YEAR: 2000

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: February

STATE: Alabama

COUNTY: Conecuh County

LOCATION DETAILS: Southern Conecuh county. Exact location not published to protect residents.

OBSERVED: This is a secondhand report posted by the BFRO investigators involved. Witness information withheld.

The following is the witness’ account as related to Investigator Tim Cullen:

At approximately 1:30 a.m. on a night in February 2000, the witness and a friend were planning to visit a girl who lived close to the sighting location. They were riding together on a motorcycle and knew they would not be able to ride up to the girl’s house without alerting her mother to their presence. They decided to hide the bike on the side of a dirt road and walk to the house from there. Very shortly thereafter, they began to hear what the witness described as very heavy walking/stomping noises. The witness described these sounds as similar to: 1. an extremely large person walking or 2. like a horse galloping only on two legs, coming from a swampy area which was northeast of their location. They squatted in the bushes and listened for a couple of minutes, at which time they determined the noise was getting closer to them and increasing in pace. At this time they decided to make a break for the motorcycle and vacate the area. The friend of the witness was in the lead and caused a branch to swing back hitting the witness in the head, knocking him down and “damn near knocking him out.” He got back up and began running after his friend all the while hearing the sounds of stomping and the crashing of underbrush getting closer to them. When he reached the spot where the motorcycle had been stashed, his friend was already pushing it out towards the road. He commented that at this time he could also hear heavy breathing which seemed to coincide with each footfall. Once they had the bike on the road, they both jumped on and his friend managed to kick start it and take off. The witness stated that he looked back just in time to see a very large creature leap from the edge of the woods out into the road. (I later measured this distance and it was a 12’ to 15’ jump, more or less.) He said it hit the road on all fours and then stood fully erect. He did comment that when the creature landed on the road, it let out an audible grunt he could hear even above the noise of the motorcycle. He said the moon was full or near full, and it was already in the western sky causing the creature to “stand in its own shadow.” Since the creature was silhouetted, he was unable to make out any detail such as facial features. However, he was emphatic that what he saw was not a bear as he’s seen bears before and they are much #8220;narrower” than what he saw (He emphasized this by hunching his arms forward and dropping his shoulders to indicate how a bear would stand and then standing fully erect with his arms out from his sides in the stance that he said he observed the creature to be in.). He said this creature was very wide and had “fluffy” hair which covered it entirely. He was unable to see any fingers on the hands although he did state that from what he could tell the hands appeared to be clenched and that the arms were longer than a human’s. He also said that from what he could see the creature appeared to be a dark brown or black color. When asked about the height of the animal, he said it was at least six to seven feet tall. After thinking for a moment he stated that his father is 6’ 4” and that this thing was bigger than his dad, making it closer to seven feet in height.
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What follows is a slightly less detailed report by Investigator Vince Lauria who videotaped the interview at the sighting location:

The sighting took place in February of the year 2000 to the best recollection of the witness, a boy, 15 years old at the time. The moon was full or nearly so. He and a friend had just parked a very loud dirt bike at the edge of the woods along the dirt road near a swamp at about 2 a.m. They planned to walk up on a nearby mobile home to visit a girlfriend. Their "caper" was interrupted when they heard heavy footsteps running through the woods toward them, breaking limbs, etc. The main witness was slapped in the head by a limb that was released as the other boy pushed the bike back off of a sandy drainage ditch (which fork slightly off these roads) and onto the dirt road. The witness, almost knocked out by the hit to the head, got up, jumped on the back of the bike and they roared off just as something large and black jumped onto the road, landing on all fours, then stood up and faced them. The moon was lighting the road, and the creature, from the rear. Hair was described as long and not shaggy, but "fluffy," dark brown or black. It stood, obviously broad and manlike and BIG, looking at them as they drove off, its arms at its sides and longer than a man's arms. Estimated height near 7 feet.

Investigator Cullen:
When Vince asked the witness if he’d gone back the next day to see if they could locate any tracks, he told Vince “Hell no I haven’t gone back!” He said it was probably two weeks or better before they even went near that particular spot again.

ALSO NOTICED: Per investigator Tim Cullen:
Several of my family members, as well as myself, have heard what we can only describe as a long, deep, “bellowing” type sound that is completely unfamiliar to any of us. I’ve listened to all the .wav files I could find, and the only one that even remotely resembles the sound we’ve heard is the Yowie file. Peculiar. The last time a large group of us heard this sound was at Easter of this year. There were eight of us who heard it that night. The most recent time this was heard was on Thursday, June 13, 2002 at approximately 12:15 a.m. by my wife and her sister. While I can’t speak for everyone else, I can say with confidence that this was not a cow even though there are plenty in this area. That and the fact that most of the sounds we’ve heard come from much further back in the woods where there are no pastures...or cows.

OTHER WITNESSES: Two, only one saw the creature. The other heard it running through woods, but was driving motorcycle and not looking back when it appeared.

OTHER STORIES: Per investigator Tim Cullen:
There was another reported sighting made by a relative of my wife (he’s deceased now) which happened back in the 1930s. He witnessed what he described as a “hairy woman” drinking from an artesian well. When she saw him she ran away. He described her as being covered in reddish hair that flowed out behind her as she ran. According to my mother-in-law, he was always rather reluctant to speak about this for fear of being ridiculed.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 1:30 to 2:00 a.m. Clear and moonlit night. Full or near full moon.

ENVIRONMENT: Mixed pine plantings, deciduous forest, swamps and cattle pasture. Very hilly and crisscrossed with creeks and small streams.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Vince Lauria:

This witness displayed some involuntary emotive reactions to his own telling, and reliving of his experience that show he is not making anything up. This investigator has worked with drug-addicted convicts and anti-social juveniles who often will lie to an interviewer. In my opinion, this boy was being honest and straightforward. Local neighbors who have known him over time believe his story.

When asked to pinpoint the date in reference to Valentine's day, the witness said it was before Valentine's day, making it before the actual date of the full moon but while the moon was bright.

Investigator Tim Cullen passed away in 2007. He was a property appraiser and experienced hunter and woodsman. He worked this sighting with Vince Lauria as a new BFRO field investigator for the Southeast, but later left the BFRO.

In 2007 Vince Lauria revisited this location. The forests have been extensively logged, yet two "wood knocks" were heard just before dark from two different directions. One came from just over a now thinly forested hill and the other from a wooded swamp, one seeming to answer the other, as if warning of my presence.

About BFRO Investigator Vince Lauria:

Vince has a BS in Inter-Cultural Communication (sociology, art, writing) and has been a licensed private investigator. He is also an accomplished photographer and artist in acrylic, charcoal and pastel portraiture. He has had a life-long interest in wildlife and the cutting edge of human knowledge of our world. Born in 1941, Vince is "circling the drain" but hanging in there.

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