We arrived at the Wills Creek area after 10pm and parked in a gravel lot off a dirt road that wound along between the old strip mines. Our group consisted of Jesse and me, Marc DeWerth and “Bigfoot” Dave, plus Mark Maisel from the BFRO. It was pitch black outside and eerily quiet, not a sound to be heard. We exited Maisel’s Jeep and scanned the ridge lines looking for heat signatures of anything that may be watching us. Mark brought his Gen 3 night vision and a thermal viewer which allowed us to see really well in the darkness that surrounded us. The group started walking up the dirt road as DeWerth and I stayed behind to listen for any unusual sounds, we had the thermal viewer and not much else.
Marc scanned all around the ridge lines and trees, nothing, the night was still. He let out a loud Squatch call that pierced through the woods and echoed down the valley. A faint but distinct whoop replied from the north, could that have been the group? We continued to hold our position for several more minutes, then a wood knock rung out from the top of the ridge directly in front of us. Clear as day, “Crack”, another rang out no more than a minute later. “Crack”, again, this time closer. This continued at different intervals for the next 20 minutes or so, 17 knocks total. The batteries in the thermal were starting to run out so we decided to make our way up the road and find the group. Marc scanned the hillside where the knocks came from as we passed using the remaining battery juice, nothing.
We found the group 2 tenths of a mile up the road. They had heard some of the knocks and the reply whoop and they indicated the sounds had come from behind them. The source was somewhere between where we had been and where the group was. They had not made any sounds and were quietly moving up the road during the time we heard the noises. We put fresh batteries in the thermal and headed back down the road. As we approached the hillside where the sounds had been coming from Marc began to scan with the thermal again. He stopped, I could tell he was seeing something. “You see it?”, “There is something laying on the ground up there” he replied. He handed me the thermal and I kept it pointed to the same spot he had it. I saw a large bright white heat signature low to the ground but fairly large. It looked like something big was lying on the ground partially behind a tree. It wasn’t moving but Marc assured me it wasn’t there on our trip up the road.
Mark Maisel instructed us to keep moving down the road. He said it was too dark to try and go in after it and we should see if we can get it to follow us. As we made our way down the road Mark told me about his three rules of Bigfooting.
- Your always walking uphill
- What CAN go wrong WILL go wrong
- Your always on Bigfoot’s time
I couldn’t agree more. The stranger in the woods did not follow us. When we returned the thermal showed no signs of life on the hillside. We heard one last faint knock come from down the ravine on the other side of the road. It was gone.
To be continued…
