YEAR: 1997

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: November

DATE: Second tuesday

STATE: Minnesota

COUNTY: St. Louis County

LOCATION DETAILS: County rd 8 north side between powerlines and county gravel pit

NEAREST TOWN: Floodwood

NEAREST ROAD: County road 8

OBSERVED: I was deer hunting about 5 miles from floodwood mn on co. rd 8 about a half mile after the blacktop ends just past the powerlines and before the gravel pit.

I have hunted this state land for about 10 years with several friends and family over that time and knew everything about this area. On this Tuesday afternoon it was a very calm day almost no wind at all. You could hear every noise in the woods that day. There was not a deer in sight that day.

I was going to wait till 5 or so and make my way out of the woods I had to walk through a couple thick cedar swamps on my way back to my car. At about 4:45 a branch snapped, then another. These were not small branches breaking and I could tell whatever it was was coming my way. I got my 308 ready to see what was coming towards me. I have been putting some bait out so I thought it might be a bear by how clumsily it was coming through the swamp.

I then saw movement off my left side I got my gun up and tried to get the animal into my scope to identify what it's was. The color was dark brown like a moose and as I tried to get a good look at it through my scope. It stopped about 30 yards away and silence. I looked around my scope at it and I could not identify what it was. It was like a gorilla on two legs very thick and long hair. It must of saw me look around my scope. It was only there for a couple seconds and it let out a super loud howel. A howel like I have never heard anything make before. At that point it turned and went back the way it came from very rapidly. Covering ground through a thick swamp breaking branches as it went. I would estimate it went 100 yards in 10 seconds and then it stopped and howled once again very loud and it started moving again. I could tell it was going away from me to the south west rapidly. My heart was pounding through my chest.

I climbed out of my stand and ran to my car about a mile away through that cedar swamp with my safety off and to scared to look back. I got to my car jumped in and tried to explain in my head what just happened. Until that day I was a avid hunter of everything and never thought there was a thing like this out there and now seeing and hearing whatever that was I quit hunting have not been in the woods much since, and never near there at dark.

ALSO NOTICED: I have watched the show finding bigfoot and the tree knocking I had a stand or two across the rd from this site and I always heard knocking and whooing and never thought anything about it.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just me that afternoon

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Time was 4:45 getting close to dark and it was a clear sunny windless day

ENVIRONMENT: At that time it was recently logged. In the past couple years i walked through two or three cedar swamps and on the back side of those swamps a clear cut and alder brush. my stand was close to a very large pine tree about 4 foot round at the base.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Jim & Carol Telenko:

The witness stated he was hunting at the time near Hwy 8 and was in an elevated deer stand when the sighting occurred. He stated that the creature was approximately 7 1/2 feet tall, flat face, very muscular "like a gorilla" with shoulder approximately 30-36 inches across. The hair was a dark brown, long and slightly matted. He didn't observe any neck and the arm length was longer than a humans. He didn't observe any smell.

He observed the creature at approximately 4:30-4:45 pm, for approximately 5-10 seconds. It was a clear day.

The witness did state that he had hunted that same area for years. He never *saw* anything unusual but recalling back over the previous years he does remember hearing wood knocks, rock clacks coming from the two abandoned quarries nearby.

He also stated that he has heard from others in the area of several other sightings in the area. A beaver trapper has had more than one.