Report Received From: The GCBRO Online Report Submission Form.
 

DATE:    1981
 

TIME:     Dusk
 

LOCATION:   Illinois, Vermilion County
 

TERRAIN:    Wooded
 

OBSERVED:    A friend and I had a Bigfoot encounter in summer of 1981 while fishing at (undisclosed location).  It was nearing dusk and we weren't catching anything when my friend said that he felt like we were being watched.  The area we were at was a stretch of a few hundred yards of mud and earthen shoreline, extending back about 100 feet to the beginning of a slow incline dense with trees and foliage.  This was where he felt something was at.  The wind was blowing slightly, and I don't remember smelling anything more than the usual dank smell of Illinois waterways, but when I looked over at the woods I did get a distinct chill.

Thinking it was a deer or something, curiosity got the best of us and we took my big 6 volt lantern over to the edge of the woods.  My friend lifted up the lower branches of foliage and told me to shine the light up the hill to his right.  Nothing.  He then said shine the light to his left.  He stiffened for a second or two, then backed right into me and said let's get the *F* out of here!  Well he was already started towards the car so I didn't argue.  We threw the poles into the open trunk, slammed it shut and sped out Dukes of Hazard style. When we were safely a mile or 2 down the road he said when I shined the light to his left he saw what he thought were 2 tree trunks, till he noticed they were human shaped, had knees, shaggy hair on them, and they started to walk. At that point he staggered into me and we took off.
 

Activities of Witness:   Fishing
 

Description of Creature:  Body obscured by foliage except for legs.  Human shaped, knees, shaggy brown hair.
 

Other Notes:    Roughly 6 mos later, a report approx. 6 mi S of my encounter, of a woman seeing a huge dark furry thing throwing a garbage can 100 feet across her yard, leaving several footprints. Authorities caught some kids with some fake feet a few weeks later but a local hunter offered $1,000 to anyone who could reproduce the original prints he found in the woman's yard.  It remained unclaimed.

As I told people about our story, the inevitable ridicule was punctuated by some very interesting stories.  There were always stories when I was a little kid in the late 60's at my family reunion (at the same state park) of the "werewolf" people had seen in the woods.  I assumed it was just a story my older cousins were telling us to freak us out.  And after I told an uncle about my friend and mine's encounter he told me our own family had a history with sasquatch.  Seems my grandpa, who I never met due to his death in a coal mine accident in 1940 when my dad was only 7, was part of a posse who hunted a "wild man" in the 1930's.  They found several footprints along the river west of town (about 6 miles S of my encounter) leading to a salt mine, one of many that dotted the riverbank, but found no creature.
 

Additional Notes and or Follow up Comments:  Upon contact the witness had no additional information to add to this report.

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                  Gulf Coast BigFoot Research Organization (G.C.B.R.O.) and or the original submitting party.
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                  the Gulf Coast BigFoot Research Organization (G.C.B.R.O.) or the original submitting party.