YEAR: 1996

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

STATE: Texas

COUNTY: San Jacinto County

NEAREST TOWN: Shepherd

OBSERVED: One evening a friend and I were riding my ATV through the Sam Houston National Forest. While riding down a straight and rather wide trail approximately 20 yards wide, I turned around to say something to my friend who was riding as passenger. Whenever I turned back around there was a large humanoid creature, approximately 6 – 6.5 foot tall, broad shouldered and thick in appearance, with either dark brown or black hair covering its entire body. It spooked me and I yelled at my passenger to look. When I yelled the creature turned and ran into the woods, (the creature made a quick turn upright and ran upright – this marks out the possibility of being a bear). My friend did not see it and asked what I was yelling about. I could not speak from awe. The creature was only approximately 40 – 50 yards in front of us in the wide open. I sped up the ATV to the location where the creature ran into the woodline. The limbs and brush were shaking back and forth but I did not see him again due to the thick underbrush East Texas is known for. It scared me at first and I downshifted the ATV as fast as possible and sped away, stopping several hundred yards down the trail to explain to my friend what I had just seen. It was an experience I will never forget, and who knows maybe it was meant just for me to see. I have told many people this story, most laugh. But I know what I saw.

ALSO NOTICED: I am an avid hunter but not a redneck. I respect all wildlife and have a lot of experience in the field of wildlife. There is nothing else it could have been. Like I said before, I had a clear 40 - 50 yard sighting of the creature.

OTHER WITNESSES: No

OTHER STORIES: I have not heard of any other reports.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was mid day to early evening. The weather was very clear and the visibility was very good due to midday hours.

ENVIRONMENT: It was mostly dense pine forest. There are many creeks in the area where I observed this creature.

Follow-up investigation report:

The witness is a police officer in East Texas and has no doubt of what he saw. He said when he first saw the creature, he thought, "bigfoot." No facial details could be recalled due to the distance of the encounter. The sighting lasted perhaps three seconds before the "broad-shouldered" upright animal headed into the thick undergrowth of the Sam Houston National Forest. The witness has tried to tell others of what he saw, but he has mostly been met with derision.

While investigating the general area, BFRO investigators heard a series of six, close range, loud, moaning howls almost identical to the BFRO's "Ohio Howl." These howls were longer than the "Ohio Howl" and ended with a sort of growl. The last of the howls modulated up into a high-pitched howl. The howls were followed by the loud sound of a large branch snapping. Nothing else was heard after the first series of vocalizations.

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