YEAR: 2004

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: August

DATE: 31st

STATE: Texas

COUNTY: Wharton County

NEAREST TOWN: El Campo

OBSERVED: I was sitting out on the porch around 10 pm on Tuesday night, August 31st. My dogs (a lab mix and a pit bull) started acting strange and growling. I heard something over to the right of our house. It was very dark over there because we have no light over there. It sounded like something heavy stepped on a piece of tin that is over there on the ground. I could not see anything because it was so dark. That's when I decided that it must be someone over there because it sounded like a heavy person had stepped on the tin. I ran into the house to get my husband. I told him that there must be someone outside. My husband got his pistol and came outside. As my husband was coming out the door, our pit bull ran inside the house very scared. Our lab mix kept staring over to the left side of the house where we have a light and my husband's trailer. We stood there on the porch for a little bit when suddenly this grayish animal that looked like an overgrown monkey jumped up on the corner of a refrigerator that was lying on the tail end of my husband's trailer just outside our chain link fence. It was stooped over and very fast. As soon as it jumped up on the fridge, it jumped off and tumped the trailer back off its blocks and made a loud banging noise. It scared us to death. My husband fired his pistol toward the ground just as it started to run off very fast. It ran off like it was going out across the road toward the lake that is across the road from us. It was on two legs and stooped over. It was grayish and had a manlike face, but its nose was flatter than a human nose. Its face had no hair. It was about 5 ft tall and was covered with gray hair. It had to be very fast to run around the front of the house the way that it did when I went in to get my husband. It was not an ugly animal, it looked groomed with lots of grayish hair.

My husband called the Wharton County Sheriffs department and they sent a deputy out. He came and talked to my husband and they looked around but they didn't see anything else. I hope this thing is not dangerous because I have kids. I always thought things like this weren't real but now I know different. They are very real. After we saw what we saw, the El Campo newspaper had an article about a similar animal about 30 miles away in Matagorda County. We could not believe it.

OTHER WITNESSES: Me and my husband.

OTHER STORIES: Our son has heard a sound like a sick cow. Our nephew said he saw an 8 ft monkey digging in the dumpster in the early 1990's. We did not believe him. We do now.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 10 pm, clear.

ENVIRONMENT: Wooded, there are rice fields around.

Follow-up investigation report:

The report for this encounter was initially submitted over the TBRC toll free hotline. After their own encounter, the witnesses read the newspaper article about the Matagorda County Sighting (Report #8832) and felt compelled to submit their own report. Upon reading the newspaper article, the witnesses were amazed because they had initially thought their incident to be an isolated one.

The area lies on the outskirts of El Campo, a small town southwest of Houston, in the coastal plains with a population of 10,945. There is a creek that runs directly through the witnesses’ property. The creek runs for miles until it eventually runs into the Colorado River bottoms. On the witnesses’ property, there is an abundance of hardwood trees and scrap materials.

I talked at length via telephone and in person with the witnesses, their kids and the law enforcement officer who was called to the scene. I searched the area for any evidence that could be associated with Bigfoot but was unable to find any.

The deputy told me that he was called to the witnesses’ house at approximately 2300 hours (11:00 PM), the night of 31 August 2004. The deputy told me that when he arrived, the male witness (husband) seemed disturbed and shaken, but very sober and clear-minded. The deputy remarked that the first thing the male witness said to him was, “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I am not and I have not been drinking whatsoever.” The deputy said that at that time, the witness proceeded to tell him what had happened. The deputy left the scene convinced that the witnesses believed that they had absolutely seen something highly unusual and as it had been described to the deputy by the male witness, “It was a big monkey.” The deputy also stated that the newspaper article came out the next day after the witnesses had their encounter.

The report was initially called in as a prowler or strange animal report. When the deputy arrived at the scene, he was told it was not a prowler, but in fact some kind of strange animal.

During my several interviews with the witnesses, they described the creature as, “a monkey on steroids,” and “an overgrown monkey.” The witnesses told me that the animal seemed extremely agile and fleet-footed, and they saw it for perhaps a total of five or six seconds. It leapt up on the refrigerator and immediately off, rocking the trailer off its blocks and making an extremely loud banging noise. Immediately after it cleared the refrigerator, the male witness fired his .357 magnum hand gun behind the animal into the ground. The male witness said that the creature, already fleeing at the time of the shot, seemed to move even faster upon hearing the discharge of the weapon. No additional descriptive details could be given, except that the witnesses seemed struck by the “groomed” look of the animal. As the animal ran off, the witnesses noted that it ran in a stooped or bent over fashion, with front arms dangling forward, though never touching the ground. I asked the witnesses if the creature ran similar to the way a soldier in combat would run and the witnesses responded with a resounding, “Yes! That’s a perfect way to describe it!”

The witnesses also told me that they have occasionally heard “whoop” sounds from the back of the property. They had no idea what was making the sounds. In addition, a while back, the witnesses had two dozen chickens that had been the prey of an unknown predator, who picked the chickens off one by one, only to rip them open, extract the inner organs and entrails, and leave the remaining bodies. The witnesses always thought an opossum had eaten their chickens.

One of the sons of the witnesses has heard on two separate occasions since the visual encounter, some strange moaning howls in the early morning hours when sitting out with his girlfriend and others. I was able to talk to the girlfriend who actually tried to replicate the sounds for me. Her rendition sounded like a mournful howl and growl. The son and his girlfriend said the sounds were extremely loud and caused them to leave the area.

The deputy and I found the witnesses credible. It is my opinion that the witnesses may have had an encounter with a juvenile Sasquatch. It should also be noted that this encounter is perhaps thirty miles northwest, as the crow flies, from the June 2004 encounter in Matagorda County.

Related Media Articles:

• Wildman of the Navidad: Truth or Tall Tale? (7/23/2002; Victoria Advocate)

• Explanation of the report classification system
• Submit a report for the sightings database
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