YEAR: 1988

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: September

DATE: 14

STATE: Ohio

COUNTY: Montgomery County

LOCATION DETAILS: if you are traveling from dayton heading towards middletown you will pass the intersection that leads to germantown. if you keep heading on route 4, you will pass a gravel pit. the next road you come to on the right hand side is Eby road. that is tha Eby road/ route 4 intersection. next to the right hand turn onto Eby is a private gravel lane. down that lane is where i lived.

NEAREST TOWN: germantown

NEAREST ROAD: state route 4 @ the intersection of state route 4 and eby road.

OBSERVED: After reading some of these reports about sightings, I figured I would go ahead and tell of a few incidents that my friends and I, or I alone have had over the years, from a few years back. Ii grew up in germantown. from the time I was young I remember hearing people tell stories of bigfoot, occult activity, and all other kinds of nonsense stories. When I was younger I would go coon hunting with my uncle and 2 cousins every now and then, so I know animal sounds and as long as I'm with others who know the woods too, I dont really spook easy.

The first incident that happened to me was when i was about 15 years old. I lived down a gravel lane off of state route 4 heading from dayton to middletown. There were 3 houses at the end of the lane. They were staggered one, then another across the lane and down a bit, then the 3rd house back on the original side and down a little further still. I lived in the last house at the deadend of the lane. My friend at the time lived across the lane, diagonally from me. The distance between his front porch to mine was about 40-50 yards away.

One night kinda late, I was leaving his house. I started off his porch across the gravel lane. I had just reached the very front of my yard when i heard some twigs snapping, and a bit of rustling behind me coming from the thickets that were beside of his house next to where they had a dog kennel. The dogs however, were in the house at the time. the thickets consisted of grown up bushes and a couple pine trees. Just after that line of brush was a fence seperating land from another house down a ravine that had a different access road than our lane. Just after that fence was a drop off of about 2 feet. So the fence itself was about 5 feet tall if you were coming over it from the other side. When I heard the rustling behind me I stopped and stood completely still and started to listen real hard.

It was dead quiet, I mean NO sound at all coming from anywhere. I had that uneasy feeling that you get when you know something just isnt right, "you all know what im talking about". I kinda turned my head but not so much to look as more to try and listen better. I kinda didnt want to turn around to look because I was so scared. mind you that there is a city-type streetlight post right beside the lane about middle ways between my house and my buddies house, so it wasnt really dark necessarily. It was pretty well lit. Just like any other streetlight you would be right next to.

After listening for about half a minute i turned to walk home. As soon as I turned i heard the sounds again. almost as if it was watching me turn to leave again. I took off like a shot. My hearing was so in tune to what was going on around me, even though I was running faster that i ever had before. I could hear my feet kicking up behind me, and behind that I could hear the sounds of twigs snapping turning into the sounds of limps cracking. Whatever it was behind me, was BIG, and it sounded like it was chasing me. To my own amazement I ran a little faster when I heard that. It was kinda weird, as i was running, scared as could be, I was trying to reason with myself saying in my mind that it was probably just a deer, and that I was being foolish. But I wasnt going to chance it. Just as I finished the thought of my stupid self running so fast from a deer. I heard a screaching sound that i have never heard any animal make before. It was kind of like a cross between a howler monkey, a screech owl, and a peacock. Those of you that have heard a peacock would probably agree that if you didnt know it was a peacock it would spook you.

When I got to my front door I grabbed it and threw it open and started to run in. As I was turning to close the door as fast as I could, I looked to see how close it might be to me. Just on the outer ring of the light from the streetlight I could see that something was pushing the pine trees over a bit. And I could see something come from over the fence from the other side. I have absolutely NO DOUBT that what I saw was a bigfoot. The ambient lighting made that clear to me.

I was screaming and crying hysterically as I ran in the front door, then slammed it shut, then locked all 3 locks. 2 deadbolts and the knob lock. I lived with my mom at the time but she was on vacation. My cousin who is a pretty big guy, and who has been in a lot of streetfights was staying there to keep an eye on me while my mom was gone.

He was sleeping when I came in the house. He heard me screaming and jumped up to see what was wrong. He grabbed my moms gun which was a .38 special 3 inch barrel chiefs special. and came out to the living room to see what I was freaking out about. Later he said that all I kept saying was that it was going to get me over and over, and that he could see how scared I was and thought that someone had broken into the house and was still in there. He tried to calm me down and asked me what was wrong. I pointed at the front door and said one word.... outside. He went to open the door, and I told him not to. He's the kind of guy who isnt afraid of a human. ANY human. He kind of gave me a look as if to say..." dude, chill, i got this." Then jestured towards the gun. When he jestured towards the gun the first words outta my mouth were... "thats not gonna help." Thats when he stopped and asked me what the hell was out there. And I said bigfoot. He turned back to the door to open it and I ran and pushed him outta the way and leaned against the door to stop him. When I did that, he knew that if nothing else, at least I thought that I had seen bigfoot.

My bedroom faced our backyard which had no lights to it. My room only had thin sheers to cover my windows. I could still look out my window and see, even though the sheers were drawn. For a week I slept in my bedroom floor on the opposite side of my room away from the window on the other side of my bed so that nothing outside the window would see me in my room. This incident scared me that bad.

ALSO NOTICED: not at this particular location. but i have one other incident that ocurred to me and about 3 friends of mine.

OTHER WITNESSES: my cousin who was there the night it happened had later had an encounter. he said that he thought he seen something over by the thickets about 3 weeks later. he told me that he thought i was seeing things when it first happened. but that he wasnt so sure about it after his incident.

OTHER STORIES: there are lots of stories about sightings happening around the germantown and germantownship areas. also there are lots of people who say they have seen things around the preble county and jackson township areas too.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: around 1 am if i remember correct. the lighting was fairly bright for that time of night due to the streetlight.

ENVIRONMENT: betwen 2 houses from one front yard to my front yard with a gravel lane in between.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Mark Maisel:

Before the actual sighting he heard tree branches breaking and a vocalization that lasted for about 3 seconds. He described the sound as a high pitched scream. This sound came from 30 yards away.

When he heard this he ran to his house. He stopped before going inside, turned and looked around. This is when the pine trees parted and the animal stepped through them and stood there. At this point the animal was between 50 to 60 yards away. He described the animal as 10 feet tall with a width at the shoulders of approximately 4 feet. The light from the street lamp silhouetted the animal and the witness said it was dark colored. This happened in a 5 second time frame. At this point the he entered the house.

His cousin, who was home at this time went outside a short time later but did not see anything. The cousin told him that he was crazy. However, a month or two after this sighting the cousin came back and told him that he was NOT crazy, as he had seen something in the area.

There are several gravel pits, a creek, ponds and lakes in this region. Food sources are plentiful, with the water sources and farms nearby.

About BFRO Investigator Mark Maisel:

Mark Maisel is employed in the medical field in Ohio. He has attended the following expeditions: West Virginia, New York Adirondacks, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina. Expedition organizer of the 2009 Ohio expedition and assisting with both of Eastern Ohio's in 2012 and Michigan UP 2012. Attended WV 2013

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