YEAR: 2014-2016

SEASON: Spring

STATE: New Hampshire

COUNTY: Hillsborough County

LOCATION DETAILS: Not far from Russel-Abbott State Forest

NEAREST TOWN: Mason/Greenville NH

OBSERVED: I have not had a visual incident, but several strange experiences around my area recently have led me to try want to talk to someone who might know what is going on.
Here I'll list the experiences:
1. I have a small orchard next to the forest in back of my house. 2 years ago, a young pear tree was bearing fruit for the first time, loaded with pears, there must have been 20-30 pears on it. I checked them one evening and decided that the next day I would come out and pick them. The next morning, I came out with a basket and every one of them was gone. Not only gone but every branch that had had a pear was broken. The top branches were about 10ft high so what ever took the top pears had to be tall. At the time, I didn't even consider a bigfoot and thought it might be a moose which we have go through the yard periodically. But I have not heard that moose eat pears and certainly not every one on the tree. Usually when deer eat my apples, they rarely eat more than 1/2 an apple at a time. Since that time I have put an electric fence around the orchard and the tree is recovering.
2. My workshop is down the street from my house, in my barn. About 1.5 years ago, I was walking up from the barn to the house and it was pitch black, in the evening. I could only barely see the road. Just before my house there is a patch of hemlock trees. As I passed the trees I encountered a very strong scent of wet dog. It had been raining all day but had stopped but everything was wet. The smell was overpowering and so strong that I stopped to see what it was. I peered into the trees but couldn't see anything. I walked past the trees and past the smell, walked back to the trees and the smell was still there. The trees are about 15-20 ft from the middle of the road where I was. I have to say I was a bit afraid as we do have some big bears around and didn't want to aggravate one, but I doubt a bear would have stayed still. My experience with bears is that they don't like being around humans and the ones around here are certainly not afraid of humans and usually just walk away. Whatever this was didn't move. So I went into the house. I definitely felt like I was being watched.
3. 1 year ago my wife and I were woken up around 1 am to the sound of a screaming woman in the woods, or what sounded like one. It was very loud, certainly louder than a woman would have been able to make, and it woke both of us up. After the screaming stopped, there was a pack of coyotes who yipped for a while from the same area. Then another sound of the woman screaming, then more coyotes, then more screaming and then more coyotes, then nothing. We went back to bed. We had heard the woman screaming sound before, years ago, in the middle of the day, and had gone out to find out what was going on but found nothing. We do have cougars here though and it may have been one of them.
4. A few weeks ago, at about 10 pm, my wife, myself and my son were sitting in the living room. It had been raining and foggy all day and was still drizzling out. It was pitch black and we couldn't see anything outside. All of a sudden, a rock hit the side of the house nearest the woods. It must have been about the size of a large marble. We immediately opened the door, but it was totally quiet and nothing more happened.
5. My daughter was visiting two weeks ago, and she was here for a week. She came on a Sunday and the next Friday she complained to me that she hadn't been able to sleep because of the screams in the woods. She asked me if I had heard them but I had slept through them. She said they were about midnight to 1 am and were accompanied by the sounds of a pack of coyotes. She described the screams but I of course cannot repeat them on this note, however, when she tried to repeat them, they are like nothing I've ever heard. She said they repeated for four nights. On Friday night, we stayed up trying to hear them but they did not reappear.
6. My daughter's dog stayed with us last fall for 5 months. She is a small black lab and loves to explore our field near the woods. But many times, during the day even, when we went to let her outside, she refused to go out the door. She would sniff and then back away from the door. I still don't know why. Some days she would go out willingly, and some not.
7. The most recent was a few days ago. It was our first day above 90 degrees and I was traveling down Rte 31 north from Greenville along the Souhegan river. I was looking down the river on the right as the river arced away from the road and saw, some distance down the river, a large animal on all fours standing in the river.My first thought was that it was a bear. It was large, as the black bears we've seen around here are quite large. But it was cinnamon colored, quite a light color and the fur was at least 4" long. I couldn't see its head. One of the bears here stood up against the screen door of my next door neighbor and my neighbor is 6'2" and the bear stood as tall as he is, and I thought as I looked at this animal that it was at least that big. I know cinnamon is a variation of black bears, but the fur didn't look right, it was much too long and shaggy. The fur was so long that I couldn't see the joint between the legs and body. I should have stopped to get a better look but I was in a rush and didn't.
8. The last experience I had was in March. I was walking in the forest on a trail. In the distance, I heard someone hit a tree with a stick three
times. I remembered that this is what bigfoot sometimes do from the online reports. I thought about that, and then walked on. About 100 feet later, it happened again. I thought, "If this is a bigfoot, I don't want to meet him today". I finished my walk without incident.

So in sum, what is all this? Am I imagining something or what? Any suggestions? Do you have any similar reports from near here (southern NK)?

I know bigfoot has been cited near here several times in the past in nearby towns.

Xxxxx Xxxxx

ENVIRONMENT: Thick forest, swamps, lakes, marshes

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Jeff Sheppard:

I had the opportunity to do a site visit and spend approximately 7 hours with the homeowner, hiking, researching and exploring. He and his wife were very gracious, open and sincere.

They live in a small rural town in South Central NH and live on a dirt road with few neighbors near a State Forest. The area boasts mixed hardwood and softwood forests as well as many swamps and ponds. There is abundant wildlife in the area including black bear, deer, moose, mountain lion, coyote and other animals as well as many types of birds. The gentleman who made the report is a self employed Engineer who works in the Nuclear Medicine field and his wife is a school teacher.

Over the last few years unusual things have been happening on and around their property. Individually they did not seem significant but once the homeowner added them together he started to wonder if they could be experiencing Sasquatch activity.

My visit started with a stop at his barn which he uses as a machine shop and shipping and receiving area. It is approximately 100+ yards away from his house going down the street. Just days before my visit something or someone left him a pile of white medium sized rocks with a small plastic butterfly along with 3 small plastic ornamental leaves and a small figurine. These were found behind the barn on a path that leads to his home. He asked his wife and granddaughter (16 years old) if either one of them had anything to do with the mystery arrangement, neither knew what he was talking about. The other thing that made him a little nervous was that a similar pile of rocks was left at the spot on the side of a pond about a mile away in the state forest where he goes to meditate. I was able to observe and photograph both piles.

He also noted that the security light near the back door of his barn by the loading dock had been swatted by something breaking it. There would be no reason for anyone to be behind his barn, the light itself is close to 8 feet off the ground.

Walking to the house we stopped at the patch of Hemlock trees where he experienced the nauseating wet dog smell. The trees are very close to the road and could hide a bear or another creature easily under the cover of darkness with easy access to retreat into the forest behind his barn.

On the way to the orchard we stopped in their front yard and I was shown where their house had been struck by a rock one night during foggy /inclement weather. The land slopes down and away from the front of the house into the forest. A person or creature could easily duck and hide and not be seen as well as throw an object from behind any number of natural obstructions. I did like the bears scratching a stump at the base of their woods line.

Our next stop was his orchard where he showed me his pear tree that had been pillaged the year before of all its fruit. This occurrence puzzled him. He showed me where branches had been broken about 8 feet off the ground where something was getting at the fruit at the top of the tree. Generally the animals when they eat their fruit will leave half eaten pieces on the ground surrounding the fruit trees. He feels it is unlikely that a person would come onto the back of their property in the middle of the night to take all of their fruit. Their home is very secluded and there are no street lights in the area.

Past the orchard is the forest where he and his family have heard unusual screaming that they describe as if it were a woman. Generally they hear this screaming late at night or early in the morning, often accompanied by coyote calls shortly after. They have no idea what could be making these screams but mentioned that they do have mountain lions that are in the area. I suggested that he invest in a recording device to try to capture these sounds for identification.
We then hiked into the State Forest where he had heard the wood knocks. The area was quite beautiful with mixed forest and swamps. We did a couple of wood knocks but had no response. We did not see any other hikers in the area.

I was brought me to the river next. We stopped by where he sighted the mystery creature from his car as he drove to an appointment. He described it as being on all fours with 4” long cinnamon colored fur. The area abuts state forest lands and the river is quite shallow and rocky in this area. He speculated that whatever was in the river was fishing as the state does stock the river with fish. He regrets not stopping that day for a positive ID on the creature he saw as overhanging branches did block his view of the creatures head. Once done we went and hiked Temple Mountain. It is in an area where other reported sightings have occurred. Unfortunately we had to cut our hike short due to a thunder storm that was approaching.

He recently contacted me and reported that something opened their shed and removed a container of chicken feed. He found the container in the woods. Something/someone dumped some feed out onto the ground and left the rest in the container. The odd thing is that in order to get into the shed someone or something had to remove a 2x4 from a bracket that secures the door shut that is 4’ off the ground. He did find this to be quite strange.

About BFRO Investigator Jeff Sheppard:

Jeff is a Middle School Technology/Engineering teacher from MA. He loves the outdoors and enjoys hiking and camping with his wife and dogs any chance he gets. He has had a fascination with all things that fall into the cryptozoology category since a young age.

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