DATE:  08/18/99

 
TIME: Approximately  11:00 am
 

LOCATION:  Indiana, Greene Co., Centre Township, Bloomfield, Beech Creek, R.R. 4
 

TERRAIN: Wooded
 

OBSERVED:  At the time was hiking the 1600+ acres my employer owns in the area. Need to mention that I am a voluntary field researcher for the GCBRO. My mind was on timber stand improvement at that instant. As such we were hiking along the banks of Beech Creek. This creek runs east/west through the property. The terrain is rolling hills, made up of mostly hardwoods (white oak, black oak, shag bark hickory, persimmon, spruce, poplar, and dogwood).

The area we were in was in a bottom. Very wet and marshy. Undergrowth was THICK. Visibility was
limited to few feet.

We were taking a meandering path along the creek, as this offered the path of least resistance. About a mile in I started noticing footprints in the creek bed itself. At first I saw nothing unusual about the prints. They weren't large, and appeared to have been left by some animal. A couple of minutes later I did the proverbial double-take. The reason for this was that I saw that the tracks had THREE TOES on both feet. Also of interest was the fact that no claw marks were observed. I climbed down for a closer inspection and saw that not only was I looking at some very clear, very fresh, very strange prints, I observed several that had dermal
ridges on the heels. About that time I was also starting to get that "something is watching me" feeling. I grew up in the woods of rural Alabama, spent countless hours in the woods there and have felt this sensation before. This was strong and almost palpable. I didn't panic, but instead asked my boss to take a look. ( Let me add that he is 180 degrees out from me about cryptozoology.)

He climbed down, took a good hard look, and stated that he had spent many days in this area and had not noticed any tracks like this before. He grew up in the area, and he has hiked every inch of this area.

My boss quickly lost interest, and wanted to move on. Before so I quickly sketched a print, with dimensions. I casually asked him if he didn't find this strange. His comment was that people had been seeing and hearing strange things in the county for years, and that this was no big deal.

To the print. First, it was not large at all. That is why I initially dismissed it. From heel to toe it was only 8-9 inches long. It was about six inches across at the widest part, and three across at the narrowest part. The toes were slightly splayed. The prints were imbedded fairly deep in the mud. For comparison I found a clear spot devoid of prints and stood there to see how deep my prints would be. I weigh 180 pounds and my prints were not near as deep as the others. For those rerading this please note that the spot I stood on also had the same moisture content as the area containing the tracks. If anything it was more moist because it was further
down the bank of the creek.

We continued on for some distance (about 1/2 mile). I saw more tracks. They appeared to be going in the same general direction as we were traveling. All in all I counted about three hundred distinct prints.

We finished our hike and returned to the road to get our transportation. I observed nothing else otherwise reported.
 
 

Description of Creature: None, tracks were found.   From heel to toe it was only 8-9 inches long. It was about six inches across at the widest part, and three across at the narrowest part. The toes were slightly splayed.
 

Activities of Witness:   Ambling along looking at candidate trees for timber stand improvement.
 

long .
Other Notes: Thanks for this report Chuck.  If you can draw up a sketch of one of the prints and send it to me, I will post it with this report on the site.