Former Police Officer Recounts Recent Sighting Experience

I found your article on BF knocking noises very interesting.  I have been
researching dozens, even hundreds of sightings/encounters since October of
last year. 

I am 33 yrs old, have a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice, am a
former police officer. I do not consider myself flaky, peculiar, or odd.  I am
not a "monster hunter", and really just consider myself mildly interested in
the BF phenomenon.....until now.  I really feel like I am a pretty normal
guy.  If anything, I am a natural skeptic, not negative, but because of my
nature and formal training, I make my decisions on "how things are" by the
evidence that is presented.

This brings me to the incident that I experienced last October while camping
with some friends.  I have to back up a little first with a little
background.  I grew up in the 70's and 80's in a small town in western
Kentucky.  I can remember when the movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek" came out
and was the talk for a while.  That is about the only exposure I have had
with Bigfoot.  I must say that I have always been interested in the BF
phenomenon, but have NEVER actively sought after or looked for  this
creature. 

 I have spent a large portion of my life in the outdoors, camping
and backpacking in many different parts of the country, because of this , I
am very familiar with local wildlife.  I do follow alleged BF sightings on
different web sights, and try to determine what actually happened in each of
the different reports--I love a good mystery!  That is really what is behind
the driving force of my fascination with the BF phenomenon I guess.

The second weekend of October, 2000, myself and two friends decided to go
camping at another friends tree farm that we use to camp at numerous times
when we were younger.  We have been camping on and off in this area for 20
years, and know the area  as well as our own back yard.  

This area is  extremely rural. There are farms and houses scattered around the area, but this area is very isolated from any major hub of activity or large community.  I think that is why we like to camp there so much.  We arrived at our camping spot early that
afternoon, about 3pm.  We hiked only about 2 miles from the gravel road where
we parked our car.  

Again, we are very familiar with this area and  have always been at ease in these woods.  It was a typical Indian summer day, but it had been extremely dry.  We cooked on an open fire but were mindful of the possible hazard of starting a forest fire.  

We mostly talked, laughed, and caught up on each others busy lives, and went to our tents around 11pm.  I was in my one man tent alone, and my other two fiends shared a larger tent. Sleep came easy to all of us.  We were tired from the previous work week and the temp. had cooled a bit, making it a very nice night to camp.  

About an hour later (actually it was almost exactly and hour later because my watch
read 12:05am after I was awoken) I was jolted from a deep sleep by someone
walking through the woods in the distance.  At first I thought it was our friend that owned the land, but he told us he would be gone that weekend out of town to a ballgame, but we were welcome to camp anyway.  

As the sound grew closer, it became obvious that whatever was walking toward our campsite was big and was walking on two feet.  It was not crashing or making a lot of
noise, but sort of casually walking toward us with heavy footfalls.  My friends in the next tent had been awoken by the same sounds, but I would not know this until the next morning.  

When the sounds were just on the perimeter of our camp, whatever it was turned and ran in the direction that it came running loudly through the woods, and here is the kicker....It sounded like as it was running it was hitting trees with a baseball bat as it ran through the woods.  I was telling myself while this was happening that it was a deer or something else that was smacking the trees.  I was amazed how much ground this thing covered in such a small time.  I knew this, because I followed the
sound of the smacking of the trees as "it" fled.  And that was it!  There was no vocal displays, or any foul odors that I could detect. 

 I laid in my tent silent for a while, trying to think of all the things that it could have been.  The only large wildlife that are native to this area are deer, and it was not a deer smacking his antlers in the trees, and coyotes.  I am sure it was not a coyote or a dog.  I know how canines move and sound in the woods.  There are no bears, panthers, or any other animals like this in this area of the country.  I did nod back off to sleep finally.  The next morning we all got up, and one of my friends asked if I had heard the racket, and we talked about what it could have been, and came up with nothing.  

It was way to dry to notice any tracks at all.  I finally said it must have been Bigfoot, and we all sort of laughed uneasily, and left.  When we drove by our friends house on our way out, I noted that he had in fact not come back from his trip early, so that ruled him out. I know that this is not much to go on, but out of all my time in the woods I have never experienced anything like this.

It was a mild day (about 70 degrees F) for a high that day, if I remember right.  It cooled down to about 50 degrees F that evening.  It was clear and the air was very dry.  The woods were also VERY dry.  We had a heat wave the end of August and into September, and we really had not gotten much rain after that.  It was so dry, that we almost didn't start a fire to cook on, but decided to and just would watch it closely. 

As far as other encounters in the area goes, as I said, myself and my friends have been going to those woods for 20 years off and on, camping and have not experienced anything like that at all, or had any unusual happenings, as I can remember.  This area is very isolated from much human activity.  

I guess it was the Fall of 1980 that I first camped there.  I am sure it was not a poacher or a bow hunter that approached us that night, I have already considered that.  That does remind me of one fact.  This area of the county is famous for abundant wildlife, especially deer.  Some of the biggest deer in the state have been taken from this region.  This is probably due to the extreme isolation, and denseness of these woods.  There are creeks in these woods.  and contain water most of the time, except during the driest part of the summer.  

I can swear that EVERYTHING I have told you has been completely truthful and accurate, as I remember it.  I have not embellished any part to make this story make more sense.  

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