YEAR: 2003

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: May

DATE: 24

STATE: Texas

COUNTY: Van Zandt County

LOCATION DETAILS: north on high way 64

NEAREST TOWN: Ben Wheeler

NEAREST ROAD: high way 64........100 yards away

OBSERVED: May 24, 2003 Saturday morning, about 10:00 A.M. . I was working at my job which is a puppy kennel on the outside of Ben Wheeler Texas. About 11 miles. I was out by the rottweiler kennels. The dogs started barking like they was mad as can be.....this is normal because there is a stray dog that runs around, but they never jump up on the cage. All of a sudden they got deathly quiet. I happen to look out into the pasture that my boss owns, where he keeps two horses. About 80 yards give or take a few was a huge and I mean huge reddish brown man. I mean man because it was covered in what look like fur but it stood on two legs. I couldn't believe what I saw, as a matter of fact I doubted it, so I looked down at my feet and blinked my eyes and told myself I didn't see it. When I looked again it was gone. For a split second I thought maybe I had seen a horse or something and didn't realize it so I walked around to the front and both horses was against a far fence and they wouldn't move when I tried to feed em......normally they knock me over trying to get to the food. I know it wasn't the horses I saw because they couldn't have gotten the distance from where I seen him/her to where they was without running and that would have made some sound and I would have heard that. Now what really gets me is about 2 maybe 3 weeks before I seen it we had a female rottweiler turn up dead. She was chained to the fence about 30 to 40 yards from where I seen it. She had no marks on her. I mean none at all. All she had was a bloody nose. What I seen was reddish brown and best I could tell was about 7 feet tall. I only looked for about a second or two because I couldn't believe my eyes. The whole thing lasted only about 4 seconds. What I mean by that is from the time I seen it to the time I blinked and looked again. It looked like it didn't have a neck, just head and body and long arms and legs. I didn't walk out into the pasture and look for signs and I still ain't yet. I don't think I want to know if there is any tracks. What I saw scared the h--l out of me. I hunt alot but I ain't never seen anything like what I saw that morning. I'm writing this on June 2, 2003....Monday night, just a little over a week later. I told my boss a few days later and they said they ain't seen nothing but the dogs have been barking alot at night. I think I know why.....ok you tell me did I see what I think I seen.....thank you for your time.

ALSO NOTICED: a dead female rottweiler about 2 to 3 weeks earlier.....she had no marks on her body except a bloody nose

OTHER WITNESSES: none

OTHER STORIES: no none

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 10:00 A.M.......lighting fairly good. Weather a few clouds but not many.

ENVIRONMENT: forest

Follow-up investigation report:

James Walker and Daryl G. Colyer conducted interviews with the witness via telephone on separate occasions. This report is an amalgam of those interviews.

The witness stated that at approximately 1000 hours, while he was working, he saw a “huge, reddish-brown thing with long, shaggy hair” standing, looking “at the pond.” The sighting lasted only seconds, because the witness momentarily looked away in an attempt to make sure he was not hallucinating. When he looked back toward the unidentified creature, it was nowhere to be seen.

Even though the beast was gone when the witness tried to reestablish visual identification, the witness was quite certain and confident of what he had seen. The witness stated that he does not care what anyone says or thinks – he is sure that he saw “a bigfoot.” The witness estimated a height of approximately seven feet. He remarked that seeing this creature scared him so much that he carried a shotgun with him for several weeks immediately following the encounter.

As indicated in his initial report to the BFRO, the witness told us that a female rottweiler had been killed in a mysterious manner approximately two weeks prior to the encounter. Having no visible signs of molestation, the dog apparently had suffered from some sort of blunt force trauma to the snout. The witness buried the animal there on the property.

The witness told us that another rottweiler, a male, was found two weeks after the sighting with the same sort of injury. This one was found about 100 yards away from the kennel with a broken chain still attached to its collar. Ostensibly, the chain had been snapped and the dog extracted from the kennel, most likely its assailant dragging it out into the field. Other than the dead dog, the witness stated that he could find no signs of an intruder. The witness buried this dog as well.

The witness apparently tried to talk the owners of the animals into filing a police report on the killing of the dogs, but the landowners declined to do so.

The witness has told us that under no circumstances will the landowners allow access to the property by BFRO investigators. The dogs are not available for analysis because they have been buried. This case is still under investigation, with the hope that we will somehow be able to gain access to the property and conduct a field inspection. A face-to-face interview with the witness is forthcoming. This report will be updated as additional pertinent data is obtained.

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