YEAR: 1998-99

SEASON: Spring

STATE: Michigan

COUNTY: Montmorency County

LOCATION DETAILS: About 5 miles south of the town of Atlanta on County Road 480. The corner of 489 and Shoreline Drive (road that goes down to Avery Lake).

NEAREST TOWN: Atlanta / Lewiston

NEAREST ROAD: M-32

OBSERVED: I think it was in the spring of about 1998-99, my ex-husband woke me up at about three in the morning. We lived in Atlanta at the time, which is about half way between Gaylord and Alpena. He woke me up and was visibly shaken, he was saying "Come here to the back porch, you gotta hear this". I went with him to the sliding glass door on the back porch and heard the most God-awful sound I have ever heard in my life. We had 40 acres on a corner lot and this was comming from the state owned woods to our south-west. It sounded like someone or something was dying. It was terrible and it went on every 30 seconds or so for almost an hour. I have heard the other animals in the area before....bobcat, coyote, fox, birds, etc., this was nothing like that! It was very eerie and haunting. Also, that following summer when I was comming home from work, I was comming down one of the many dirt "back roads" to get home and I saw, what at first I thought might be a horse, running very fast through some VERY THICK swamp. I truned to look at it and it was out of sight or had stopped and was hiding. I think it might have decided to squat down and hide once the car stopped. It was HUGE and moving faster than any person or bear could.

ALSO NOTICED: We heard the screaming on a clear and cold spring night. The sighting was on a beautiful sunny summer day.

OTHER WITNESSES: My ex-husband heard the screaming with me. I saw what I saw when I was by myself in the car.

OTHER STORIES: I have heard other people state that they have heard strange "calling" in these woods. Other than that.....nothing, really.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: The screaming was heard in the wee hours of the morning. The swamp sighting was at about 5pm on a bright summer day about 2 miles from where the screaming was heard.

ENVIRONMENT: Screams were heard in heavy hardwoods area of state property. Sighting was in a really thick swamp area.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Don Peer:

I spoke at length with the witness by phone. The incident where she heard the screaming, may or may not be sasquatch related. The home was only a couple miles through the woods from her brief sighting. The sighting occured while she was coming home from work. She was traveling a back way home, on a rather remote, secluded road. At first she thought of a horse while watching the animal running through the woods because of the size and speed it traveled. She then realized what she was looking at was upright and running bipedally. She clearly seen the arms swinging as it ran and could see the legs moving from around the knees up. She had her windows down and did hear one loud crack as the animal apparently stepped on a branch. The witness only seen the animal from a side view but was amazed at how thick the upper torso was. She estimated the height at around eight feet. The color appeared black or very dark brown, but was in a shaded area, so exact color was hard to determine. What impressed the witness most, beside the size of the animal was how fast it was able to negotiate the thick wooded area it ran through with lots of brush and debris. The witness looked away to watch the road for a second and when she looked back, the animal was gone. At that point the witness just wanted to get home, which required traveling through this secluded area and she feared running into the animal again, which she did not.

I recently traveled to the area of the sighting and it is a mixture of thick swampy terrain and thick hardwood forest. It would provide plently of hiding areas, as well as plentiful food sources. It is also in a general area of several other sightings.

Atlana is known as the "Elk Capital of Michigan" because of its famous elk herd in the Pigeon River Region of the northern Lower Peninsula.

About BFRO Investigator Don Peer:

Don Peer lives in northern Michigan and has studied the bigfoot phenomenon all his life. He has attended numerous Michigan expeditions and co-organized the 2011 Michigan BFRO expedition. He is an avid outdoorsman and works for the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Don Peer may be contacted at [email protected]