Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I was five in 1972 when I had my first encounter in Hobart, Indiana, which is in northwest Indiana. Northwest Indiana is typically thought of as being industrial because the large US Steel plant is located there in Gary but, toward the east and south of Gary, the neighborhoods were a lot smaller than they are now and very woodsy.

As a child, I typically canoed, fished or skated on the lake in the backyard, and roamed the forest around my home in Merrillville, a small township right next to Gary and Hobart. I was comfortable in Nature and could spend hours examining tree leaves and flowers, and was fascinated by birds and hunting for Potawatomi arrowheads; so, the woods were my perfect place and I always felt safe there.

On this particular Spring day, I was visiting the son and daughter of my mom’s best friend who lived in Hobart. I know it was March, April or May because it was tornado season and a storm had just recently passed through a nearby town. We were far enough away not to get anything worse than a heavy rain and hail but close enough to see the wide, dark funnel making its way along the horizon. After the rain stopped and the tornado watch was lifted, Laurie, Robby and I went outside to survey any damage left by the storm, find hailstones and have fun running barefoot through the big puddles that were leftover. We eventually made our way to the neighborhood’s elementary school and the woods that bordered its playground.

Of we three, I was the youngest (5) and smallest and so I was always last or trailing a little behind; plus, Laurie (11 or 12) and Robby (9 or 10) were siblings, and kind of an automatic team, with me being the third wheel. Laurie and Robby were also more rambunctious than I was and, truthfully, mean spirited; so, I was always a bit anxious to be out of sight or earshot from adults when I was with them in the event that they would take the opportunity to pick on or make fun of me, which they often did. So, I was already a little anxious, but when Laurie announced that we were going into the woods, that anxiousness ramped up very quickly and got stronger with every step toward the treeline. Once we were inside the treeline, I calmed down a little but was still on alert in case they might turn on me.

We weren’t that far inside the treeline when we came to a little creek whose water was running fast from the rain and was still pretty cold from winter. Laurie and Robby were standing in the creek but it was too cold for me, and I wanted to stay back from it a bit so I could hear the sounds around me better; I was still wary from being in Laurie and Robby’s unsupervised presence, but now I was also nervous about not being able to hear over the creek. Furthermore, Laurie and Robby began getting boisterous after discovering that leeches had attached themselves to their legs and feet, and their laughing and shouting made it more difficult to hear anything around me which, for some reason, made me very nervous. I was ready to bolt for any reason I could think of while standing on the creek’s edge and I tried to calmly tell them that we should leave so they wouldn’t see how scared I was and purposefully find reasons to stay; that was how they were. Neither of them paid me any mind and Laurie said something mean as they continued to focus on picking the remaining leeches off Robby’s legs; so, I started to cry because I was really scared and didn’t know my way back to Laurie and Robby’s house.

Laurie and Robby thought I was crying because of what Laurie said and started in on me, and I turned to my left to get ready to walk out of the woods by myself when I glanced upstream and stopped. Upstream about 50 yards there were three dark rocks near the creek: a small, round one right near the creek’s edge; another larger round one right next to the small one; and a third larger, taller rock—that, if it was a rock (but what else could it be?), was shaped more like an obelisk than the two other round rocks before it—that was behind the other two and next to a tree. I didn’t remember seeing the rocks when we walked in and didn’t feel particularly nervous about them but they were out of place because all along the creek and in the general area, there were no outcroppings, hills, quarries or anything that would give rise to these large rocks being there. Laurie and Robby looked where I was looking and decided the rocks were nothing to be concerned about. They picked the last biggest leech off Robby’s leg and were feigning like they were going to put it on me when I startled back and looked to my left upstream again. This time, there was only the tall obelisk-shaped rock by the tree and its shape had changed as if it had moved. Laurie and Robby looked where I was looking and noticed there was just one rock upstream also, and we were confirming with each other that there were three (right?) and now there was one, while still looking upstream. Now, I’m feeling like we’re in real danger because whatever those dark shapes were (bears?) they are obviously some sort of animal because they had moved and two of them were now unaccounted for; so, I turned to look at Laurie and Robby and they looked at me, and I said, “We have to leave.” Then, we all looked back upstream again and the tall obelisk-shaped rock was gone and we stood still, talking about what we were seeing as we surveyed the surrounding area without moving anything but our eyes. Laurie said she thought she saw a sliver of the dark-colored rock along the side of the tree it used to be near as if it was now behind it, and we all looked while standing still at that tree along its length. I was looking at the edge of the tree that was nearest the creek from the ground up to where the top of the dark obelisk-shaped rock used to be—about four or five feet—when I thought I saw something move along the edge of the tree trunk in an upward motion. I didn’t move and kept looking where I saw the length of movement and I knew without looking at Laurie and Robby that they’d seen some movement too because they were whispering—too loudly—and I told them to shut up. I knew there was something behind that tree and I was trying to look slightly off to the side of its trunk and focus on the tree trunk’s edge when, two or three feet farther up the tree, a dark, round shape like a head poked out from around the tree trunk very quickly, so quickly that I doubted that I’d seen anything at all.

Then, as I stood there not being able to move, whatever was behind the tree leaned around slowly for another look at us and stayed there, watching and, seemingly, unafraid. I know I was looking at this creature’s face, left shoulder, torso, left leg, arm and hand, which was on the tree trunk as if for balance while it leaned around the trunk from behind it, but I was so scared that I was blinded and deafened; I, literally, didn’t remember seeing or hearing anything until arriving back at Laurie and Robby’s house. I knew I ran, that’s all.

Later back in the safety of Laurie and Robby’s home, we discovered that we’d all reached the same conclusion at once that the movement we’d seen along the tree trunk’s edge was that “rock” standing up to its full height before it peeked around the tree at us. We all were scared still and what caused us to finally bolt was that, whatever it was standing up and peeking, half-hidden, from around the tree began to quickly squat back down, and we couldn’t tell what it was going to do. We thought it might be preparing to run at us.

We all bolted and I had head start because Laurie and Robby had to jump out of the creek and I was already on its edge, but I never saw them until we were a good distance from the woods and well into the neighborhood, then I followed them back to their house. We ran all the way there. The adults half-listened, really didn’t believe our story and dismissed it as possibly being bears. We three never discussed it again.

Now that I think of it, though, where did the three things disappear to? The woods we were in weren’t really thick and were easy to see through for a good distance. Most of the trees weren’t very large, either. How could three dark-colored beings in a forest where all the trees were still bare move around and all remain unseen? And how could they hide behind the trees that weren’t very big?”