YEAR: 2004

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: February

DATE: 02/15/2004

STATE: New York

COUNTY: Rensselaer County

NEAREST TOWN: Petersburgh, NY

NEAREST ROAD: State Route 22

OBSERVED: On February 15th, 2004 at approximately 9:30 PM in Petersburgh, NY a resident on a rural road noticed his dog chained outside was extremely agitated. He stepped out on his front porch, when he heard several shrieking screams. They were continuous in nature. He stepped in and asked his wife who was watching television to step out and she too heard it
scream. The witnesses have lived in Alaska and the male witness is an avid hunter. He has never heard anything of this nature in his life before and described the vocalization as "un-Godly" and the loudest thing he'd ever heard before.
The next morning, he observed a set of footprints in the snow coming from across the road, up a steep embankment and across the field to the west of the house in a northwardly direction. The strides were described as 5 - 6 feet apart. Note the field was covered with approximately 14 inches of snow. The witnesses' son tracked the foot prints into the forest behind the house where apparently a second set of footprints joined the original set.
Witnesses have lived at the present location for the past twelve years and this is the first time anything of this nature was encountered.

ALSO NOTICED: Photographs were taken of the footprints.

OTHER WITNESSES: Two to the vocalizations, four that observed the tracks

OTHER STORIES: Reported sighting in the late 80's approximately five miles away in Poestenkill, NY

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Cold, pitch dark.

ENVIRONMENT: Tracks marched across open field covered by approximately fourteen inches of snow into the forest located behind the witnesses house.

Follow-up investigation report:

On 02/24/04 I was advised by a friend that his relatives had encountered something pertinent to the Bigfoot pheneomena. He was reluctant to give me information to contact the witnesses, but did give me general directions to the location.

On 2/28/04, I traveled to the directions and came across an old set of tracks in the snow, bipedal in nature that had walked up a steep five foot embankment. I also observed that the strides were rather large 5-6 feet. After canvassing the local store, and finding out that they knew about the vocalizations, I left my number and was contact three days later by the witnesses.

On 3/6/04 I returned to the area, which was now completely devoid of snow. (A week of 40+ degree weather) I interviewed both witnesses separately, and much of my observations made the previous week were stated by the witnesses. At this point they did not know I had already made a trip out for baseline observations.

They advised me that their son had taken pictures of the tracks and would send a copy of them via e-mail to me in the near future.

They have two dogs one which was outside at the time of the vocalizations, and the dog was aggressively barking and snarling in the direction of the field. The dog inside also was very anxious to get outside, but was not permitted to do so. The outside dog took approximately one hour to calm down after the vocalizations.

It is the owners belief that the dog may have agitated the creature that crossed the field causing it to scream, perhaps to scare off the dog. I tend to agree with that statement.

There was a sighting in 1986 approximately 5 miles south-west of the encounter, in Poestenkill, NY. The tracks found, traveled from the South to the North.