YEAR: 1984

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: June

DATE: Saturday

STATE: Virginia

COUNTY: Augusta County

LOCATION DETAILS: Go south on 664 from Sherando. Turn west on FR42 and go 1-2 miles. You come to a small bridge where creek crosses road. There is a pull off on right side of road. The forest service has bulldozed the area in later years and site does not look the same.

NEAREST TOWN: Sherando

NEAREST ROAD: FR42

OBSERVED: In early June we were sleeping in back of truck when my wife woke up and saw something big walk past the truck.
It went over to where I had our trash bags (10-20 feet from truck) tied up in a tree to keep animals away.The bags contained the remains of a chicken we had cooked over the fire, plus other garbage.I am 5'8" and had the bags tied up high enough that I could not reach them. You could see the white bags moving as it reached up and grabbed one of the bags out of the tree. I had my wife crawl through the window into the cab and honk the horn. It just turned and looked at us but did not run off. It always stayed on two legs and looked wider and taller than a bear. After taking one bag it went off into the woods and you could hear it tearing open the bag and eating the contents.About a half hour later it came back into the camp and took the other bag out of the tree.I had a flash light but did not leave the truck to get a good look at it. We could only see its shape when it was getting the bags. After taking the last bag and leaving I had my wife hold the pistol while I got out and threw everything into the truck and we left and spent the rest of the night in a pull off near interstate 64.

ALSO NOTICED: We did not notice any smell, it made no noise and we saw no footprints, but area was hard ground and dry where we camped.

OTHER WITNESSES: Myself and my wife.

OTHER STORIES: No. We went back several years later and camped at the same site with no sightings. I have spent a lot of time camping over the years and never saw anything unusual before or since then.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Between 12-2 AM
partly cloudy, partial moon.
Wife says it was a full moon

ENVIRONMENT: Relatively flat, forested with small creeks and vegatation. Is a wilderness area and FR42 continues over to St. Mary's trail near Steeles Tavern.

Follow-up investigation report:

I spoke to the witness over the phone on the evening of January 20th. The witness is now in his fifties. He and his wife recalled the encounter in detail.

The garbage bags were white and estimated to be hung 9 to 10 feet from the ground. The animal entered the camp sometime after midnight. The witness was not sure of the time but remembers it was late.

During the entire time of the encounter the animal moved bipedal on two legs and never went down to all fours. It was seen swatting at the garbage bags until it grabbed hold of one of the bags. It then walked off into the woods with the garbage bag at an estimated 5 to 6 feet from the ground while the animal was carrying it.

The animal looked bigger then a bear. There was no smell associated with the animal and no tracks found.

The witness did not follow the animal into the woods after it took the garbage bags. No features could be made out and the vehicle had the rear facing toward the hanging garbage bags, so the headlamps could not be illuminated on the animal.

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