YEAR: 1987

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: October

DATE: 9

STATE: Pennsylvania

COUNTY: Centre County

LOCATION DETAILS: [ Investigator (MM) Notes:
The GPS of the sighting location is 40.8749398, -77.8118900 ]

NEAREST TOWN: Bellefonte

NEAREST ROAD: Barns Lane

OBSERVED: About 38 years ago in 1987, late September or early October, at around 10:30-11:00 pm I was riding in a car with a friend at the time, on Barns Lane in Centre County, PA. Not far from the fish hatchery on Spring Creek Road. I can't recall the name of the guy I was with. I believe his car was about a 1979 Dodge Aspen 2 door, silver with a red interior if memory serves me correctly. We were just out for a late night cruise, killing time and listening to music,

We were heading from Spring Creek Road towards Rock Road on what was then just a mostly dirt road that wasn't traveled much. We werent going fast, just riding around. We came up the hill from Spring Creek Road and got up on the level part of the road, with what was farm fields on our right side, and what I believe was State prison ground on our left (Rockview prison ground) .. also now State game lands 333, I think some of it is. It was not a populated area as it is today, although still rural considering it's right between Bellefonte, PA & State College, PA.

There was an old apple orchard on the property to our left that had been part of the prison grounds in this vicinity. There was no traffic, no houses to speak of on this road compared to what is there today (November 2025). I was looking out the passenger side window at the lights of the houses that I could make out up on the ridge on Siebert Road, when the guy driving slammed on the brakes and said "WTF is that !!!! " I looked out the windshield to see an enormous I mean enormous creature stepping out of the brush from the right side of the road right infront of us. It was huge. I remember feeling like I was looking up at it more than directly at it. Its arms and chest were just huge. It had a face kinda like something between a gorilla and a man. It looked right at us as it had stepped out in front of us 40' at most. I remember saying "what the Hell is that !!"

It immediately took a couple of strides and covered the distance of the road and onto the grass berm and just stepped right over a barbed wire fence, like it was nothing, like the whole thing happened so damn fast we couldent process what the heck we just saw.

It was huge. Broad chest, massive legs, hairy, like dark brownish colored, but it's face seemed kinda greyish. It was making strides. I remember seeing that it's left leg was planted and the right leg was leading it's stride when my eyes caught the thing. It was just there, and then it wasnt. It was moving fast, but not running. It was upright on 2 feet. It was absolutely not a bear or a deer as it must have been over 7 feet tall. Its chest was so high up it was kinda out of the direct beams of the headlights on the car. The arms and shoulders were just massive. The chest was broad and thick, way bigger than any man i've ever seen. Its eyes seemed open like it was startled, but immediately looked like it was pissed that we had interrupted it.

ALSO NOTICED: We didn't go go back or look back. Just got back to town rapidly

OTHER WITNESSES: Yes 2 People

OTHER STORIES: I've no direct knowledge of anything else like this happening, OTHER than the reports i have seen listed by BFRO. The most recent sighting that occured on RT.80 near to this place. This is what has prompted me to want to come foward, specifically after reading about report # 78345 & report # 78276. What I saw was in the same area!

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 10:30-11:00pm 2230-2300hrs

ENVIRONMENT: mix of dense woods, farm fields, apple orchard

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Benjamin C.:

This report was of great interest to me. Shortly after the publication of the I-80 road crossing report (Report #79292) in late October 2025, the BFRO received two separate reports within a week of each other.  The reports came from two individuals, each describing very similar road crossings, with both sightings occurring approximately 40 years ago.  Having initially taken the first report received from the first witness, John, I, the investigator, was surprised to read a similar sounding report from another individual named Wayne from the same time period.  John, from the first report, had mentioned that he was with another individual at the time but could not for the life of him remember the other individual’s name.  The second report submitted by Wayne also echoed the same failure of being unable to remember the name of the other individual in the vehicle at the time of the sighting.

Curious at the similarities in the reports, and the possibility of the witness in the second report being the same unknown individual mentioned in the first report, I reached out to the second witness, Wayne, and heard his account.  As I received the details and asked clarification questions, to my great surprise Wayne was in fact the other individual in the vehicle with John that night forty years ago.

After speaking at length with both individuals, confirming details from both witnesses separately about the event, I determined that both individuals were very credible and sincere in their reporting and memory of the event.  With their permission, I shared their contact information with each other and enabled the two witnesses to meet in person and reconnect after forty years of separation. 

The sighting location is 2.0 miles (3.2 kilometers) northeast of two other reports from Centre County (see Report 78276 and Report 78345), both of which are in the vicinity of State Game Lands 333 and Fisherman’s Paradise.









Latitude/Longitude of the sighting is 40.8749398, -77.8118900.  Elevation of the sighting location was approximately 1,060 feet (323 meters).  The time of the sighting was in the late evening after sundown.  The witnesses remember it was dark, but do not recall the exact time, although John estimates the time to have been between 10:30 PM and 11:00 PM EST.  Humidity, dew point, and barometric pressure are unknown for that time as the exact date is unknown, but the sighting is estimated to have occurred in early October, as the witnesses remember it being cool enough outside to warrant driving with the windows up in their vehicle.

At the time of the sighting, in 1985 the location of the sighting was more rural than today, with fewer residential houses in the area than there are now.  According to the Multi Resolution Land Characteristics National Land Cover Database’s (MRLC NLCD) enhanced visualization and analysis (EVA) tool (https://www.mrlc.gov/eva/, a free tool which allows users to compare and contrast forest and other terrain cover over the years) surprisingly, very little has changed in terms of forest cover in Centre County, with the county losing only 2.74% of forest cover in the past 40 years, mostly due to residential and commercial development.  The area of the sighting itself is remarkably unchanged, with minimal change in forest cover, save for those patches that were cleared to make room for home construction. 





Prior to the sighting, Wayne and John were hanging out with some other friends in the parking lot of a local Dank’s department store (a local Pennsylvania store chain now long out of business) on the evening of the sighting.  Growing bored at the slow pace of the night, the witnesses decided to “go driving around just for something to do.”  They jumped in Wayne’s vehicle, a 1979 Dodge Aspen, and drove north out of town to Spring Creek Road then up Rock Road towards the State College airport.  Seeing a single lane dirt road on the right, what is now Barns Lane, on a whim they turned and drove northeast. 

They drove for about 5 minutes, in the words of the witness “we weren’t going very fast” before hitting a point in the road where the road began to slope down in elevation.  At this point, Wayne was driving and John was looking out the window on the passenger side, when Wayne suddenly slammed on the brakes and yelled out “What the f*** is that?!”

In front of the witnesses saw a “huge” bipedal hairy figure step out of the brush from the left side and cross the road in front of them.  John distinctly remembers looking up at the creature through the windshield as opposed to looking directly at it, such was its size and mass.  Upon seeing the figure, John remembers crying out “What the hell is that?!”

The witnesses said the figure took one, maybe two steps across the road, crossing from left to right before disappearing into the woods on the right-hand side, before stepping over a barbed wire fence (height unknown) in a single stride.  The witnesses estimate that the height of the creature was between 7 and 8 feet tall and it moved very fast when it crossed the road in front of them.  Wayne estimates that the creature was between 20 and 30 yards away while John remembers it as being no more than 40 feet away when it crossed the road in front of them. 

Wayne does not remember details of the creature, but John distinctly remembers the face of the sasquatch as looking like a combination between a gorilla and a man.  The figure’s body was described as “huge” with a broad chest, huge arms, and massive legs.  John described it as “way bigger than any man I’ve ever seen.”  It’s eyes were described as having widened when it was startled by the vehicle, (one can infer a sense of surprise from that description), but that expression was described as changing to one of irritation immediately afterwards.  The creature was also described as turning its upper body at the waist to look at the vehicle as it crossed the road as opposed to simply turning its head.

The creature was described by the witnesses as being hairy, with John remembering it’s coloration as a dark brown color while Wayne recalls it as appearing grayish.  However, Wayne does acknowledge that the headlights could have played a part in making the creature appear lighter than in actuality, but he distinctly remembers the headlights causing it to stand out against the dark background of the road in front.  Additionally, John remembers the skin on the face of the creature to appear “kind of grayish.” Ears or other facial details were not remembered.

The witnesses did not hear or smell anything during the encounter as the windows were up in the vehicle due to the cold autumn weather.

After the sighting, in shock, John turned to Wayne and asked, “what do we do? We gotta tell someone what we just saw!” In response, John remembers saying, “Not a f****** thing.”

When asked how he felt during the sighting, Wayne said that he didn’t feel any fear at the time, only shock and surprise, and to this day states that “he doesn’t know what it was. (He) hesitates to call it a bigfoot, but a bigfoot fits the description more than anything else.”  The other witness, John, said how he felt “more puzzled than anything else at the time” and how due to the surprise and speed of the encounter, it “all happened so fast that I didn’t really have time for anything else.”

Neither witness knew much about bigfoot back then, they had heard of them, but only through the Patterson film and its surrounding controversies.  Wayne said he was very skeptical about the creature, but after the encounter had difficulty reconciling the sighting with his pre-existing views.

















The eco-region of the sighting is the northern limestone/dolomite valleys that make up a substantial portion of the Ridge and Valley region of the Appalachians.  The forests here are primarily oak-hickory forest, which include red and white oak mixed with tuliptree, red maple, and hickories among others.  White pine, beech, birch, sugar maple, and Canadian hemlock can also be found as well but in lesser numbers as they are more common at higher altitudes and latitudes.  Animals in the region include white tail deer, black bear, coyote, red fox, and a plethora of smaller animals.  Two fish hatcheries are also located within and adjacent to the game lands, Benner Spring State Fish Hatchery and Bellefonte State Fish Hatchery, as are food plots planted for local game species.  Just a few miles to the north of the game lands lie Bald Eagle State Park, State Game Lands 92, State Game Lands 103, and Black Moshannon State Park, and beyond that the vast Sproul, Susquahannock, and Elk State Forests

About BFRO Investigator Benjamin C.:

B. has attended multiple BFRO expeditions: North Georgia 2018 Fall, North Georgia 2019 Spring, Tennessee 2020 Fall, South Carolina 2021 Spring, and Pennsylvania 2021 Fall, Pennsylvania 2022 Fall, New Jersey 2022 Spring and Fall, Tennessee 2023 Fall, West Virginia 2024 Spring, Tennessee 2025 Spring

He has also conducted private expeditions in New Jersey, Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, and southern Georgia. His area of responsibility as a BFRO investigator is central New York.