Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy

Investigator's Comments

Mike Mayes

This investigation was conducted as a result of an incident that allegedly occurred in Hardin County, Texas on 24 November 2004.

I spoke to the witness at length after he had attended a TBRC meeting in College Station, Texas. The witness was interviewed in a face-to-face setting at the meeting by Daryl Colyer and several other TBRC investigators.

The witness told of a time when he was deer hunting on property belonging to a private hunting club in Hardin County. The location was near Silsbee, not far from the Big Thicket National Preserve unit known as the Turkey Creek Unit and about one half mile from Village Creek.

The front edge of a cold front was just arriving at the time of the incident and the weather had turned cold and a light rain had begun to fall.

The witness had driven his ATV out to his deer stand which sat on an old fire/logging road. The witness had arrived at the stand at approximately 3:00 P.M. and had been sitting quietly for over two hours without seeing any deer. At approximately 5:15-5:30 P.M., just before dusk, the witness heard a loud roar just east of his location. The witness was understandably startled and turned to try and identify the animal that was vocalizing; however, he was unable to see anything in the thick brush east of his blind.

Meanwhile, the vocalizations continued. In addition to the roaring, the witness described hearing screaming, whistling, deep growling, and what he described as a sound “like someone stomping their foot.” Shortly after the vocalizations began the witness saw several young pine trees being violently shaken. The trees, according to the witness, were seven to eight feet tall. Again, the witness could not see what was vocalizing or shaking the trees. The witness said he was absolutely terrified and wasted no time getting out of his stand and onto his ATV in order to vacate the area.

The witness has been an avid hunter for over 40 years and knows the sounds of the woods. He claims to have never heard anything like he heard that day before and has heard nothing like it since. The witness still goes hunting but admits to being “much more wary and a bit uneasy out there.” He believes all the vocalizations he heard that day were produced by the same individual. While he never caught a glimpse of the animal he is sure it was quite large and heavy. He bases this assumption on the volume of the roaring and screaming and the “foot stomping” noises. He also mentioned that he sat about ten feet off the ground while in his blind and the animal seemed to be right at ear level. He feels quite sure that he did not encounter any known animal that afternoon.

I find it unlikely any documented animal known to live in the area could have been responsible for the vocalizations and tree shaking this witness experienced. The entire incident is very similar to intimidation displays of the known great apes. Similar intimidation tactics have been reported in conjunction with alleged sasquatch encounters before. It is possible the witness was on the receiving end of just such an intimidation tactic in this case.

Our evaluation of the witness is that he was truthful in his account of the events; we could discern no signs of deception. His description of events fits within the parameters of classic great ape intimidation behavior. We found the witness's description of “foot stomping” noises to be particularly interesting. The witness was not too proud to say that he was extremely scared by what happened and he got out of there as quickly as possible. Although his report involved no physical evidence, due to our evaluation of finding the witness completely reliable, and due to the ruling out of known indigenous wildlife as being responsible for the unnerving vocalizations and foot-stomping noises, and particularly the violent shaking of the pine saplings, we have classified the report as a 3B.