YEAR: 1999

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: April

DATE: mid April

STATE: Michigan

COUNTY: Roscommon County

LOCATION DETAILS: South end of the lake, in the woods next to the high school off of M-55.

NEAREST TOWN: Houghton Lake

NEAREST ROAD: Townline Road

OBSERVED: At the time of the incident I was 15 years old and had spent my entire life in the woods. I knew what was out there and how to identify it. It was about 3:00pm and I was walking home from school through the woods. As I was walking I had an uneasy feeling and started to look around at my surroundings. I eventually dismissed my feeling and chalked it up to my mind playing tricks on me. I continued on my walk, with my head down, not thinking anything more about my uneasy feeling. I happened to glance up and notice "someone" standing in the trail ahead of me (about 70 - 80 yards.) I originally dismissed the person due to the fact it was common practice for some people to get out of school and smoke cigarettes or dope in that area. I concluded that what I saw was a person partaking in one of those practices.

Something was nagging at me that the person I saw didn't seem right...the spot where the individual was standing was where the swamp meets the trail. No body went that far in to smoke. As I looked up, I froze. I had an unexplainable fear come over me. I have seen deer, bear, bobcat, and cougars in this peticular piece of land and have never been scared. What I saw before me was none of those. The creature in front of me was all one uniform color, either dark brown or black. It's arms extended down almost to it's knees, and it's shoulders were very wide. In addition, it was standing on two legs and kinda peering at me from around a tree (it would later move into the trail.)

Even though I could not move or yell, my mind was still working. I did what I could to burn an image of this creature in my mind. I remember thinking that the head looked too small for the body, and that I could not see any skin tone on the face. It was as if the skin was the same color as the rest of the body. The last thing I did was notice a branch above the creatures head. I noted that the branch was only a couple of inches above the creatures head.

I looked at this animal for a minute or less when it pivoted on it's back foot, took one stride into the swamp, and then disappeared. After ten minutes the paralyzed feeling left me and I returned to normal. At that point I decided to investigate. I walked up to the spot where it had stood and looked for any indication of something being there. The ground at this spot was very hard; no tracks were visible. The stride of this creature was at least five feet. As I mentioned earlier, the creature was originally peering at me from behind a tree, but came out into the trail. I estimated from where the creature stood to where I last saw it on the edge of the trail/swamp was about five feet. It only took one step and it was out of sight. Now, I am about six foot tall and have a three foot stride...what ever I saw would have to be considerably larger than me. With this in mind, I also looked for the tree branch that the beast was standing under. I found it right above my head, indicating I was indeed at the right location. The branch was about nine feet high. Whatever I saw was just shy of nine feet tall.

To this day I have no difinitive proof of what I saw to be a Bigfoot. However, I don't know what else to call it. The specific location, on the edge of the swamp, was not frequented by people, the creature's body structure was not that of a human, and lastly the creature was much too large to be a human. As of this writing I have not had any other incidents in that location, though I have had a strange encounter in another part of Northern Michigan. I don't feel that the creature would have harmed me, but I very rarely go into that area of the woods by myself.

ALSO NOTICED: Nothing unusual happened after that incident...though I have had another experience in another county.

OTHER WITNESSES: I was by myself. When I investigated I did not hear anything in the vacinity. If it was a person I would have been able to hear them moving away in the woods.

OTHER STORIES: The only other incident I have heard of was the story I read on your website.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: This incident occurred about 3:00 pm on a sunny day. My visibility was clear.

ENVIRONMENT: The area of woods is about 1 square mile that contains swamp, conifers, and hard woods. There are also some hills, valleys, and thick sappling thickets. I wouldn't think a creature of that stature would reside there...maybe it was passing through, but I know bears reside there and I have not seen one in a long time.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Fred Greca Jr.:

I spoke with the witness at length on the phone. There is not much more to add to what the witness has already written, as he has done a thorough job in describing his encounter. When I commented on how detailed his report was written he mentioned he has had training in law enforcement, so he was well versed in reporting the details. He described himself as being an avid outdoorsman and hunter and deer hunts in the general area.

Even though it has been 7 years since the sighting, I arranged to meet the witness at the sighting location. On 9/30/06, the witness and I walked down the trail to where the sighting occurred. The woods were dense and would be easy for anything to escape notice in it. It was raining the entire two hours we were out hiking through the woods. We hiked in a large loop, taking the easy walking advantage of the existing old logging trails and game trails. We came upon two water sources; one was a swamp type area and the other a small pool, possibly a natural spring. While trekking down a well traveled game trail we came upon an unnaturally placed stick structure, which blocked the trail. We both determined it was unlikely that it had fallen naturally there. Leaving it undisturbed we continued further down the game trail another 30 yards and came across another stick structure of the same shape, again blocking the trail. The sticks used for construction this time were straight and larger and definitely did not fall into place. Another 20 feet beyond that was yet another stick structure of the same shape, again blocking the trail. As we looked around the woods from that area we found two more stick structures on each side of the game trail about twenty feet into the woods. The trail was in a half horseshoe shape, and was at the rim of small ravine. We left the stick structures undisturbed and then continued on back to our vehicles, with no other unusual observances.

About BFRO Investigator Fred Greca Jr.:

Fred Greca Jr. is an Engineer. He has participated in the following BFRO expeditions: Ohio 2006, New York 2006, Ohio (revisited) 2007, Michigan U.P. 2007, Ontario 2007, Michigan U.P. 2008, Ohio 2009, Michigan L.P. 2011 and Michigan U.P. 2012.

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