YEAR: 1967

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: May

DATE: unknown

STATE: Michigan

COUNTY: Presque Isle County

LOCATION DETAILS: It has been many years since this happened.. I was eleven years old...Sis was thirteen...I guess Larke Avenue was off of main street at that time. It ran parallel to a road that made the main highway and I don't remember the number of that.

NEAREST TOWN: Rogers City

NEAREST ROAD: Larke Avenue

OBSERVED: Hi!
My name is Gabe. This is the first formal report I have ever made on this. It's a good one.I remember it as clearly as if it just happened. It happened in 1967. That's a while ago but it left an unremovable memory on my "read only memory." A permanent part of my memories.
We lived in Rogers City Michigan. Located in Presque Isle county. At this time the town was small and had various thickly wooded lots here and there right inside city limits. We were used to wild animals and many of the neighbors were regular hunters. The serious type, with dogs and all. I haven't been to Rogers City in quite a while so I don't know how much it has grown and I'll bet the forested lots are gone by now. Across the street from our house was one of these lots. It was so thickly wooded that a person couldn't see into it. We (and the neighbors) kept hearing blast horn howl moaning type sounds. These sounds are exactly comparable to the Ohio Howl (the ones with the dog barking in the background). The lot was next to a cemetary on the left side as we faced it. So to my older sister and me, we thought the sounds were attributable to a haunting. The sounds had a terrifying ring to them as no one knew exactly what they were. No dogs or people would dare go near the thicket. Between the woods and the cemetary was a narrow road...half gravel and half crusher run. We used to ride our bikes down this road as it was a short cut to friends houses. My mom said "it was very lonely down that road and stay away from there." But we (sister and I) snuck down it anyway..real quicky on our bikes. One sunny early spring afternoon, the snow had melted enough to bring out the bikes. My older sis and I were on our way home...down the forbidden road. She happened to look into the thick forest. She stopped and I did too...we both looked. She said "look, over there towards the middle of the lot...what is that! It looked like a black burned out stump. It was the only thing on the lot that looked like that so we thought a tree had been struck by lightening and burned black. Then the breeze blew. Long black hair fluttered in the wind off the stump!! Then sis said that it looked like an old Indian sitting cross legged and covered with black long hair. I could see a funny flat face (no snout, this was not a bear, it looked apelike..we had seen bears playing in the city dump so we knew what they looked like) with a pug nose, a low forhead, arms that looked long (resembled a praying mantis) and long legs crossed like people sit cross legged. The stump had a domed top and was at least 5 to 6 feet (in the sitting position)tall. Sis looked at me, white faced and terrified. She said I want you to get on your bike and peddle as fast as you can to the house. What ever you do, don't stop and don't look back. I'm going to do the same. So we hopped on those bikes and peddled for our lives. Sis had an English made touring bike that could really put on the speed. I had an ordinary bike but I kept up with her. To any one looking my feet would have been a blur. This was REAL scary. I can still feel the fear an see sis white face. When we got home we threw the bikes in a heap in the garage and dashed inside the house. Mom saw the fear and asked what had happened. We told her about the big hairy black stump with a face. We were grounded when we told her where we had been. She believed us..I don't know why..she picked up on our fear and knew that we had seen "something." It was a long time til we rode those bikes again and we never went near that road or the thicket again either!!!

ALSO NOTICED: There was the Ohio Howls, a rotten meat smell that always came from the thicket, cats and dogs disappeared without a trace. Strange chuckling (like demon) outside the windows which we kept covered with blinds. A large, manlike track was found in The vegetable garden. A huge, footprint. Barefoot. We were creeped out by this. Also muddy, sticky handprints were on a door at the back of the detached garage. The handprints were swatchy looking...now I know that to be hairy marks from a hairy wrist...

OTHER WITNESSES: Two. Me and Sis riding our bikes from friends houses.

OTHER STORIES: A friend who came to visit swore she saw a "werewolf" in the thicked across the road. She was real frightened and had to have a car ride home and never came on foot to visit after that. I have lost track of her as we moved and changed schools.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Late afternoon in bright sunshine and clear blue skies. Crisp, cool but mild.

ENVIRONMENT: The creature was sitting cross legged and appeared to be asleep in the middle of a heavily wooded lot that would have been difficult for a man to walk into without a bush hog and machette.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Don Peer:

I spoke with the witness, who now resides in Texas, by phone.

She recounted the events like they were yesterday and still had emotion in her voice while talking about it. It obviously made an impression on her. She stated that she and her sister thought they were looking at a lightning struck tree stump because of the black color. The wind blew, which caused the hair to move, which caused them to realize they were looking at an animal.

Upon looking closer, they could see the face which was covered in shorter hair except for the eyes and nose. The eyes were closed and it had its chin resting on its chest. It appeared to be sleeping. She described the face as ape like or human like but not resembling a bear. They quickly exited the area and rode as quickly as they could peddle back home. She described the head as conical, although not pointed.

She also spoke of her father, who she described as fearless and a combat veteran of both World War II and Korea. He was an avid hunter. She recounted him saying there were parts of the surrounding woods he would not venture into and that once he came home mystified that something had stolen a deer he shot. He shot it and found where it ran and went down, as he was an excellent tracker. He said it was like something picked it up and made off with it as all signs of the deer disappeared. He had no explanation.

She stated that she listened to the Ohio Howls on the BFRO website and they were exactly what was heard around the house coming from the woods next to the cemetery at the time. She stated that it had been decades since she was in Rogers City and the wooded lot and surrounding area had probably changed greatly since then. The area is bordered on the east by Lake Huron and the north, south, and west by private and state owned forests.

About BFRO Investigator Don Peer:

Don Peer lives in northern Michigan and has studied the bigfoot phenomenon all his life. He has attended numerous Michigan expeditions and co-organized the 2011 Michigan BFRO expedition. He is an avid outdoorsman and works for the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Don Peer may be contacted at dpeer_mibigfoot@yahoo.com

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