YEAR: 1983

SEASON: Fall

STATE: Michigan

COUNTY: Ionia County

LOCATION DETAILS: Front St. Palo, Michigan

NEAREST TOWN: Palo, Michigan

NEAREST ROAD: Van Vleck HWY

OBSERVED: I was getting ready to take a bath and I saw a huge shaggy typical bigfoot looking thing standing outside the bathroom window. It was very shaggy and very tall. It's head and shoulders blocked most of the window which was about 6 feet off the ground.
I was so scared I removed the window and plastered over the spot.

OTHER WITNESSES: One

OTHER STORIES: About 15 years later, and 1 mile from Palo, my kids and I were walking in a field at night and heard something that sounded like a horrible screaming that seemed like a mix of human and animal. It wasn't a lynx or bear kind of noise. It wasn't high pitched like a rabbit or fox. It wasn't a snort like a deer. It was sickening.
We also heard soft hoots (like a chimp) and chittering there once.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: About 7pm and very dark

ENVIRONMENT: Very small town (3 blocks X 4 blocks) in a rural area surrounded by fields bordered by woods and swamp. It was the side of the house next to an empty over-grown lot and under some trees.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Jim Sherman:

After contacting the witness and her daughter it was astounding to think that a creature that was at least six feet tall was looking in her bathroom window. The window was that height from the ground below. The creature, standing only five feet away, was described as dark, hair-covered and shaggy but with no visible neck. The window itself was 3x3' and it "...was taken up by the head and shoulders [of the creature]." The face was not clearly visible and the witness stated that "...it could have been a very large person but that at the time [she] was sure it wasn't." This incident was so disturbing that she literally boarded up and plastered the window so that she would feel safer in her own bathroom.

In 1983 the witness' home was in a small, rural community of around a couple of hundred people. This area was surrounded by swampy woods, deciduous trees, areas of pines as well as farmland and a few smaller lakes. Deer and other game animals were abundant. The nearest town of any size was Ionia about fifteen miles away to the south. The house itself was right on the edge of town.

Fifteen years after the window incident the witness recalled hearing screams coming from the woods in the area along with "primate-like chittering" and "hoots." The screaming occurred when the witness and her children were walking in a field late at night and heard a sound that seemed like a combination of a "man and a lynx." She found this sound particularly upsetting.

I also spoke with the witness' daughter. She never saw any unknown creatures but she certainly recalls hearing something unknown on at least two occasions. Around the year 1996 she says she first heard the sound while walking in the field with her mother. She described the scream as "bloodcurdling" and a mixture of a bear and a man. She stated that she had never heard a sound like that before or since and "...it sounded very angry and we were in the middle of a field far behind the house with nowhere to go." She also mentioned that her mother may had forgotten that she had discussed seeing another unknown creature that she described as "looking like a Bigfoot", a half mile away down the road.

Within a year or two of hearing the previous sound the daughter was walking with some friends late one Fall evening near the scene of the initial screams. All of her friends had moved well ahead on the road and so the daughter was the only one to witness what she described as sounding like a "chitter". She clarifies this by saying that it seemed like a quiet primate noise. It unnerved her and she was not interested in going into the dark after this noise.

Sometime around 2004-5 the daughter heard another sound. This one happened around 10 o'clock at night and was a "whoop that sounded like it came from a big monkey." It started high pitched and then went lower. The sound came from 50 feet or so from the wood line near her home. There was no other sound so the daughter decided to make the sound back. Nothing happened for a while until she heard whistles further off in the woods. She admitted that she was very excited at the time and was straining to hear anything so she may not be certain of what she heard; however, she did note that at the time her two German Shepherds that barked at everything were completely quiet. She found this behavior very odd.

About BFRO Investigator Jim Sherman:

Jim is a High School History teacher and Track and Cross Country coach. He attended the Michigan Northern Lower Peninsula Expedition in 2011, the Michigan Upper Peninsula Expedition in 2012, co-organized the Michigan UP 2013 Expedition and attended the 2014 Wisconsin Expedition. He assisted in the production of Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot Michigan episodes (Bigfoot and Wolverines and Super Yooper). He participates in Ironman Triathlons and enjoys fishing and camping with his wife and daughter. Jim can be contacted at germanicus1@hotmail.com and Twitter @shermanbigfoot and his YouTube account is : Lordcryptid

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