Class 3a Encounter Report in Palestine, TX, Case #01050005

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Class 1a
Class 1, Corroboration: Reports involving a sighting, and accompanied by another form of support.
1a A sasquatch/bigfoot specimen has been collected (alive or dead).
Class 1b
Class 1, Corroboration: Reports involving a sighting, and accompanied by another form of support.
1b A report investigation results in a sasquatch observation or the documentation of clear tracks or other forms of physical evidence by an investigator.
Class 1c
Class 1, Corroboration: Reports involving a sighting, and accompanied by another form of support.
1c An investigator determines that a visual encounter with a sasquatch/bigfoot by a very reliable observer is a distinct possibility, tangible corroborating evidence is documented, and all other sources can be reasonably ruled out.
Class 1d
Class 1, Corroboration: Reports involving a sighting, and accompanied by another form of support.
1d A visual encounter with a sasquatch/bigfoot is a distinct possibility involving two or more reliable observers, and all other sources can be reasonably ruled out.
Class 2
Class 2, Competency: Reports involving sightings by professionally trained or highly skilled observers.
2 Investigator determines that a visual encounter with a sasquatch/bigfoot is a distinct possibility, the observer is exceptionally trustworthy, professionally trained, and experienced in the outdoors and/or is accustomed to looking for and recording details (e.g., biologist, anthropologist/archaeologist, ranger, trapper/tracker/seasoned hunter, bird watcher, game warden, naturalist, law enforcement), and other explanations can be reasonably excluded.
Class 3a
Class 3, Credibility: Sightings or possible wood ape evidence reported by credible witnesses.
3a Investigator determines that a visual encounter with a sasquatch/bigfoot is a distinct possibility, the observer is credible, and all other sources can be reasonably ruled out.
Class 3b
Class 3, Credibility: Sightings or possible wood ape evidence reported by credible witnesses.
3b Unidentifiable vocalizations were reported and there is accompanying tangible evidence to possibly indicate the presence of a sasquatch/bigfoot, the observer is very reliable, and other sources can be reasonably ruled out.
Class 3c
Class 3, Credibility: Sightings or possible wood ape evidence reported by credible witnesses.
3c No visual encounter occurred, but physical evidence was found to indicate the presence of a sasquatch/bigfoot (tracks, hair, scat, etc.), the observer is very reliable, and other sources can be reasonably ruled out.


Case: 01050005

Class 3a

Deer hunter reports close encounter at night outside of tent.

Report Details

Occurrence date: November/1978
Location: Anderson County, TX
Nearby/Vicinity: Palestine
Time / Conditions: 9pm — Slight drizzly rain. Swampy, lots of farms in the surrounding areas
# of Witnesses: 1

Witness Account:
My friends and I along with one of their teenage sons were in this area on the Neches River deer hunting. It was the 1st week of deer season in 1978, we had been there from the Friday before, almost a whole week. It had been nice hunting weather and I had 2 does and 2 bucks, a 6 point and an 8 point (that was back when you could shoot 2 each).

Anyways, about Thursday afternoon it clouded up and started to sprinkle, but not too bad. We had no problem all week spotting deer and other animals but we didn't see any on that day, so we went back to camp. We sat there and just talked and joked around.

At about 7 that evening or so we noticed we couldn't hear any birds or coyotes or anything - it was just quiet. Now all week long there had been plenty of animals in the area and now there were none. It was just plain eerie.

Then we heard a strange noise. (Don?t laugh) have you ever heard someone try and talk like Donald Duck? Well that's what this sounded like only deeper and then with some high pitched whistles. We didn't know what it was, and just dismissed it.

Since we had been up early that morning we all decided to turn in at about 8:30 or so. Now 3 of us were in sleeping bags on the floor of the tent and one of the guys had brought a cot and were laying on it next to the tent wall. We had been in bed about 20 minutes when he sat up in the cot and said "something just brushed my head from outside the tent." We just said oh yeah right, and laughed at him and laid back down. About 5 minutes later he came up off the cot and yelled "hey something just touched me again!!" So we all pulled our boots on and walked out side the tent. We didn't see anything, but there was this smell in the air. It was like a cross between something dead and a real musky smell. Since we didn't see anything we went back in the tent and back to bed.

After lying there a few minutes I felt the need to go to the bathroom. So I pulled on my boots, grabbed my .44 magnum handgun, just in case, and a flashlight. It wasn't a full moon, but it was bright enough to see where I was stepping, so I didn't turn on the flash light. I walked about 20 yards behind the tent and was relieving myself on a tree, when I noticed I could hear heavy breathing, and felt like I was being watched. So I looked in the area where I could hear the breathing and slowly raised my flashlight and flipped it on.

I nearly fell over...standing not more than 5-6 feet from me was this huge hairy creature. When I turned my light on it, it threw its hands up in front of its eyes, but didn't run. It acted curious about what I was doing. It just stood there looking at me and I at it for what seemed forever, then I got scared. I turned to look back at the tent and I screamed for the others to come quick, and when I turned back to where the creature had been, it was gone, and I could hear it tearing through the woods. The others came running, thinking I was hurt or something, and they could hear it running through the woods too, but they didn't see it. At that moment, I realized I had wet all down my leg, the others laughed at me and poked fun.

I didn't sleep at all that night, just thinking, if that thing could come up on me that quiet what's to stop it from coming into this tent, or the fact that it was so close it could have grabbed me.

Well the next morning the rain started in harder so we decided to go ahead and leave. I walked down to where I saw it and noticed that where it had been standing was in a about a 3 foot creek bed and we had been eye to eye. I'm 5'9", so that thing must have been huge. As I looked I could see where it had powered its way up the other side. To this day I haven't been back in that area.

Hand/foot prints:
I could see where it moved up the opposite side of the creek. It left big gouge marks in the mud and dirt. I didn't measure or anything.

Additional observations:
It was medium brown in color, but I could see skin under the hair, and it was a blackish gray color. It had thin lips, a flat nose and face, large black eyes, with no white that I could see. Its palms were the same blackish/gray color and huge, with really long fingers and the hair came down over its hands. It had hair all over, but it was thinner on the arms and chest area than on the shoulders. Big and wide at the shoulders, hair was matted looking in places. No sounds other than breathing. But I think that's what was making that weird Donald Duck sound and whistling. There was the same musky/dead smell.

Investigator's Observations

Investigator(s): Mike Hall

This investigation was conducted as a result of an incident that allegedly occurred in Anderson County, Texas in the first week of deer hunting season 1978, in the Neches River bottoms just south of Highway 84.

I interviewed this witness, a minister, on two different occasions. He included a great number of details in his description of the subject. The area where the incident is said to have occurred is pure bottomland, flood plain area, with an abundance of dense woods and underbrush. The main body of water in the area is the Neches River which divides Anderson and Cherokee counties. The witness described the conditions at the time as being typical fall weather for East Texas. During most of the week it had been cool and nice, and for the most part clear to partly cloudy. Then about Thursday of that week, it clouded up and began to rain lightly and intermittently.

The witness talked about how many different animals that he and his hunting party had seen throughout the week; on the day of the visual encounter, he seemed to recall little if any contact with wildlife.

The witness strangely described the initial sounds that they heard as sounding like someone trying to talk like Donald Duck but only deeper and accompanied by really loud whistle sounds. These only lasted a short time and not again that night or after the sighting. The witness was unsure of the relevance of these sounds, but did feel they were unusual and therefore may have been significant.

The witness related how one of the individuals in the group claimed that something touched him on the back of the head as he lay on his cot. A short while later, the individual again claimed that something was touching him through the tent wall. The men went out to investigate and detected a strong odor in the air around the camp; the witness described the odor as ?something dead mixed with a strong sweat smell.?

At some point later on, the witness went out to relieve himself at a tree approximately 20 yards behind camp when he saw a large upright figure at close proximity.

The witness claimed that the visual encounter lasted only seconds, but as he put it, "it seemed like forever."

The witness?s description of subject:
Facial features: large, dark, almost black eyes with little or no white at all, thin lips, flat wide nose, cone shaped head with hair coming all the way down to the brow ridge, small close set ears.

Medium brown/rust colored hair, with dark gray/black or charcoal skin, the hair covering its entire upper body (because that's all he could see with his flash light). When it threw its hands up to shade its eyes from his flashlight, the witness noticed large, long fingers and muscle movement of its forearms. The palms were almost black or charcoal in color.

The witness estimated the height of the subject at about 9 feet tall, as he is 5' 9" and the subject was standing down in a gully and they were eye to eye; the gully may have been three to four feet deep. The witness estimated that the subject easily weighed around 500 - 600 pounds given its width and apparent mass.

The subject made no sound other than heavy breathing. The witness said that he never saw it walking or moving away after he screamed for help, but could hear it crashing though the woods and brush. There was a strong odor in the air.

The witness said that he saw marks on the opposite side of the gully, where the subject had powered its way up. The witness did not measure the marks but did remember that they were quite large.

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