The Telegram, July 2, 1980
Union County, Ohio-June 29, 1980
“We don’t know what is out there, but people are seeing something. You can’t make up that many stories like this,” said Union County officials of the reported Bigfoot sightings in Union County.
Residents of Logan and Union counties have been both bothered and amused by the accounts that the legendary monster has taken up residence here. Those that live in the small towns and villages of these two mostly rural counties joke about Bigfoot’s appearances. But those who live on the farms in the area of the sightings are a bit more cautious. Detective Mike Powers is a local officer who used to laugh about it at first, but now admits “it should be looked into.”
Union County Ohio can be a lonely place, as there are only 28,100 people and 12,000 of them live in incorporated areas. Pat Poling is in his 30’s and has two adolescent sons with whom he had attended a game with. When he returned home, he decided to cultivate one of his corn fields. Pat at one point glanced along his fence line at the edge of the woods, “something caught my eye.” he said.
“At first I thought it was a bear. But it wasn’t no bear.” It came out of the woods and had to duck under a branch hanging out over the fence. Then it stood up. It was about 7 feet tall. But maybe more. I mean, it walked with it’s knees bent a little. It walked along the fence line. It wasn’t like anything I’ve seen before. It wasn’t a monkey or a gorilla or anything. I was really scared at first.”
“But then I figured it couldn’t hurt me as long as I was on the tractor, ” he said. “So I gassed the tractor to head it off, and that is when it turned to look at me. It turned around like this.” Poling crouched, held his hands at his side and turned his whole body. When facing front, his palms were out in a curious gesture almost as though in appeal for understanding. When asked about the gesture, Poling glanced in surprise at his hands. “Yeah,” he said. “Like this, this is how he stood.” Poling said he is most upset because he couldn’t see any facial features, even though he estimated the creature was only about 30 yards away.
Poling has been plagued by phone calls and goaded by radio and television people. He admits he’s tired of the attention.
Donna Riegler is a legal secretary and the wife of the Union County game protector. She was on her way home at 5:30 one evening. It had been a hot, muggy day.
The sky darkened and the rain fell in large drops. “I was in a good mood, and just wanted to get home. I went over the railroad tracks slowly like I always do, as not to knock my wheels out of line. Then I saw this thing laying in the road hunched over. I thought it was a big dog at first, then it stood up and I thought it was a man. I thought he was crazy for laying in the road. I couldn’t figure out why he was there.
She said it was about 60 yards from her and when asked what it looked like, she stood up, bent her knees a bit and then held her hands out in the same gesture of appeal that Poling had. “I was scared, she said. “I was afraid he was coming after me.”
Mrs. Riegler backed her car over the railroad tracks and onto another road. She stopped at a stranger’s house, and admitted to breaking down sobbing. When she collected herself she called her husband.
Both Poling and Riegler are credible witnesses, especially since their stories and descriptions match up so closely with one another.
Fight with a wild man…
This is one of the earliest Sasquatch encounters published in a mainstream newspaper.
The city of Gallipolis is located on the Ohio River in Gallia County. Gallipolis lies 40 miles up river from Huntington, WV, 109 miles Southeast of Columbus, OH, and 156 miles east of Cincinnatti.
January 26, 1869- Gallipolis, Ohio is excited over a wild man who is reported to haunt the woods near that city. He goes naked, is covered with hair, is gigantic in height and his “eyes start from the sockets.” He attacked a carriage containing a man and his daughter a few days ago. He is said to have bounded at the father, catching him in a grip like that of a vice and hurling him upon the earth; falling upon him and endeavoring to bite and scratch him like a wild animal.
The struggle was long and fearful, rolling and wallowing in the deep mud, half-suffocated, sometime beneath his adversary, whose burning and maniac eyes glared into his own with murderous and savage intensity. Just as he was about to become exhausted from exertion, the daughter, taking courage of the imminent danger of her parent, snatched up a rock and hurling at the head of her father’s would-be-murderer was fortunate enough to put an end to the struggle by striking him somewhere about the ear. The creature was not stunned, but feeling unequal to further exertion, slowly got up and retired to a neighboring area that skirted the road.
Published in the Hillsdale Standard, Hillsdale, Michigan
Tuesday, January 26, 1869
Article courtesy of Scott McClean
The young member of a Manitoba homesteading and farming family who shot and killed a Sasquatch in error was a 17 year old youth at the time. He was, however, in his late seventies when he recounted his experience to the author in 1999, vividly recalling his mistake:
It was 58 years ago and I was only 17 years old. It was the first week in November. This was when we hunted the most because by then the meat would keep.
I like to hunt moose and I like moose meat. Eventually I shot way over a hundred big game animals, which also included lots of deer, some elk, and one woodland caribou. Only four or five bears. I didn’t like bears and I didn’t hunt them. But the bigger half was moose. Maybe about sixty, sometimes two or three in one day for the neighbors and ourselves. I started hunting with a .22 rifle when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. When this incident happened, it was the first time I was hunting with my dads 38.55 Winchester.
That day I was hunting northwest of Basket Lake. There is a creek coming in there and it crosses the road. It’s a four and a half to five mile hike into the area. It’s good moose country and good for deer too. It was a cloudy, hazy day with ice crystals in the air and there was a little northwest breeze, not much. Judging from the tracks there were three or four moose out there feeding on willow. Moose tracks criss-crossed the area, as they do in a place like that where they are feeding. You can’t track them there because there are so many tracks.
When I spotted a moose in the willows, I fired, but I didn’t kill it. There was blood, but not much. I followed the blood trail for for about three quarters of an hour in heavy brush. Then I saw a patch of dark fur in the willows, standing still and facing away from me. I said, “that’s my moose!” I aimed right where it’s anus should be. That’s a good shot because the bullet usually penetrates right into the chest cavity if it’s a straight-away shot. I fired and it went down. When I got up to it, what do you think I saw? It was a Sasquatch! I had hit it in the back between the shoulder blades. It was dead, and lying on it’s side. It had long, silky hair, especially on the head and shoulders. It’s hair was dark brown with reddish overtones. It had a slanted forehead, a face like an ape, and a body like a human. It must have come in from the side; maybe it smelled the blood. It had it’s back to me when I shot; if I had seen it’s face I would have known it wasn’t a moose and I wouldn’t have shot it. It must have been bending over because I didn’t see a head.
One arm was under it’s body, but the other one was on top, sticking out and laying flat. It had long, heavy arms; the upper arms were huge. With my foot I turned over the hand I could see. It had a long, broad palm and the fingers were only a third to a half the length of the palm-mine are about the same length as my palm. They were flat and stubby. It’s fingernails were thick, and heavy and rounded. The foot was about fifteen or sixteen inches long. The five toes were pretty straight.
It must have weighed about four hundred or five hundred pounds. It was taller than me (I was five foot eleven then, I’ve shrunk a bit now), about seven or eight feet tall. It was big in the chest-a man’s chest is sort of flattened front to back, but his was rounded. It looked like a very powerful animal-that guy could lift anything.
It was a male, so it had no breasts. I didn’t look for it’s privates. The longest hair was eight to ten inches long; this was on the head and shoulders. It was fine, silky hair like a muskox. It didn’t look like an old one-I didn’t see any gray hair-even a moose will have gray hair when it’s old. I couldn’t see it’s ears;they were covered with hair. It had very little forehead and it slanted back from the eyes. The eyes had heavy eyebrow ridges. The mouth was wide, going up the cheeks quite a bit further than a human’s mouth does, and the jaw jutted out in front of the nose. But it’s chin was rounded, not sharp like a human’s. It looked like the one from the Patterson-Gimlin film-that film is right on-but no breasts. It had a face like an ape and a body like a human and it wasn’t a moose-I wished it was! If I had been hunting legally it would have been different but it was out of season and I had no license. I was kind of scared, as money was scarce-I had a hard time buying a box of shells. I just wanted to get the hell out of there as fast as I could.
I have no evidence, this is just my word. I hunted that same area near Basket Lake many times after that. But the location of where I shot the Sasquatch is impossible to find now. There are no natural landmarks and it has been burnt over two or three times or more. The man wished to remain completely anonymous and had refused to speak to anyone else about his encounter.
Encounter as told to Dr. John A. Bindernagel which is included in his book:
The Discovery of the Sasquatch: Reconciling Culture, History, and Science in the Discovery Process
During the 1700’s, in the Northeast Kingdom area of Vermont, lived mostly woodsmen, trappers, hunters and fishermen and their families, mostly of the Wabanaki tribe. It is told that it was also inhabited by Slipperyskin, a “bear” which is supposed to have caused great misery among the settlers. He earned this name because he managed to elude every trap that was ever set for him. The Indians knew him and called him Wejuk or Wet Skin.
People felt he was a mean animal, and evidently had a grudge against humans. He destroyed their fences, ripped up their gardens, frightened their cows and sheep and tromped through the cornfields…even throwing huge rocks at any machinery left in the fields overnight. Stories are always told of him running on his hind legs and never on all fours. Before a hunter could lay sights on him, the old “bear” would vanish into the woods as silent and swift as a whisp of smoke.
The animal found satisfaction in tipping over newly stacked woodpiles, throwing rocks in hayfields and poking logs into bear traps. The earliest written report of Slipperyskin came from a man named Duluth, who passed through the then unsettled country in 1759. He wrote in his journal that as they made their way, they “were ever being annoid, for naught reason, by a large black bear…who would throw large pinecones and nuts down upon us from trees and ledges, the Indians being also disgusted, and knowe him, and call him Wejuk or Wet Skine.” Into the 1800’s he was still harassing the towns and villages as they were growing in population. Many hunting parties were organized, but always came up fruitless. Eventually, Slipperyskin disappeared entirely, with no one knowing where it came from or exactly what it was.
Source: Vermont’s Northland Journal
