Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “Hi Wes, I had an encounter back in 1982 in Rock Creek Ohio. I was only 10 years old at the time.

It occurred alongside a set of abandoned railroad tracks which ran parallel to the Smith & Wesson plant where my dad worked. The plant owned all the property going all the way to the tracks, and they gave my dad permission to cut wood. We had a wood stove for heat at that time. It happened on Saturday, August 21st. around 1:00-2:00 in the afternoon.

I’m positive of the date because there was a TV movie of Flash Gordon on that night which I was so excited to see. I had been waiting for several weeks like it was Christmas. I checked the date on IMDB. It also checks because we would always go every weekend August-October so we’d have enough wood to last November through spring.

My dad had already cut down several small trees, and was chopping/splitting logs into smaller pieces which I would carry back to the truck and stack in the bed.
He usually did that so we could fit as much wood in the truck as possible. I had just taken a load to the truck and was walking back to my dad’s location, when I just happened to look up and saw this large creature peeking out from behind a tree, watching me. It was so close…probably only 20-30 feet away. I froze instantly. It scared the absolute crap out of me. I didn’t know what it was…I wasn’t thinking Bigfoot for sure.

In my ten year old mind, I just thought it was some kind of monster. It’s hair was very close in color to Chewbacca. It had lighter colored skin, and it seemed a little bald on top.

I don’t know exactly how tall it was, but it was taller than my dad, and he was 6’4″ I’m not sure how long I stood there, but I let out a pretty loud scream, and took off running towards my dad’s location.

I think my scream scared the creature too because it took off in the opposite direction immediately. I honestly don’t remember much after that, as I was out of breath and rambling to my dad. He never saw or heard anything and just laughed it off. Told me I was imagining things and threatened to take away my monster magazines and comic if I didn’t knock it off.

I’ve never forgotten that day, and I still wonder exactly what I saw.
The tracks are now gone and it’s a 44 mile long paved bike trail called the Western Reserve Greenway Trail.

I went back there a couple years ago with my wife. We walked back in to about the same spot where my dad used to cut wood. I still got very uncomfortable being there. We noticed it was very quiet. No bird sounds, no bugs or frogs…nothing. We didn’t hang around long. I have to say we walked back to the car at a much faster pace than we walked in there.

One thing that has occurred to me looking back now as an adult, my dad’s wood chopping did sound an awful lot like tree knocking. Maybe the sound is what attracted the creature to check us out.”