; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Monday, June 22, 2020

Possible Bigfoot Sighting Leads to a Frightening Encounter in Central Illinois


A group of friends go exploring in the woods behind the one boy's house and see a large biped figure. Believing that it was a Bigfoot, they venture into the same woods a few years later. This time they are met with a frightening encounter.

The following account was recently sent to me:

"What I'm about to tell all of you is very real. It happened in the fall of 2003 in the area of Clinton Lake in central Illinois and has left a mark on me ever since.

It was a Friday, and the only reason I remember it was a Friday is because I used to have friends over during that particular time on Friday evenings. We used to play video games and other things normal typical teenage boys used to do, but that's neither here nor there. My friends and I were immensely interested in the paranormal. During times of boredom or times of spontaneous adventure, we liked to wonder around the woods behind my mom's house, which is still standing to this day.

These were typical woods. dark, forbidden, and creepy at night. Nothing was ever expected to be seen or heard in these woods. We just liked to scare ourselves. All fun, until after exiting the woods on that particular Friday night in the fall of 2003. As we were walking away from the woods, we saw a dark figure walking in the darkness of a shadow casted by a telephone poll. Not until the figure moved out of the shadow did we see that it wasn't just a random man walking around at midnight. It was something else.

This creature was walking as fast as any human could run. Its giant step span was a dead giveaway. This was not a human. Once we noticed that it was something other than a fellow man or any animal that we've ever seen, we sprinted all the way back to my mom's house.

That was the first and last time I ever seen this creature, but it was not my last encounter with it.

These account, you see, might not be entirely connected. My second encounter with Bigfoot was hard to tell. This time it was 2006 and in the pitch blackness of the woods. The three of us daringly set out to experience the presence of Bigfoot once again. This was not our first time back in the woods since the first meeting nor was it the first time looking for the creature again.

Our group started out as five, but as soon as we hit the woods, two cowardly bowed out. We entered the woods with a flashlight and nothing more. it was the middle of the summer and very dark inside the woods due to the thickness of the brush. We walked rather cautiously for about 20 minutes. we reached deeper and deeper into the woods. Once we came upon a small stream, we heard something ELSE among us.

A loud crash sounded like it was directly in front of us. We were terrified that we had been spotted by whatever was with us in the woods. We all immediately whispered to turn the flashlight off. Standing there in the dark, we heard the noise again. A very loud crash. The sound of something metal hitting something else metal. A very odd sound for it being heard in the middle of the woods.

After about a minute of these loud crashes, the worst thing happened. It got quiet. It was so horrifying standing there in the middle of the woods in the dark. Silent. Standing so very close to this beast. The dead giveaway that it wasn't a human was the piercing low growl it emitted after another minute of silence. We could almost feel the vibration of this creature as it snarled at us. We were that close.

To say that we ran would be an understatement. Totally disregarding the trail, we all split up escaping to the outside. Once we were out of the woods we did not look back. We continued to run all the way home.

This was my last encounter with the creature, whatever it may have been. For the sake of classification, it matched very well with other Bigfoot descriptions, so I decided to call it Bigfoot. As I've said before, the beast in the first encounter could have been entirely different, but the events were so similar. In my mind it was the same.

I have been back to those woods many times after the last encounter, and still have yet to experience anything else. Occasionally we hear noises, but nothing significant enough to call an "encounter." BN

The launch of our newest project has begun! 'Beyond Explanation' is a collection of first-person encounters, directly from the pages of Phantoms & Monsters. Please subscribe & feel free to distribute to your friends and other paranormal enthusiasts. The Facebook page can be found at Beyond Explanation on Facebook - Thanks for your help. I hope you enjoy! Your comments are welcomed. Lon

PLEASE NOTE: In the not so distant future, the Arcane Radio YouTube uploads will be moved over to the 'Beyond Explanation' channel. You may want to subscribe to 'Beyond Explanation' so that you don't miss an episode. Thanks.




'Winged Cryptids: Humanoids, Monsters & Anomalous Creatures Casebook' is now available in paperback & on Kindle


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