YEAR: 1997/1998

SEASON: Fall

STATE: Michigan

COUNTY: Oscoda County

LOCATION DETAILS: m33 north from rose city to hughes lake road (pink store on the corner)east to a trail that turns into deckerville road. unsure of the number. at the edge of a place the older locals call grandview valley.

NEAREST TOWN: rose city/lupton

NEAREST ROAD: hughes lake road/deckerville road

OBSERVED: i had a friend who lived a few miles away. one night when he was out of town his girlfriend at the time and her daughter, called and said that their dog had a seizure and wouldn't let them out of the bedroom. she had called him and he told her to call me. i had a friend at the house at the time and we went over. by the time we got there the dog had calmed and i helped her feed him and lock him in another room. my friend and i decided to go home through the woods. we traveled up to the end of beechwood road and turned to go on hughes lake road. we turned off of that road to go to deckerville road and as we turned a corner my headlghts caught a large dark object "run" across the road. it acted as though it was trying to figure out which way we were coming from or it didn't hear us until that instant. it seemed as though it turned from us to the direction it was going into the woods and with just a few long strides it was gone. it was very large, tall and dark brown. i was sitting in an s10 blazer and was looking up at it at a distance of maybe 40 to 50 feet. it took a second for me to gather myself but i asked my friend if he saw that and he said yes. i stopped and began to backup to the spot and he asked me what the hell i was doing. i wanted to see a track or something to help explain this. i thought maybe a bear was standing trying to see where we were coming from and ran off on it's hind legs. the ground was frozen and the s10 didn't even leave tracks. bears usually drop to all fours to run and they have short front legs that don't "swing". i thought maybe a deer had been wounded and learned to run upright, but this thing was just too massive. my friend told me you know what it was, even if nobody believes it. i suppose he's right.

ALSO NOTICED: the reseason my friend reacted the way he did was because he had a prior experience that he never admitted to until that night. he reacted physically as well as verbally when i stopped to back up. he didn't lash out, it was more panic.

OTHER WITNESSES: my friend and myself. we had been watching TV and then rescued the two damsels in distress.

OTHER STORIES: three. 1. my cousin saw something when hunting. he won't tell me the whole story but he won't go back there either. 2. the prior encounter my friend had who was with me that night. he was hunting on family property when he saw "a man wearing fur" leaning with his head against a tree limb. he spoke to tell the guy he was on private property and it seeemed to startle him awake and he ran off over the hill farther onto the property. my friend walked to the tree to see were he went and realized the limb was "about 10 feet up the tree" he ran home dropped his gun in the process and sent his father and uncle to retrieve it. refused to do it on his own and hated to be alone on the farm after. 3. neighbors were building a house and were clearing some land in a stand of birch trees near a swampy area. my neighbor took a friend of his out to retrieve something from the sight one night and a birch log flew out in front of the truck they were near. they assumed the top of a tree had broke off but the next day none had. the log and a stone near it they believed "flew" out there when they were leaving took both of them to carry off. they told the neighbors father what had happened and they went back out another night. i heard the father saw eyes high off the ground and thought an ostrich had escaped someplace. i later heard that they saw whatever it was turn from them and run down into the swamp. this all was supposedly reported to the DNR. i've never heard it mentioned again. it seems that everyone around here has something they can't explain. feelings of being watched in the woods, or sounds, or things they have seen or heard about. i also used to work in the Rifle River Rec. Area and have heard stories about there. i am an avid outdoorsman, orv and snowmobile operator, an eagle scout, camper and have property in the area and know all the trails from lupton, rose city, mio and mckinley areas. i own a jeep and offer any help i can provide. i will also take you to the three sighting locations i mentioned hear if needed. maybe all four if i can get my cousin to open up more and go back.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: late night, by headlights. it was cold the ground was frozen but there was no snow.

ENVIRONMENT: hilly pine forest dotted with numerous swamps.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Don Peer:

On 9/29/09, I spoke with the witness. He went over his story, and repeated everything as he stated above. He was impressed with the speed and sheer size of the animal, which he estimated at around 9 feet tall. He said the entire encounter only lasted a few seconds. The friend who was with him was quite nervous, as he had an encounter with the same type of animal a few years before. During the previous encounter, he thought that he was looking and talking to a person in a fur coat, until he realized the sheer size and height of the thing, after noting that the branch it was leaning its head on was around 10 feet high.

This occurred in an area where several other sightings have been reported over the last couple of decades.

This area is part of the Huron National Forest, with several small lakes and creeks in the area. It is also not far from the Au Sable River valley.

Deer, bear, and many types of small game are plentiful in the area.

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]

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