bigfoot

When I was nine years old, my family and I lived in Venango County, Franklin, Pennsylvania on the 15th Street hill. It was in late June or early July in 1958. My family owned a motel, and the parking lot was up the hill from our house. During the day I was playing with my toy soldiers on the edge of the parking lot near the walk that led down to our house. I can still remember the feeling... for that same feeling saved me and others later in combat in Vietnam.

Someone or something was watching me and I knew it! I slowly raised my head to look up toward the woodline above the bank of the parking lot. I have never forgotten what I saw. There, off toward my right front, was a large reddish-colored hairy creature about 7 to 8 feet tall, standing upright, leaning against a tree watching me. When I stood up... it straightened up -- and that was enough for me. I ran to the house screaming for my mother! She heard me, my brother and the neighbor next door heard me, and all three came running. I told them what I had seen and they more or less blew me off laughing. They didn't even go look.

Later that day, I was in the house and my mother was in the side yard hanging up laundry. Across from the driveway she heard a loud moaning-like yell, scream, and what sounded like small trees being smashed. She screamed and ran into the basement, slamming and locking the door. My brother ran to her wanting to know what was wrong and she told him what had happened. He grabbed his bow and arrows and ran and got the neighbor, Jack Seifert, who also was an archer and a WW2 paratrooper of the 101st Airborne Division. They both ran into the woods to see what it was. They found sapplings ripped from the ground, medium-sized trees snapped, and the dry leaves all disturbed and leaving a trail up over the hill through the woods. Then they heard it make a vocal noise and pursued it. They were gone over an hour and had followed it toward the "Gurney," a hill that overlooks Franklin. They said they never saw a creature, but heard something large ahead of them crashing through the brush.

Later, during the weekend, my parents had company and I was sent to bed. It was around 11:00 p.m. when I awoke with that feeling again. I looked out the window across from my bed and saw two large glowing eyes! Needless to say, I was gone from my bed and ran screaming into the living room. I told my dad what I had seen and he went outside and looked. He saw nothing, but where the walk went past my bedroom, part of the stone wall had toppled. He said the rain must have done it. Bull! I know what I saw both times and I have never forgotten it.

I am now almost 61 years old, a decorated combat veteran, a trained recon man and yet to this day that was the only day/night in my life I was ever truly afraid. It was not a dream, my imagination or a nightmare. It was VERY REAL!

Later it was in the papers that livestock on Bully Hill were being found mutilated and the paper blamed it on a cougar, then kids, but never came up with a real good "who/what done it" explanation of why the throats were ripped out or why no flesh had been eaten. It was a nervous time after that on that mountain for quite awhile. Whatever it was moved on after a while, I guess, and nobody wanted to talk about it or what had happened except us kids in school because whatever it was was heard in other areas, and if I remember right, some other kids saw it out by Polk, Pennsylvania (about 15 miles from our home) later during that same year.

I was warned NOT to talk about what had happened at my house by my parents, but I did and still do. A Sasquatch? A Bigfoot? I had never heard about those until I was in my mid-teens and from artist drawings what I saw that day pretty well matched those drawings. Believe me or not... I know what I saw.