YEAR: 1980

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: July

STATE: Ohio

COUNTY: Ross County

LOCATION DETAILS: Southeast of Clarksburg, Ohio towards Chillicothe,

NEAREST TOWN: Clarksburg

NEAREST ROAD: Browns Chapel Rd

OBSERVED: I remember the year well enough. It was in the summer of 1980. The reason I remember that so clearly, is because all of the talk that summer was about the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens. I'm not sure of the month of the sighting, but I know it was later in the summer, after the eruption. My father, cousin and I were wading Deer Creek fishing for smallmouth bass. We had waded up the creek approximately one mile or so, and we were heading back down the creek to the car. I had stepped out of the creek, for a few minutes, and my father and cousing were a little ways ahead of me. I stepped back into the creek, and headed down the creek towards them. We were keeping a pretty steady pace, with my father in front, my cousin second and myself in the rear. I remember my cousin asking me what the hell I had just stepped in because of a horrid smell that suddenly filled his nostrils. I laughed and said that I had stepped in some mud along the creek bank. "Mud doesn't smell like that" he replied, then I smelled what he was talking about and he was right. This smell was indescribable. The closest way I could hope to describe it would be to say that it smelled like a mixture of something that had been decaying in the sun covered in rotten eggs. It was after our brief conversation about the smell that I noticed my dad had stopped walking and was not fishing, but looking ahead concentrating on something along the left bank. "What the hell is that?" he asked, more to my cousin than to me. My cousin looked for a moment and replied, "A dead snag" meaning an old dead tree. I looked up the bank trying to see what my father was looking at. Just then I saw it. I too thought it was a tree, but as I looked at it closer I could see hair moving in the slight breeze along it's side and head. It was a reddish/brown color and not extremely long, but long enough that I could see it moving. The creature was standing amid some brush that was growing along the creek, and was visible from just above the waist to the top of it's head. It was very tall, my guess would be about 8 feet high or so. I was 12 at the time, and it was definetely the strangest thing I had ever seen. My father suddenly tensed up and in a very desperate voice, said something I won't repeat here, followed by "That's bigfoot!" Just then, whatever was standing on that bank turned it's head, and looked straight down the creek at us. We scrambled up the right hand bank as fast as we could and started out across the field to the car. To this day, my cousin still says he saw something but doesn't know what he saw. I didn't know what it was either, but to me it just looked like a very hairy, slightly stooped man, especially when it looked towards us.
I do know one thing though. I'll never forget it.

ALSO NOTICED: I do remember one thing. The bank that I had stepped out onto was soft. I sank maybe two to three inches in the mud. I had taken maybe three steps in the mud and my left leg sank to the depth of just above my knee. I didn't think too much about it until after we seen what we did.

OTHER WITNESSES: My father and my cousin. We were all wading and fishing.

OTHER STORIES: My father went to work the following Monday and told his foreman what he had seen. Of course the foreman asked him what he had been drinking prior to the incident. My father had drank nothing before the incident. It was funny though. The same foreman came to work on Tuesday, and told my father that he didn't have any doubts anymore. It seems the forman's son and the son's girlfriend were riding horses on Sunday, the day following our sighting, right along the same area of our encounter. when the horses suddenly spooked and threw the riders off and bolted out across a field. The creek that we were fishing in, is the tailwater to that lake. I don't remember any more details about it other than that, except to say that the foreman's son was very puzzled by a strange smell and the fact that the horses threw them off, when they had riden horses there several times before without incident.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: The weather was clear and slightly breezy. It was around noon or a little after.

ENVIRONMENT: Kind of brushy, along a creek. The water wasn't real deep where we saw it. In fact it almost looked as though it were looking in the water in hopes of catching a fish or something.

Follow-up investigation report:

The witness said it was hard to notice the creature until it moved its head in there direction. Once it moved they became frightened and quickly left the area.

Follow up Field Investigation by B.C. of Ohio.

The witness and I set up a day for an on the site interview. The father agreed to join us and we walked to the site on Saturday, January 3rd, 2004. He was more aware of where the location was and led the whole way. About a mile from our car we came to the area and I took several pictures. The father related that they were all fishing and wading deer creek on a hot summer afternoon. He left the water and walked into the woods, probably to relieve himself. He noticed a very foul odor which he described as rotting flesh in the sun, only worst. He saw a crane fly over the creek but it did not land, then out of the corner of his eye he saw something big in the creek. It was watching the boys who were fishing upstream. Its height was estimated to be extremely tall-10-12 feet and extremely bulky-800-900 pounds-it was hairy all over except for face which seemed dark. It was on two feet and appeared like a giant man figure. The father moved to get back to the boys and it turned and looked at him, its head was enormous-he went back to the boys about 50 yards upstream and told them-its a f------ Bigfoot lets get out of here. The boys then saw it and they all climbed the steep bank of the creek and started back to their car a half mile away or so. The father told the boys not to run as animals can sense fear. At one point they turned around to look and it had stepped up onto the high bank and was watching them as they walked away. The father described color as brown with gray tips and the hair was moving in the breeze. The cousin to this day will not talk about the incident. Both (edited) and his dad were happy to discuss this with someone who did not belittle them. It was not an easy walk to this site, I will forward photos when I get film developed. One more thing its face was described as more human than apelike.

Photo of the sighting location-