be breathing in – and aimed my b.b. rifle at the eyes still shining back at me. I pulled the trigger and waited. About 1 to 2 seconds later (I don’t think I hit it), whatever it was clearly reacted to the b.b. which must have passed nearby. Then, for about 2 and a half seconds I heard it start to crash through the woods from right to left, with left being in the direction of our mailbox, driveway, and the road we take to access our street . . . then silence. However, what interested me was that our dog was still super-focused and barking, no different, but even after the crashing went quiet, he continued to track something to the left, barking as furiously as ever. So, if my location was the apex of a triangle, and the creature was at the farthest point away, and its movement to the left represents the base of the triangle, my dog had to run full speed to keep up with it even though my dog’s trajectory would have represented a shorter “base” distance of a smaller triangle. In other words, kind of like when in a marching band the people on the outside fringe of a circular-moving formation have to march at double- or triple-time to keep up with the people who are barely shuffling their feet at the center of the circle, the creature was moving so fast that my dog still had to run full-out to keep up with it. I’d say my dog ran about thirty or forty feet to my left in about four seconds, which means that the creature ran about 100 to 150 feet in that time . . . through somewhat dense woods (which is where I always harvest kindling for our Buck Stove, and I can tell you, this section of woods are not impassable by any means, but there is still plenty of undergrowth to have to push your way through).

My dog’s gaze then remained focused as he continued to bark at a location in the woods across the street about 15 feet to the left of my driveway, so, I presume that that’s where the creature probably took a turn and headed back deeper into the woods.

Lastly, I have been doing a lot of projects in my yard out front all Summer long. I can tell you that whenever my dog would be outside with me, about 85% of the time I observed him to be staring at that location 15 feet to the left of our driveway. And, even though our neighbors and their dogs and other activity around our property would and still do capture his attention very easily, when the distraction goes away, my dog still very often will return to his spot and continue his vigil. In the 20 months that we have lived here, I have never seen him keeping such diligent watch on the woods in general and certainly not on one location in particular until after this incident.

Since that incident there have been times when I have called him in at night and I’ve found him lying down in an alert position and, in the dark, be staring at that same spot, as if waiting to see the creature reappear. I just can’t imagine an owl or a coyote or a deer having made that initial crashing noise and then going silent like that. I also just can’t imagine my dog keeping such diligent watch over the woods for weeks and months afterwards in response to a mere owl, deer, or even a coyote. Besides, no coyote’s or deer’s eyes are going to shine back at me ten or more feet up in the air.

I am about 95% sure that I shone my light into the eyes of a sasquatch that night – and a big one, too. Though I wish I’d thought to go look for tracks the next day after work, two things got in my way: busyness, and fear. I’m sure the creature was long gone 24 hours later, but I couldn’t help but wonder if a sasquatch remembers someone firing a b.b. gun at him or not.

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UPDATE:

On the night of 10/1/17, around 9:30 PM, I was in an outbuilding on our property (see BFRO report #60924 for a separate report from our property regarding a Class A sighting from the spring AFTER the event described here) with the windows closed and I suddenly heard this strange, loud vocalization coming from the East Fork State Park woods across the street. I would describe them as "Aroot" type howls that would also remind you of a bark rather than a moaning howl, and only lasting a second or two in length. Many were cut short and lasted less than a second, with various lengths of pauses in between. Honestly, I now find them hard to classify - hopefully they're attached to this report and you can listen yourself. I have believed the evidence for Bigfoot to be overwhelming for a long time, so my first thought was, "Is that a Sasquatch?" Immediately I felt a small surge of both fear and excitement. I remember it was also a perfectly still night to begin with, perfect for making a recording with no interference from wind blowing across the microphone. I proceeded to go into the house and opened the front door to listen, as the front door is closer to the woods and, I'm guessing, about 250 - 300 feet from where the sound was emanating from just within the treeline, I guessed. My first, front door recording is 2:15 in length. I then moved to my office located on the other end of the house which would have been only a little closer to the sound, opened the window, and took a second recording that is 2:10 in length. From my office window I kept my eyes on a circular patch of light coming from a light perched atop a pole closest to the sound, fully expecting to see a Sasquatch stepping from the woods into the light, but that never happened. These same sounds went on for a full 70-75 minutes, around which time the police came in response to our concern that it might be a rabid dog needing to be put down. If we hadn't called, who knows how long the creature would have continued. When the police came they cruised around, a total of 2 cars, I believe, at which time the sounds stopped. The police never did call me to let me know they'd taken hold of a sick or injured canine. Also, our own dog, whom we'd allow to roam the house at night, seemed oddly quiet, not even growling and not reacting like he normally would when they clearly hear another dog making a commotion nearby. Our dog, after all, was in the habit of growling and barking through the fence at our neighbor's dogs on a regular basis, and also at hikers and horseback riders traveling along the road between our house and the woods. The last thing I thought was odd, in addition to the loudness of the vocalizations at a distance of 250-300 feet, was how - if it was a dog - the dog never, in 75 minutes, came towards a house to seek help from a human. Honestly, when I listened to these again, I thought, "Dang, that creature sounds like it's on the other side of my open window just 20'-30' away from me!" By comparison, my (healthy) dog was barking today from a distance of about 75' from me and I felt like his volume at 250'-300' would have been, oh, maybe just 25% of what one hears in these recordings. Though my wife and I chalked these odd sounds up as coming from a sick or lost dog at the time, when I found these recordings again the other day, I now find myself to be thinking, with fresh ears, that these sounds were also (besides the volume issue just discussed) too controlled in cadence and tone to be a dog, especially a sick or injured dog. I now wish I'd looked for tracks the next day despite our sick dog theory, just to verify. Whoever investigates this, please be sure to get a copy of both recordings from me. Thank you.

OTHER WITNESSES: My wife saw the eyeshine but immediately labeled it as that of an owl.

OTHER STORIES: The other stories on your website.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Fully dark, between 10:00 and 10:30 PM. I can't remember if there was any significant moonlight, but I do know it was definitely not a clear night with a full moon.

ENVIRONMENT: Temperate old and new growth forest, with both hardwoods and pine.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Jonny Walker:

I spoke to the dog owner and believe he did in fact experience what he stated. He spoke very matter of factly, and repeated what he reported. Though his wife dismissed the eye shine as being an owl, he agreed an owl could not have gone crashing through the brush like a bull elk. I informed the dog owner of things to watch for and was assured he would contact us promptly should any further activity should happen near his property.

My own experience in the eastfork area was close to the same wooded area across from his home.

At this time there are several reports being investigated in East Fork Park and surrounding area.

About BFRO Investigator Jonny Walker:

Jon Walker is an avid outdoorsman and hunter. He works in the surveillance field. He has hiked across several U.S. National Parks and a few Manitoba Provincial Parks. He has seen and heard evidence of Sasquatches. Jon attended the 2017 and 2018 Kentucky Expeditions.