THE NUMBERS IN BRACKETS ( ) BESIDE EACH REPORTS CORRESPONDS WITH A NUMBER ON THE STATE OF OHIO MAP LOCATED ON THE REPORT. THESE ARE THE LOCATIONS OF THE NUMBERED REPORTS.
The following is a report submitted by Sarah Weiler of Hilliard, Ohio. It deals with a field investigation with Sarah, Terry & Treba Jahn of alleged Bigfoot incidents near Cardington, Ohio in Morrow County.
Sunday, April 24, 2005 – Cardington, Ohio
Terry & Treba Jahn and Sarah Weiler investigated the following incidents. The activity occurred on and around property where one of the witnesses (Josh) rents a trailer, at 4281 St. Rte. 42, just north of Cardington, Ohio. (This is at the southeast intersection of St. Rte. 42 and County Road 125.) Josh Smith and Charles Nash were both witnesses and both were interviewed together on Sunday, April 24, 2005 between 1:00 to 2:30 pm at the site of the activity.
Josh and Charles are between 18 and 22 years old. Josh has lived near this property all of his life. Charles has lived in Cardington all of his life and is currently attending college. The area investigated is rural, mostly farmland, with small copses of trees. There is a small creek behind the trailer and down a slight drop. The day of the investigation was cold and snowy. The ground was very wet and muddy. The witnesses said the creek is currently running high because of the recent rains. Normally, the creek is no deeper than 5 feet at its deepest point.
Evidently, there have been many years of sightings, sounds, and smells in the area. Josh and some other friends had told Charles some stories about the earlier sounds and sightings. Charles thought the friends were joking. The incident under investigation occurred on January 13, 2005.
On the evening of January 13, 2005, Josh and Charles built a fire (in a fire ring) about 12 feet from the trailer. Around 9:30 pm, after the security light had come on, Josh asked Charles to go down the drop-off and get more wood for the fire. Josh had his back to Charles. Charles took a couple of steps down a foot trail and noticed something stand up (or straighten up) from some six-foot tall weeds. (On the map on page 1, a J notes Josh’s location, a C notes Charles’ location, and an X notes the location of the six-foot weeds.) [The map is not yet available for this report on line.] Charles said the thing was human in form, but much larger. The shoulders and head of the thing (hence known as creature) were visible above the six-foot high weeds. The head was human in form but elongated. The color was black. Charles said the creature was “blacker than the dark” and appeared to be slightly hunched over.
Charles, a hunter since childhood, froze for about a minute while studying the creature. He said the creature started lightly swaying back and forth (“like a predator”). While the outline was visible, Charles could not make out any features. Then the creature appeared to raise its head. The eyes were red, appearing to reflect the light of the security lamp. It was obviously not a deer. Charles got Josh’s attention and Josh turned around. At that point, the creature took off and ran to, into, and across the creek. The river only came up to the waist of the creature. The creature got out of the creek on the other side and walked (slightly hunched over) across the field. There were no strange smells. The only noise was the sound of weeds breaking and crunching as the creature ran. Charles and Josh both ran into the trailer.
The next day Charles and Josh searched for tracks. The ground was frozen hard. They found and photographed some tracks. One good track was found in the field across the creek. It measured 18” long, 6” wide at the heel, and 8” wide at the toes.
Since then, there have been incidents of knocking sounds coming from two directions, and howls/screams at night. Josh managed to record some of the howls, but they are very faint. One evening, Josh, Charles, and another friend decided to go down the bank to see if they could find anything. Charles shot off his new gun. Nothing happened. Josh and the friend went into Josh’s trailer and Charles went home. About 10 to 20 minutes after Charles left, something hit the front of the trailer with enough force as to knock it off it’s cinder blocks. Charles and the friend were very scared and left the trailer. The next morning a large cut was found on the side of the trailer. (Sarah, Terry, and Treba forgot to look at the cut.)
Approximately 2 weeks before our investigation, Charles and Josh found a 3” deep track in the mud. When they went to make a cast the next morning, some kids fishing in creek had already stepped in it and destroyed it. This print was smaller than the print found on January 14. They seem to think that there is more than one creature in the area.
The neighbors seem to be aware of something happening in the area. However, they don’t want to talk about it. Some call it the devil or creature of shadows. A couple of weeks ago, one of the neighbor’s Siberian Huskey was beaten to death. This was a fierce dog that didn’t back down to anyone. No one knows how this happened.
There is a 30 minute, 42 second recording of this interview.
In late April of 2005 I along with Terry and Treba Jahn as well as Sarah Weiler went to Alliance, Ohio to speak to an eyewitness of an alleged Bigfoot sighting. Dave (not his real name) reported to Sarah via the Operation Appalachia web site that he had a sighting in mid-February of 2005. He reports that he was heading east on US 62 just leaving the Alliance city limits and entering Mahoning County. It was between 11 and 11:30 p.m. He had just gone underneath a railroad overpass and was accelerating to the posted speed limit of 55 mph. He had just left the confines of the city lights when he spotted something on two legs crossing route 62 in front of him. He estimated that it was between five and six feet in height. I asked Dave if it was on two or four legs, and all three times I asked, he replied by saying “two legs”. I inquired about this because if it had been on four legs, I could have thought it was a black bear crossing the road in front of Dave. Apparently, it was not. Since that day of the interview at a donut shop in Alliance, none of us has ever heard from Dave again.
On May 21st, 2005 Terry & Treba Jahn and Missey Patterson and me were hiking the Morgan’s Knob Trail at Salt Fork State Park. We began our hike around 2 p.m. that day and concluded around 5 p.m. Little did we know a sighting was to take place in the park that very day!
A good friend of mine whom I’ll call “Ted” reported to me that he had heard a woman and her family were cruising the back roads near Salt Fork dam. Around mid-afternoon that sunny and warm day, they spotted a bipedal creature, pitch black in color, walking the hillside across the lake and to the east of Salt Fork dam.
This is really all I know about the sighting as Ted was sworn to keep her name confidential. It should be noted this sighting took place less than a year after the well noted and highly publicized sighting that Mike and Lisa Neilson had at a picnic area on August 18th, 2004.
On June 2nd, 2005, I received an e-mail from a gentleman in Lodi, Ohio with the initials M.J. This man had informed me in the letter that not only had there been unusual sounds coming from his area, but there had also been several alleged sightings of a “shadow figure” or a Bigfoot creature. After exchanging letters with him, plans were made by EOBIC members Terry & Treba Jahn (Jan) to go to the location and interview M.J. I decided to join them at the last minute and we then drove to Lodi on Saturday June 18th, 2005.
We arrived in Lodi around 12:45 p.m. We were to meet M.J. at 1 p.m. at the Lighthouse Restaurant. At 12:55 p.m. a green SUV rounds the corner onto Ohio State Route 83 and here was M.J. We decided to go inside the restaurant and grab something to drink and possibly to eat. After sitting and chatting for around 30 minutes, we then went to the location of two recent sightings.
The first location we went to was along SR 83 in Medina County. A friend of M.J.’s son Stephen was walking down the road in June 1st, 2005 between 2:30 and 3 a.m. He got to a point in the road where a security light on a property to the left brightly illuminated the area. He happened to catch glimpse of a creature that was at the wood line near a tree and was quite tall and covered with hair. A photo of the sighting location is below with the letter “X” at the tree.
The second location was an encounter that took place at Stephen’s girlfriends place. It too is on SR 83. A friend of Stephen was looking down the road and spotted a creature or individual of some type walking upright on two legs north on SR 83. He was able to spot it with the aid of a flashlight.
M.J. also tells me of yet another sighting that took place on June 7th, 2005. This was in a different part of Medina County. It was of a brownish colored creature that walked upright and up a hill. It was estimated to be between seven and eight feet tall.
Stephen also reported to us that he has spotted, on at least one occasion, a set of orange-red colored eyes at least six or seven feet off of the ground. This location being within eye range of the June 1 and June 2 sighting locations.
This is an ongoing developing situation. There may be additional notes added to this report later.
As submitted by eyewitness…
Riding my mountain bike on trails by the wilds on 7/4/05 at 10:30am. First heard hundreds of flies, then I smelled something that stunk. Wasn’t rotten, just smelled. Then I heard the brush break. I looked and saw something 7 to 8 feet tall walking (it was black) around a big tree like it was trying to hide from me. I did not stick around; I got the hell out of there. I did not get a good look at its head, so I’m not sure what it was.
I think it followed me for a short distance as I kept hearing brush on my right. I have not rode there since. Its shoulders and back was huge!
On July 5th, 2005 I received a phone call from longtime friend Janice N. of Coshocton, Ohio. Janice told me that her friend Cynthia (not her real name) had called her in the early morning and told Janice that she had seen something out of the ordinary cross the road in front of her.
Cynthia was on her way home early in the morning. The time was between 5:15 and 5:20 a.m. She was driving her full-size van and was just beginning a downhill part of her trip. The road in the Muskingum countryside was paved. As she was driving she observed a bipedal individual walking across the road from left to right. This took it from a waterway on the left to a pond on the right. When Cynthia got to the spot it crossed, she observed a very distinct trail of water that crossed the road in the exact location the biped crossed the road.
At the site, Richard Myers, Cynthia and me examined things rather well. I discovered a spot where the biped walked into the growth on the right side of the road. I also had Cynthia demonstrate with her hands how wide the trail of wet on the pavement would have been. It turned out that it was between two and a half and three feet wide. This might be an indication of how wide the body of the biped was in reality. I also asked Cynthia to pick out something in the area that was similar to the color of the biped. She indicated something that was dark brown in color. I also asked Richard to go to the spot in the road where Cynthia had first spotted the biped and I had her go to the spot she was. Richard held his hand to the height of where Cynthia believed the top of the biped was. This experiment placed the height of the biped between seven and seven and a half feet tall.
The area is being watched closely by Cynthia as well as others. It also has a history of Bigfoot-related incidents.
I received a sighting of a Bigfoot creature at Salt Fork State Park on the morning of July 16th, 2005. It was observed by Bob of Alliance, Ohio and he writes it here in his own words…
I was at Salt Fork doing a night study. My son had a doctor's appointment at 11:30 the next morning in Chagrin Falls, so I began a nap at midnight. At 5:30AM, the sun was already up, clear sky with a few clouds (high), slight mist on the water, slight breeze from West to East, I heard and looked into two high pitched birdish screams from the woods to the NE and NW. At 5:45AM I headed to the water, south, with Grant to kill the 15min until I needed to head home to be able to get Bobby to his appointment. Home was 90 min away, and the doctors another 80 min on top. Whenever I camp or vacation near water, I always head to the water first thing. To kill the 15 min, I was walking Grant and myself to the edge of the lake. I was watching the ground for broken fishing hooks, et al, and going over my time- table in my mind. The lake was lowered 5 feet a few weeks back due to a problem with the dam. A friend advised me to be careful with Grant as the pre-lake-bed would contain lost hooks. With the gradual shoreline, you could walk 100 ft or more out into what was the lake.
As I approached the waters edge, a herron called-out and was flying to the East. It called again. I thought this odd as it was across the lake from us, and at this distance we were previously never a bother to them. Only if we were on the same side. I was at the waters edge; I looked up and left to spot the Herron flying. I then moved my head from left to right to follow its path. When my eyes reached a point about directly in front of me, I saw a black (rectangular) object come thru what I thought was a hedge. It was the lower left leg, as the next instant the right leg and body of a Bigfoot emerged from the left side of a tree (American Hawthorn). The left foot/leg came through grass/weeds that were about 15/18inched tall. The right leg/foot easily stepped down a 3 foot embankment to the rocky shoreline. The water is usually up close to the top of the embankment. The now exposed shoreline is rock covered and slopes to the new water line. The Bigfoot walked right to left, West to East, at an angle from the woods along the rocky shore line. It all seemed to be in slow motion. But that had to do with my fixation/attention on it. It seemed to raise its thighs higher than we do when we walk or run, then it extended the lower leg out, almost as a stretching motion. Maybe the rocks had something to do with that.
I noticed how much of the shoreline was visible between its legs. It was not thin, nor robust. Built very well like a Football tight-end, very muscular. The hair was black, but not entirely laying flat like it would on a dog for example. Some of the hair stuck outward, giving a fuzzy appearance of sorts. But only a small percentage of hair stuck out. The top of the head came to a point, slightly rounded up to the point. Its head sat on the shoulders. No neck was discernable. It walked with its body from the waist upward at a slight tilt forward. I just kept staring at it. I could feel Grant lean into my leg. Grant made no attempt to move. He sat next to me without moving the entire time. After the Bigfoot took three strides, it was turning its head toward me, my nerves had had enough, and I did a reality check...I closed my eyes real tightly. When I opened them, he was still there. He had turned and was walking to the West. I watched him take four strides and exit to the right of the Hawthorn tree. He walked up and into the woods as easily as someone stepping over a curb.
I'll never forget it. You think about it every day. I do not drive past woods or fields without looking into them for another chance sighting. I was just very lucky, very lucky. If you want to call it luck.
As submitted by eyewitness “J.T.” …
“We were visiting my aunt in Fairfield County over the Thanksgiving holidays. The night of November 23rd, ‘05 (NOTE… Technically it was the 24th as it was after midnight. D.K.) I was awakened by her dog that she had let out her back kitchen door. He was barking constantly at about 2:30 – 3 a.m.
I looked out the bedroom window that faces that same direction. The lawn was lit up by the moon and a neighbor’s light. At the back edge of her property they had built a shelter house. Not far from and to the right of this shelter house stood something that was as tall as the building. I went to the kitchen to help her with the dog. The next morning I looked out and there was nothing standing there. I didn’t tell her because of her age and she lives alone out there.”
J.T. later told me that the distance was about 100 yards and it was estimated that the individual standing there, whatever it was, was around eight feet in height.