YEAR: 1982

SEASON: Summer

STATE: Tennessee

COUNTY: White County

LOCATION DETAILS: Approximately 4 miles east of Sparta . There isn't a road to the sighting location. At the time there wasn't even trails. Just forest. The sighting is about a half mile through the woods on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau.

NEAREST TOWN: Sparta

NEAREST ROAD: Old BonAir Rd off of US70.

OBSERVED: I recently ventured across your sight and have been reading sightings for the past several weeks. I downloaded a couple of your sound recordings a couple of days ago....and those sounds made my blood curl. I'd heard very simular sounds before and saw a figure that I've tried ever since seeing to believe was a bear.

I was 12 years old and was goofing off in the woods with an older friend of around 14 or 15 years old. I'd say it was probably around 3 in the afternoon. We had ventured out to a bluff line about a half mile or so behind my house that I had explored many times before. I actually went out there a couple of times per week when I was young. There is one valley area in it that you can basically walk down, but it is steep and rocky. We had clambered maybe 20 yards down when we both saw a huge "something odd" probably 300 yards directly down below us. We hadn't been talking and we both spotted it the same time. We stopped dead and whispered to each other trying to figure out what it was. The woods here are pretty clear of undergrowth and the trees aren't terribly close together. Because of the distance we could really only make out that it was big and very dark in color. Basically a big dot but we could tell that it was moving a bit, more like swaying, but it was stationary. I've got 20/10 vision but it was a good distance away. We first thought it was a cow that had made it up from the pastures probably a mile down below. Then we started thinking it was a bear. We also started hearing a strange, very loud noise that sounded kind of like a freight train horn but weirder coming from below us. We would hear it, then it would stop and then start again. We thought it was unrelated. There were no railroad tracks or roads bigger than one lane backroads anywhere below us, or above us for that matter. Then this thing stood up. We were in shock. We just stood there watching it. It was huge. Then I noticed it was getting bigger. I realized that the sounds were coming from it and it was coming up the hill toward us. We both turned around and I've never ran so fast in my life. I never looked back because I was afraid to see if it was there. I hurdled a woven wire fence on the way back and never slowed down. That fence was over waist high on me. The whole time I was running I just kept thinking that Bigfoot was real and I saw it. I didn't stop until I got to my bedroom and locked my door. My friend jumped on his motorcycle as soon as we got to my house and went home.

My friend called when he got home and all I remember him saying is for me not to tell anyone about what we saw. Well, I was pretty freaked out. For one, we lived out in the woods. This must of been on a Saturday because my mom was home and she kept asking me why I ran home like I did. I finally told her. She laughed at me. She's the only one I told and I think she told everyone she knew. I think all the "adults" got a big kick out of it. The only time I remember talking to my friend about this is when he found out that I had told and he went off on me about it. I guess he knew that nobody would believe us and I think he denied the whole thing. But he knew that something was out there. If he had thought it was a bear he would have gloated about seeing one. Bears are very rare in this area and I've only seen a set of tracks one time. Neither one of us went back to the bluff for a long time, years before I went again. I don't know if he ever went back.

All I could make out of a physical description was a big mass of blackness on legs. It aproached us quickly and was upright on it's legs as it came closer to us. That's the reason I could just never quite convince myself that it was a bear. That and those sounds that it made. It seemed like we watched it for an eternity, but the entire event, from the time we spotted it until the time we ran, was probably about 2 minutes.

ALSO NOTICED: The blood curling howl....kind of like an eerie freight train. I though I heard some branches breaking a distance behind me as I was running away like it was maybe chasing us.

OTHER WITNESSES: 2 of us just goofing off in the woods. I was 12 and my friend was 14 or 15.

OTHER STORIES: Heard stories of a group of campers on the same bluff line about 7 or 8 miles away on the other side of US70 from probably 25 years ago. Something threw rocks at them for most of the night. They all had guns and shot off most of their ammo. The rocks would stop after firing shots, then start again. Haven't heard any recent stories.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Early afternoon. The sky was bright and it wasn't raining is about all I can remember about the weather conditions.

ENVIRONMENT: Very large area, thousands of acres, of unpopulated forest with bluffs, valleys, creeks, caves, and ridges throughout. Fairly rugged areas.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Tony Gerard:

I spoke with the witness by phone. He said the creature must have been squatted down or on all fours when they first noticed it. He could not give an exact size estimate, but noted that "when it stood up it was much bigger than a man". The creature's arms "when down at least over half the body." The sound made by the creature varied in pitch and volume before it began moving toward them.

About BFRO Investigator Tony Gerard:

Tony Gerard is a community college biology professor.

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