YEAR: 1976

SEASON: Spring

STATE: Maryland

COUNTY: Prince George's County

LOCATION DETAILS: Laurel, Maryland. It was sighted off of Rt 198 and I-95 in an area considered West Laurel. This big foot was sighted by others and has been dubbed locally as the Scaggsville Monster. (Scaggsville, Maryland about 3 miles to the north of my sighting.) It has been reported that others in that area had seen it.

OBSERVED: I was on my way to work on a Saturday morning about 7 a.m. It was a misty, foggy morning and I headed west on Rt 198 entering a elongated (approx. 1 mile) entrance ramp to Southbound I-95. I had my lights on my small toyota and my windshield washers were on at intermittent speed. I witnessed what I thought was a man come up from a steep ravine, walk over to the ramp guardrail and step over it in angular fashion. I thought here comes someone looking to hitchhike this morning. The "man" was tall and his appearance was a drab kind of mushroom color from head to foot. I thought he was wearing smoked of rain parka or slicker because there wasn't a clear indentation from his head to the top of his shoulders. As I got closer I realized that this "suit" was not material but looked like long wet matted fur/hair/yuck. The "man" proceeded to step into the roadway. I thought what is this jerk doing trying to commit suicide with my help. He got several feet into the lane when he turned to face my oncoming car. He stood there looking perplexed and actually swayed side to side several times as though he didn't know what was coming at him....my car. All of sudden he startled and turned and ran back to the guardrail. He bolted over the guard rail and went scurrying down the embankment. My mouth was agape and I thought "what in the hell was that!!!" I was frightened and was too scared to even look over my shoulder or even into the rear view mirror.
When I got to work that morning in Silver Spring, Maryland, I was shaking like a leaf. My co-workers immediately noticed that I was upset. I called the Laurel police to inquire if there had been any reports of an escaped gorilla in the area. They thought I was kidding. I called my fiancee and told him. Years later there was an article in our local county paper about a man who was writing a book on big foot sightings in the area. His article spoke of a sighting by two employees of a water treatment plant that was located within 150 yards of my sighting and this sighting had occurred in the Spring of 1976 just like mine. Also his article said a scientist working at N.A.S.A. had also witnessed a big foot sighting in the same area as he headed for work in Greenbelt, Maryland. I almost started to cry, all these years and what I had seen had stayed with me was finally being "vindicated". I called the author of the article and related my story to him. Several days later, though, I got a strange phone call. The person on the end of the line was a male voice that asked me what the "frequency was". I told him I didn't know what he as talking about, but he was very persistent that I knew the "frequency" I felt that this call was somehow related to the call I had had with the writer of the article several days earlier...maybe coincidence but still I wondered.

OTHER WITNESSES: I was on my way to work around 7 am on a Saturday morning.

ENVIRONMENT: there is an undeveloped area of land that straddles most of interstate 95 between the Washington Beltway north to Rocky Gorge Dam/Resevoir in Scaggsville, Maryland

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