Report Received From: The GCBRO Online Report Submission Form.
 
Report Posted To GCBRO Web Site On:  June 4, 2005

DATE:    June 1973
 

TIME:     8:00 AM
 

LOCATION:   Navajo County, Arizona
 

TERRAIN:    Mountains
 

OBSERVED:    I had gone camping with my friend, XXXXX, and her parents in the white mountains just before my birthday in 1973, and on our way back home, we were in their RV traveling in the early morning through the mountains on our way back to Phoenix.  We entered a meadow area in the mountains just south of Showlow, AZ, and we saw a huge black upright creature striding through the
meadow.  It was summer, so the sun was fully up, and we all had a good view of the creature.  I had been camping before and had
seen bears in zoos and in the wild, and the creature we saw was not a bear.  It never went down on all fours.
It was also much larger than any bear I'd seen.  It was also shaped differently.  It was more human shaped than bear shaped.  Bears
have smaller buttocks and more fat than this creature did.
 
The creature looked at the RV as we drove by it, and it didn't panic, it just kept striding on its way through the meadow towards the treeline on the other side.  I'd estimate that it was probably 20 feet from us at the time the sighting began, and it was moving away from the road as we drove south, so the creature was moving slightly southwest of us, walking south, but towards the treeline to the west, while the highway continued south.
 
I was only 9 years old at the time, as was XXXXX, and we got excited on seeing the creature.  The only hair covered upright being
we had reference to at that time was Smokey The Bear, used in local cartoon commercials about fire prevention, so we asked her parents to stop the RV so we could go out to say hi.
 
XXXXX's parents were in the front seats of the RV, and they were totally horrified by what we were observing.  They told us in no uncertain terms that it was NOT Smokey The Bear, and it wasn't a bear at all, and that they were not going to stop the vehicle for anything.
 
We told everyone when we got home about the strange creature we'd seen, and several weeks after getting home from our camping
trip, XXXXX's parents forbade her to ever speak of the incident again.  They never did get over their horror at what they had seen, and at the time of the sighting, they confirmed our youthful observations that what we saw was definitely not a bear, though they both said they had no idea what it was we were seeing, when we asked them if it wasn't Smokey, then who/what was it.  
 

Activities of Witness:   We had been camping for a week in the white mountains and hadn't seen anything unusual at the camp.  We had woken up early, had breakfast, and were riding in the RV towards home, so we weren't sleepy.  XXXXX and I were at the RV's dining table enjoying the scenery as we were driving home, and all of us spotted the creature at about the same time.
 

Description of Creature:  It was jet black, covered with relatively even length hair, and it walked upright the entire time we saw it.  It's head was slightly pointed, and it didn't appear to have much of a neck, and when it turned to look at the RV, it turned it's entire upper body towards us, before swinging away.  It never ran; it was always walking, but at a brisk pace.  It was far enough away by the
time it turned that we didn't get a good look at the face.
 
The sighting lasted about 30-45 seconds, the time it took us to break out into the meadow area and go back into the woodline at the
southern edge.

 It was full daylight in the summer, and the grass was high, up to the knees on a man in the mountain meadows.  However, the creature was walking through the grass, and the grass only came up about halfway up it's shins, so it must have been much larger than a man.
 
The windows were rolled up/closed, so we didn't hear or smell anything, and as XXXXX's parents refused to stop, we didn't see any
other physical evidence of the sighting.
 

Other Notes:     I heard rumors of another sighting by teens in the Showlow area when I was in high school in Prescott a few years later,
but I never spoke directly with the kids from Showlow about what they thought they saw.
 

Additional Notes and or Follow up Comments:  N/A

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