YEAR: 1982

SEASON: Summer

DATE: Summer

STATE: Massachusetts

COUNTY: Hampshire County

LOCATION DETAILS: This is an area that was located behind the old Bellerose Farm. The property is posted now, and probably was back then- but we were kids and hung around out back there anyway.

NEAREST TOWN: Belchertown / Granby Line

NEAREST ROAD: George Hannum Road

OBSERVED: My sighting occurred in 1982 when I was ten years old. A group of friends and myself were out in the woods screwing around on the trails near a subdivision that we all grew up on. We were riding down a very overgrown trail that was used by moonshiners years and years ago. You could never fit a car down it then, and it was pretty well hidden even from the other trails out there. Our thing was to ride down this hill as fast as we could and time ourselves. One guy would stay at the bottom and we'd go from the top one by one. The trail was probably a quarter mile long. That day I was the last kid to go down the hill. I hit a root about halfway down and went over the handlebars. As I was getting back up, I was facing up the hill and off to the right when something caught my attention. I don't know if it was movement or what, but I was looking at a large dark shape next to a large pine tree. It wasn't very far; maybe 20 or 30 feet. I just kind of stared at it and it moved a little bit. It stepped away from the tree and I think I screamed. It just turned around and walked off into the woods. That scared the hell out of me and I took off in the other direction. Looking back, I don't know if I could estimate whether it was 7,8, or 9 feet tall, but it was definitely bigger than a man, had dark fur, and walked off on two legs. I'm sure of it. I didn't get a real good look at the face, but the thing looked huge. It wasn't a bear. Looking back, I'm sure it could have gotten a hold of me had it wanted to, but I think it didn't want to be bothered. I was terrified and got the hell out of there. When I told my buddies, they all said I was full of it.

The following winter two of the same guys that didn't believe me were out on the ice on a frog pond that's more like a swamp than anything else only a couple of hundred yards from the entrance to the trail where I saw it. The area had a lot of young pines, and they were really thick. They could hear something running through the brush and breaking ice towards the bank of the pond, and caught a glimpse of two hairy legs going by through the trees parallel to them. They got the hell out of there and wouldn't go back. These guys weren't BS artists and I know they were telling the truth. One of them won't talk about it to this day, and the other one will very reluctantly talk about it if we're having a couple of beers. One of the guys that didn't believe any of it actually tried to organize a camping trip out there with some of us this past summer and couldn't get any takers. No way.

ALSO NOTICED: The woods always felt creepy. You always felt like someone was watching you out there. None of my friends to this day can get real excited about going out there even now that we're adults.

OTHER WITNESSES: Myself, riding bikes

OTHER STORIES: When I found this site about a year ago, I mentioned it to my dad at a family dinner. That got the family talking about "Oh yeah- remember all of that stuff" and my father went on to tell me that he had actually had a run-in with something in an area that wasn't too far from where the other events occurred. This was a couple of years before I had my sighting, and he never said a word about it when I came home and told my parents what I'd seen that day. I think he didn't want to scare me even more than I already was.

He was cutting wood out in the area behind the farm and got "creeped out" as he calls it. He said he just started to feel really uneasy and shut off the chainsaw. He was in the center of a clearing with his pickup truck. The clearing was bordered all around with a thick group of young pines. They were getting thrashed all around and he said the thing started moving around like it was circling him. I don't remember if he said he actually saw something, but he said it scared him so bad that he wouldn't go out there again without his 38. My father is a life-long hunter and knows his way around the woods. He still hunts in the area to this day, but said it really freaked him out for a while. He did mention that he had heard some stories of things happening in the next town over (Granby) in the Harris Mountain Road and Porter Street / Lake Aldrich area. This area is only 2 miles away from where everything happened with us, and is in thick woods that border the fire roads that lead to the Mount Holyoke Range. He said there was actually a report in a local newspaper in the 70's about a lady almost hitting something at night that ran down a slope, crossed the road in front of her car, and went down towards Lake Aldrich. I heard things about that area every once in a while after my incident. Guys that I talked to after high school from that area said the kids were all terrified of something that they called the "Porter Street Blob" back then that was a Bigfoot-like creature.

I don't think it's still around because I haven't heard or seen anything in years. We ride mountain bikes in the same general area, but won't go back to that spot. I think that whatever it is has moved on because it had easy access to the mountain range.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Occured in the afternoon. It was a very nice summer day outside, but the woods were thick and it wasn't overly bright because of the tree cover.

ENVIRONMENT: Fairly thick pine forest, lots of young pines packed densely together, lots of underbrush, near swamps, a stream, and a pond. My sighting occured on an old moonshiner's road that was pretty overgrown.

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