YEAR: 2004

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: December

DATE: 12/21/04

STATE: Virginia

COUNTY: Franklin County

NEAREST TOWN: wirtz

NEAREST ROAD: rt.122

OBSERVED: I was ridding my atv on the family farm going down an old washed out road which you can’t drive fast on. As I started down the road looking down at the road then looking up down the road something caught my eye about 150 to 200 yards down this road. The sun was to my left shining across this road to the right as I looked down this narrow road there was a reflection of the light coming off the fur of something that I never had seen before,it was tall and massive. For that split second I saw it. The way the suns reflection came off of this thing it look almost silver. But being a hunter (I hunt this land all the time) There isn’t anything silver in color. And that the sun coming off the back of a black turkey can look silver. So that’s what caught my eye. This animal went back in to the woods back to the right. I worked my way down to where I thought I saw it. I turned my atv off and smoked a cig. Listing for any thing and about 5 min. had past and I heard something big running away from my direction breaking big tree limbs. (It was way louder than a deer running through the thickets). I could hear this for about 1 to 2 seconds and then it went quiet again. If I had to guess how far away it was I would say about 50 to 60 yards away from me when I first heard the running. (You cant see more than 20 yards in to this thickets from where I was at. (Hunting season end for general firearms 10 days before this so the deer are still alert.) Then it seemed like a couple of min. later I heard two big bangs like someone hitting a stick against a tree or log then the hair on the back of my neck stood up.Then there was the snorting of the deer that came from the thicket right after that. (When a deer snorts from my experience in the woods during the day they see you and snort once or twice and then they take off leaving you just to see there white tail waving at you as they go out of sight.) But there must have been 4 or 5 white tail in there all of them snorting and stomping the ground and they were real loud.The deer did this for about what seamed to be more than a min.then I heard them take off running. And that’s when I decided it was time for me to leave too.I went home and told my wife about what had just happened and she couldn’t believe it and was surprised at what I told her and ask if it was bear? I told her I never saw a beer in the woods and it seamed way to big to be a black bear.So the next day (Wednesday the 22nd) I wasn’t going to GO BACK THAT DAY.I took a camera in where I heard this animal and took pictures of what I believe to be footprints and some hair that was left on a tree limb about 5 1/2 feet off the ground

OTHER WITNESSES: just me

OTHER STORIES: no

TIME AND CONDITIONS: about 3pm sunny clear day about 54 degrees

ENVIRONMENT: it was an old washed out road with thick pines on the right of the road and the left of the road.

Follow-up investigation report:

I contacted the witness by telephone. He is an experienced hunter, who was able to describe to me the differences between bear, elk, and human hair. He described the hairs that he found as curly and fine almost like human hair. The witness photographed the hair and collected the strands into a plastic bag. He has pledged to send some of it to us for identification. We will update this sighting when/ if this occurrs. The witness also photographed some trail markings and forwarded them to us. These are indistinct, but are suggestive.

The witness revised his opinion of the time of the sighting, feeling now that it happened between 11:00am and 12:00pm, rather than at 3:00 in the afternoon.

During our conversation, the witness estimated the creature to be near eight feet tall, and to weigh over 500lbs. The witness's estimate of the size eliminates bear. He has seen plenty of bear at that distance and knows what he saw was far larger. The sighting was brief, but made a distinct and lasting impression on the witness. Also, in further communication with the witness, he stated that he thought the arms reached nearly to the knees. He did not see any ears, and the legs looked proportional to the body, if perhaps shorter than they would if a human were that size.

Prior to his experience, the witness had not formed an opinion about the reality of bigfoot.

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