On May 3rd, while the Creature Weekend conference was in full swing there were some fisherman out on Salt Fork State Park lake, not looking for Bigfoot, but that is exactly what they caught.
Here is the video of the fisherman’s encounter provided by Abe Del Rio.
The hour was late so Abe, Eric Altman and Walter Tippie agreed to meet at 5 am at the point on the map the fisherman provided.
The next morning, May 4th, Walter arrived at the rendezvous spot at 5 am. He waited in the car until about 5:30 and with no sign of Abe nor Eric he decided to head out on his own figuring the guys would catch up with him once they got there.
Walter had proceeded about a quarter of the way down the path when he heard a mumbling conversation. He scanned the ridge and noticed 2 dark figures walking and “talking” amongst themselves. He saw solid black and assumed it was Abe wearing his MN.B.R.T. t-shirt. He then yelled out “Hey guys wait for me!” and struck a nearby tree with his walking stick. At that time he noticed the two figures hastened their pace and Walter yelled out, “Ha ha very funny guys!” It slowly began to dawn on Walter that he was not observing Abe and Eric, but 2 Sasquatch. He then took off as quickly as he could up the hillside, trying not to lose his bearings. The creatures were moving fast! He attempted to snap a picture from his cell phone and this is what he captured:
He saw the creature turn it’s whole upper torso to look back at him. He described the hair as jet-black, shiny and well-groomed. He didn’t notice an odor, but he did observe some sort of conversation taking place between the creatures.
Here are Walter’s very own words on the event: I just wanted to let everyone know that I had my first sighting of a bigfoot!!! When we were at the show a man came in pretty shook up and and he was telling me and Abe Del Rio, Eric H. Altman that he was at salt fork for a bass tournament and saw something on the bank that him and his friends thought was a bear. But then it stood up and ran and hit a tree and ran up a steep hill!!! So Abe got a map and the man showed us where he saw it. So there were about six of us that were going to meet at the site at 6:00am. I got there at 5:00am and waited until 5:30am then I set off on my own. I went about a mile on the trail then the sun started to come up. Then I saw two deer running on the right side of me that was awesome! Then I kept walking and I thought I heard someone talking but could not understand them this is what made me look up on a tall hill and I saw two things walking I thought it was Abe and someone else. I had a walking stick and I hit it on the tree and yelled hay guys and then they started to walk even faster I said very funny guys! When I made it up on the hill I thought there would be a trail because of the way they were walking like there was one. But there was no path and after I got up there the size of them that I was judging them by a tree that they walked by these were huge!! I called up to Abe’s room and he said that they decided to go out that night instead of waiting till morning but did not see anything! I was in the woods for three and a half hours and taking pictures! When I got back and went through the camera pictures I was shocked that I got a picture of both of them in the same frame the picture is awesome I will be downloading them all sometime tomorrow!!!!!
I met with Walter this past weekend to interview him about his sighting. I found him to be very believable and he has become almost obsessed about seeing them again for self validation. He has been traveling the 6 hour round trip to Salt Fork every weekend.
Wednesday night I had received a tip from Eric Altman of the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society. The report was coming from an area about 2 hours away from me and he couldn’t get to it and asked if I wanted to take it over. I said heck yeah and I called the witness with the number Eric provided.
The witness claimed he was out in the field walking his dogs when the dogs became frightened and bolted back to the house. He saw a large ape-faced beast pacing back and forth just behind the pines that stood between him and his home. He finally got the courage to pass and ran into his house and locked the door. He then proceeds to tell me that the creature was throwing gravel at his window and slapping the house.
As we spoke on the phone I could hear real panic in his voice. He pleaded to me “I just want someone to believe me, that I’m not crazy”.
I then decided that I would leave work early on Friday and head down to Mansfield. I sent a message to my friends Mark Maisel and Marc DeWerth that I was following up on a hot tip. Mark Maisel said that he had also gotten that lead from a phone call that the witness made to the B.F.R.O hotline and I asked him to join me. Maisel then invited DeWerth and DeWerth invited Sonya Horstman and just like that, in a rare Kumbaya moment we had a wonder team with representatives from the B.F.R.O. the O.B.O. and The Bigfoot Field Reporter.
The next night I decided to give the witness a call just to check on him and he answered right away panicking and telling me that there were now 6 of them and one had a baby on it’s back! Ummmm. Yikes. The warning bells rang. I sent a text message to the others and we decided that we still had to follow through with the investigation.
I loaded up my gear on that gorgeous Friday morning, the weather was perfect, I was going on an investigation and I was leaving work early! Doesn’t get better than that!
I picked up Maisel and we headed down Mansfield way. For 2 hours I put the screws to Mark, grilling and interrogating him until I learned so much about the B.F.R.O. that Moneymaker might have to kill me. (just kidding) Seriously Mark has a wealth of knowledge not only about Bigfoot but human nature and life as well. The miles flew by and we rendezvoused with DeWerth and Sonya then proceeded to the address.
The property was situated upon acres of farmland with plenty of water sources and a nearby forest.
When we pulled up the driveway, we noticed no one was home. Oh no. I quickly placed a call and he replied telling us that he was 3 minutes away and he instructed us to stay in the car because his dogs would attack us. We had already been milling around dodging the hundreds of carpenter bees and there were no dogs outside. Interesting. We did hear dogs barking on the inside of the house.>
He then came screeching up the driveway, jumped out of the car and rushed past us without any acknowledgement then said “Follow me, let’s get in the house”. We all looked at each other quizzically but did as we were told.
He was about 6 feet tall, early 40′s very thin with a gaunt face. He was in a highly agitated state and just began a continuous rant, he still hadn’t even let us introduce ourselves, we have been with him for about 3 minutes at this point and we all knew that we had just driven 2 hours to entertain a mad man. He had a water bottle in his hand and he kept tossing it back and forth from hand to hand ranting about how we could go and investigate after the reporter got there and how he was finally going to be rich and that he was splitting his wealth with the reporter. Ok, time to go. We nervously eyed the shotgun on the table and asked if we could go outside and have a look around. He then led us out the sliding glass door and he proceeded to point out the “footprints” he had found. There were no prints, merely matted down areas in the grass and the ornamental wood chips. Sonya wandered to the edge of the property along the tree line and he became more agitated and demanded that she get back and stay with the group, she asked him “Why?” and he said “because they are right there and I don’t want you to scare them away!” to which DeWerth comically inquired “They’re right there?” and he said “Yes” and he grabbed my left arm and urged me “see him? he’s right there! he’s looking at you! He’s beautiful!” and I was like, whoa.. During all of this Maisel is observing the man quietly, intently refraining from engaging him.
The witness then became more agitated with Sonya and demanded that we all gather and stay on the back porch. He entertained us with the follies of his Bigfoot family earlier that afternoon. How they played on the hillside and ate all of the apples, pears, oranges and bananas that he placed out. Then 2 boys with knives come around the corner onto the porch and the one boy says “mom says I have to come get my gun back” then him and the boys go into the house and leave us on the porch. I said he appeared to be on meth and Mark thought he had schizophrenia or was bi-polar and as we were discussing this, I realized that he had separated us from our unlocked vehicles so Marc and I disobeyed and left the porch and as we rounded the corner we walked past the witness peering from an open window with binoculars.
We had been there about 15 minutes by this point.
We got to the cars and came to the mutual agreement that we needed to get out of there now and especially before this reporter from the Mansfield newspaper arrived. We had to wrangle up Sonya and Mark but Mark wasn’t answering his phone! Then I saw another car coming up the driveway. I said “oh no it’s the reporter! We have to get out of here now!”
Too late. The reporter, an elderly gentleman with a very fancy camera and credentials got out of his car and approached us. He asked Marc if he were the witness. We both just laughed and told him, “oh no, you are in for a real treat.” He then said, “Oh he called you all in too? I thought he was splitting with me 50/50.” We laughed and then the witness came flying around the corner of the house and approached us and said to me, “that woman on your team doesn’t believe me that there are Bigfoot here so you need to pull her now!” Then he stormed off and we wished the reporter good luck as he solemnly followed.
Finally we see Mark and Sonya surveying the tree line and corn field and I yell out that we have to go…Mark made sure to cover the B.F.R.O. logo on his shirt as he passed the reporter.
Elapsed time of “investigation”, 20 minutes.
We then jumped in our vehicles, gravel flying and as we exit the driveway we get waived down by an 80 year old man on a riding lawn mower. Now What???? This trip just keeps getting more interesting. We pull off to the side of the road and he rides up to us on his tractor. He asks us, “What the hell is going on up there? That’s my daughter’s house and she’ll be home any minute and I want to know what’s going on.” As we describe the events that were claimed and what we experienced, the old man slowly hung his head and shook it back and forth. Within minutes we see the reporter’s car zooming out of the driveway and he get’s waived down by another neighbor! Then a third car comes down the driveway and it is the old man’s grandson. I guess we provided some brief entertainment to that rural community.
We asked if the witness uses drugs or alcohol and the old man claims that he wasn’t aware of any problems. We thank him and apologize for the excitement and wish him well.
This was by far the quickest and craziest investigation I have ever been on and Mark rates it as one of his top 5.
We then headed to Applebee’s for a bite to eat and to decompress. Laughs and good times, we decided not to let the trip go to waste and headed out to Mohican park for some hiking.>Mark and Marc
At 7:45 I had to wrap it up because I had a 9 pm radio show to do with Jay Cooneyhttp://bigfootfieldreporter.com/wordpress/2013/02/18/cabelas-strange-rare-and-unusual-sightings-weekend-2/ and I wasn’t going to make it!
I called my research assistant Gabrielle Cole and asked her to set up the studio and patch me and Jay through and I would take it from there. This was Jay’s first radio interview and I wasn’t going to cancel on him! Gabby came through like a pro and managed to get the show to start on time, patch us in and away we go! 70 mph hour on the freeway at 9:00 at night while trying to concentrate on doing an interview is not an easy task, but somehow I managed to pull it all together without killing Mark Maisel. The interview flew by as quickly as I was driving, Jay was a bit nervous but you can’t blame him! He’s 15 and fabulous!
I’d like to thank Eric Altman, Marc DeWerth, Mark Maisel and Sonya Horstman for the support, friendship and education they provide me.
Thank you Gabrielle Cole for all of your hard work and dedication.
Bigfoot research doesn’t always have to have competition and rivalry. We are all striving towards the same goal and when we work together we can accomplish great things!
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