; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Monday, December 21, 2020

Dogman / Bigfoot Sightings & Activity Reported in Portage County, Ohio

A Portage County, Ohio woman describes her encounters with a possible Dogman and various incidents involving Bigfoot in her area.

I recently received the following account:

"Hello. I live in northeast Ohio and the area I'm going to tell you about is a country township. There's one blinking traffic light and lots of woods, farms and lakes.

Every night I would take my granddaughter, who was 9 years old, for a ride down all the backroads to see if we could spot some deer. One night we were coming down a road with no houses, as it was with most of the roads around this area. We were coming up on a part of the road that had the back-end of a Christmas tree farm on the right with deep woods and a creek on the left. We were driving slow so we would see a deer if there were any there, since it was a common place to see them.

All of a sudden, from out of the trees on the left, a huge (and I mean this thing was a good 7 or 8 foot long )wolf-like creature came loping across the road not 20 feet in front of us. I say loping because it ran so awkwardly, like it didn't normally move on 4 legs. Like if you or I got on our hands and feet and tried to run. There was something so odd about its back legs. The best way I can describe it was almost like they had an extra bone or joint to them.

I was stopped and staring in disbelief at this point and my granddaughter said, "Grammy, what IS that ?!" Like I said, it was long  black fur, thin but long legged. Its chest was huge like a Pitbull's only much bigger. Its tongue was hanging to the side. I didn't notice any teeth nor did I recall a tail. I was so intent on those back legs! It loped, but pretty fast, across the road and disappeared into the woods. I know it wasn't a coyote and there were no wolves in this area. Now, I'm a country girl. The woods and the beasts in them have never given me any concern. But watching this thing move across the road gave me such a feeling of dread, It actually left me with a kind of sick feeling.  

I have to add that this area is a hotspot for bigfoot sightings. They go back for decades. The house we lived in was surrounded by woods and a railroad track ran through them behind it. About a mile back, there was an old Indian burial mound that only a handful if the old timers knew about. Past this was a bigfoot habitat or hunting area. I say that because they had built an enormous corral out of 20 and 30 foot trees all locked within each other and in a semi-circle. It was marked with a huge X made of giant trees. The back of this area butted up against the very back edge of one of the lakes. There are at least 3 large lakes that all connect and I believe that was how they travelled between areas.

One winter, after a big snow, I had left work and went to my friend's to stay the night. At 6 am my daughter, who was 16 years old, called and told me I needed to come home "right now" to see something. She wouldn't say why I had to get there fast. When I got home she said our dogs, who were in a fenced in area off of the back of the house, had started going crazy that night. She looked out her window on the 2nd floor but didn't see anything and the way the pups were carrying on she was too scared to go outside. Then she showed me the footprints. 

At the base of a huge catalpa tree was the first one, then another about 6 feet from that. They continued like that for a ways and then it had turned and walked to the dog fence. Here the prints sort of shuffled back and forth, and then they continued through the yard and across the road into the woods getting even further apart as it went. These prints had toes. They were not that long, maybe 8 inches, and they were narrow at the heel and slightly wider at the top . there were also very obvious claw prints. Bigfoot or Dogman, I don't know. But whatever it was walked on 2 legs . 

One last thing. I took my granddaughter and grandson for a drive around the lake one night. We stopped because a deer went tearing across the road. It wasn't rut season and I was wondering what scared it, when all of a sudden my granddaughter grabbed my arm and said, "Grammy go go GO!" I looked at the spot where her eyes were focused and there were 2 bright red spots about 10 feet up in the thick brush. I just looked at them wondering what they might be, and then they blinked. That was that! We got the hell out of there. 

This area is in Portage County, Ohio. Near Atwater to be specific. if you check it out on Google you'll see there has been a lot of activity there over the years." M


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