Bigfoot in Illinois

Bigfoot in Illinois is an article posted on the Prairie Ghosts website. After reading about the Illinois sightings, I believe there’s an infestation of Bigfoot in that state. Actually, from Bigfoot’s point of view (and he was here first, right?) there’s probably an infestation of humans. The run-ins people have had with a huge hairy creature there give me the impression that he’s so used to being around people he’s become very curious and takes risks on being seen.

This is a heavily populated state but still, Bigfoot has been seen in various parts of central Illinois including Effingham, Decatur, Clinton, Pekin, Peoria, and Farmer City; south to Centreville (and St. Louis,) Murphysboro, Enfield, and Chittyville, and north to Elizabeth. There was even a sighting in Westchester, Cook County! Weldon Springs State Park and Shawnee National Forest are sighting locations. Most recently, in 2000, there was a sighting in Essex. So if you’re in Illinois, by now you probably feel like you’re surrounded by Bigfoot encounter locations. Perhaps many of the sightings are of one rogue, lost Bigfoot roaming through Illinois, not knowing how to get out of the populated areas. Or… maybe there’s nests of them here and there with entire family groups.

To the man who emailed me on August 9, 2009 about finding Bigfoot footprints near Murphysboro, Illinois… yes… they’re in Illinois and at least one has been seen in Murphysboro before! Here’s another link on the same site with more information: The Murphysboro Mud Monster.

Bigfoot in IllinoisI looked on Google Maps for all these places. I saw how skimpy the wooded areas of the state are. I can only feel sorry for the poor Bigfoot who is trying to maintain cover when there are so many people all around.

One strange sighting was the Cole Hollow Road Monster, nicknamed Cohomo. Starting in May 1972, in East Peoria, there were multiple sightings of a tall white hairy being suspected of living beneath an abandoned house. On May 25 the police took over 200 calls from people who had spotted Cohomo.

One man said he spotted the creature nearby in Fondulac Park and stranger still, said that “a set of strange lights … seemed to descend vertically and land behind some trees.” Hmmm…

The last sighting of Cohomo was on July 27 that year when two people said they saw him swimming in the Illinois River. The site says, “They got close enough to him to know that he smelled awful and looked like a ‘cross between an ape and a caveman’.” Seems strange that he was swimming and still smelled bad! The map below shows the area where Cohomo was a resident in 1972.


View Larger Map

Update! 1/18/16 – A message board post reports a Sasquatch sighting and tree knocking in the area of Spring Lake, Illinois. My first question was – where is Spring Lake? I should probably ask more relevant questions like “when did this happen?” and “who wants to tell me more?”

I looked for Spring Lake on the web and found this page from the Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources: Spring Lake Fish and Wildlife Area. I also checked on the map, which shows a few trees for wildlife cover but I wouldn’t say the area is heavily wooded. There seems to be a lot of agricultural development in the area. It is sad to think that a Bigfoot community might be limited to a small forest rather than a big one.

In my fictional account of a Bigfoot named Oja (still unpublished) she met another Bigfoot in – of all places – a forest in Illinois. He could have come from the Spring Lake area, but his territory was hardly limited because he knew the skill of interdimensional travel. In his other world there was forest without end. Maybe that’s what is helping the Sasquatches in the Spring Lake, Illinois area to thrive.

Here’s the map of the Spring Lake area:

Note the proximity to the Sand Ridge State Park. This could be a good location for further Bigfoot research activities. I would like to hear from anyone who has had a Bigfoot sighting in the area, or found other related Bigfoot evidence including signs of habitation or footprints.

66 Replies to “Bigfoot in Illinois”

  1. No didn’t hear or see one this morning, but (6/22/20). Went out front with my dog at 2:30 a.m. as usual and he immediately growled – big time and started to charge across the street. I stopped him. Saw nothing, heard nothing. Dog’s fur was up. He turned and went inside without even peeing. Then there was this awful rotting dead animal smell that took over – big time. Across the street is just a small patch of trees and brush between the road and a house not far in off the road. It is not a really wooded area but some unkept wooded areas and we are above the Mississippi on the bluff. I’m new to the area (7 years) so don’t know hardly anything about wildlife. Now asking around. Clifton Terrace, Godfrey, Illinois – next to Aton and above St. Louis to the east

  2. Last winter (Jan. 2016) I was sledding with my children west of the Fox River in the St. Charles area. It was a around 9:15 PM and we were the only ones at the park. Or so we thought. It is somewhat of an isolated park with a small industrial park and Forest Preserves all around.

    We were walking up the hill when we heard a yell that sounded like a cross between a coyote and a child except the magnitude was all wrong. It was so great we all stopped in our tracks and looked back at the wooded area we heard the call come from. There were no houses over there or lights. We were staring at the wooded area when the call yelled out again.

    I have hiked the woods and prairies of Illinois my whole life and I have never heard a call like that. Ever at anytime. I have heard Coyotes and kids yelling but never in a single voice like that. It pierced your head. My kids yelled “Hey” and though their voices were loud, they couldn’t match the power of the scream. After the boys yelled “hey” there was a few minutes of silence. A deep baited silence. We were about to shrug it off as a weird occurrence and turned to continue walking up the hill when the voice screamed out again. We all stopped and look back towards the woods and right away another yell screamed out.

    It was a very disconcerting situation so we decided to bug out. We grabbed the sleds and walked back to the car. Just as we hit the parking lot we heard one more final scream. This one lasted a for a heartbeat longer than the rest and then nothing. We got in the car and went home.

    I figured it was probably someone screwing around until I looked at Google Earth. The park we were at was a bridge between the Fox River woods and the fields and parks west of St. Charles. That got me thinking and looking around online for a sound similar to what we heard. I ended up visiting Stan Courtney’s Illinois website and under his scream section, were a couple of recordings that were similar enough to what we heard that I got chills down my spine. I’m not saying it was a Bigfoot because we didn’t see anything but that voice was close enough to what Stan had recordings of that I would not rule out the possibility.

    1. Last year in northern ill we found in the snow 8 foot strides coming out of our pine tree continued to run up a brick wall at 8 feet or so strides what does that we do live in the forest scary

      1. Hey Pam, my name is Ron and I’d like to hear more details about these tracks. I too live in Northern Ill. and do most of my research along the Illinois river valley.

  3. I moved to Pekin as a young boy in late 73, well after the Cohomo incident. We lived at the edge of town on linden drive and there were miles of woods and streams literally in my back yard and dozens of miles to explore as a kid.

    In 75-77 I was in the woods behind my house with my friend with our bb guns and we had wandered down some steep hills to a creek where we plinked at leaves and twigs confident in our skills and massive firepower. We were well away from any other humans in an area likely never even been walked on by people.

    We lingered a bit too long and darkness started descending on us and we began our hike up the hill toward home when we heard grunting behind us, at first we thought it was the local heads who grew pot in the woods trying to scare us, but as I hiked forward toward civilization I turned my head back to look at my buddy and his head was turned behind him and I saw it…. a huge dark figure moving from trees to tree trying to stay out of sight, closing in on us, covering ground at an unbelievable rate of speed. It was grunting with deep guttural sounds. My buddy’s head swiveled back around toward me and I could see the look of absolute sheer terror on his face – the kind you don’t forget.

    You’ve never seen kids move like we did. After getting home and going straight to the parents and telling them we’d seen bigfoot they laughed at us and said maybe if we lived in northern California we might have, but “bigfoot doesn’t live in central Illinois.” I believe they do, or did, and that they traveled along the miles of streams and covered woodlands of Illinois staying close to rivers and take shelter in the multitude of hiding places available in these corridors.

    I would visit that area many times during the day in the following years but never ever would venture out into these woods at night after that. In the decades that followed I had always been confident in what I saw, and was only a little surprised when I finally went online and discovered a multitude of bigfoot sightings right in the same general area where I saw a bigfoot as a kid.

    1. I lived just north of pekin on Cole hallow rd in mid 70s to 90 near 474. Had several instances over the years. Thought I seen it one time on top of Cole St hill, heard it several times but didn’t know what I was hearing at the time. Two instances were very distinct. I was bow hunting in 88 near 474 in big patch of timber. I got within 100 ft of my stand, early am no light, something screamed very loud, I could feel the reverb of the scream hit my body like a punch, it was so loud. I froze in place until daylight. It tore off thru the woods with tremendous noise of limbs and underbrush being moved. It moved on out of sound range quickly. It seemed about 1 or so it screamed again but it seemed to be 4 to 5 hundred yards away thru the timber. I wondered why it screamed again. To this day I have never been so scared in my life and I’m in the woods all the time. Wasn’t til finding bigfoot did a show on vocals and I heard the same scream. Had a vocalization near pekin in early 90s with people I was with saw something plain as day, also had few incidents in Shawnee forest

  4. Circa 1957, Alton Il.. Police
    were called to investigate what an hysterical woman described as “A man in a fur coat but it wasn’t a man.” The officers came up out of a sink hole after shooting a dog which was “torn to pieces”.

    1. Hi David, I’m an Alton native and I find this story very intriguing. Is there anymore information you can give about this like where it was or anything?

  5. I live in Northern Pope County, IL, which has wolves, coyotes, record numbers of deer, and other critters. We used to have a dog that would be up barking all night, so I started chaining him to our front porch – right in front of our bedroom window. He stopped barking at all the critters all night for the most part – except for one night. This happened several years ago, but we had our bedroom window open – so it must have been Spring or Fall – and I heard from a distance a loud gruntal type noise and woke up – I’m a light sleeper, but as I awoke, I noticed it was a breathing noise – a LOUD, GRUNTAL, breathing. I was laying so still, as I didn’t even want to breathe or wake my husband (who is a heavy sleeper). I heard it (the bigfoot-I guess) walk up to the house, and then the dog, chained to our front porch, started barking and going crazy!! To give you an idea, how loud it was, I was able to hear it breathing over the dog barking right by my window. And crazy, when it got up to the house, it didn’t get aggressive with the dog. It didn’t attack the dog – like a bear, cougar or wolf might have done; it stayed in place for several minutes, while this smell permeated the air. After a few minutes, it walked off and the dog settled down again. I didn’t actually see what it was, because I was too scared to look out the window, but I’m pretty sure I know what it wasn’t, and ruling that out, I believe it was a bigfoot. We hear whooping and tree knocks occassionally, but that night was the most alarming. I’m just curious if other people in Southern Illinois have had any sightings. I do want to see him, when I’m not so scared. I’m afraid to talk about it, because people think you’re crazy, or try to throw some way off idea out there. Like a deer grunting.. would a deer really stand there and grunt breathe louder than a dog for that long while he crazily barked?

  6. Bigfoot was sighted prior to 1956 in Bull Valley, IL. This one was white in color but again it was winter time and it banged on a home’s outer walls scaring the people inside. It never hurt anyone and was not observed again prior to my moving from McHenry. The area then was not heavily inhabited and has a lot of peat marshes. I only with people would leave them alone to thrive as I have yet to hear of a unprovoked altercation. Mountain Monsters is a perfect example of their example of hyping people to go out and hunt them.

    1. Laura, thanks for telling us about the McHenry, IL area white Bigfoot. I see on the map, that’s close to Chicago, but there are a few forested areas at Moraine Hills State Park and Indian Ridge Park. There could be a cave in the area for underground Bigfoot habitation… or maybe an expanded human population made them move on. I find it sad that so many of their former habitation areas are now human-occupied. They keep getting compressed into a smaller area, which probably has an effect on their overall numbers. If they were real Mountain Monsters they’d be out attacking people, but instead they just want to maintain their distance.

      1. I Googled to see if there were any reports of large deer in the state park south of mchenry. I think it was a deer but biggest one of seen. It was taller than sitting when in my jeep I only saw the back end of it when it jumped out into the road. I came inches to hitting it and turned into it what ever it was. I’m surprised I didn’t wing it. The weird thing is it was all brown, almost covered my windshield, and what I think was only one jump. I didn’t see the neck or head. I’ve live in island lake almost from the early 70s and know what a deer is and have seen them get hit from other drivers when driving. I’m happy I have a jeep and it was road tested tonight. If it was a deer the top of the main body was possible 5 feet at minimum. Can a deer be that big? The top of head and neck then is what 6 or 7 feet and what if there a rack. All I saw was big brown and inches away from hitting it at 50 by the walking trail. It was running to the river part of the park.

  7. I live in northeastern Illinois near the Chain O Lakes and Fox Rivers, my yard borders pristine marsh on both sides, and natural corridors to other wild areas. I have heard both a juvenile and apparent parent of the juvenile on two occasions, and since then I have recorded tree knocking and some strange vocalizations. I have yet to find a print or actually see one, though hearing them conversing using high pitched whooooops was an experience in itself, one that cannot be attributed to any local animals, I have researched every thing possible and know these were of a primate origin.

  8. In 1980, a friend and I were walking along a little-used trail in the woods just north of Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Illinois. It was daytime. Several yards from us, we noticed a dark black shape about 7 feet up on the side of a tree. We could not make out any features at all. It was approx. 2 ft. x 2-1/2 ft. We decided to check out what this thing was and started to approach it. As we got closer we still could not make out any kind of features, it just looked like black fur. We both were suddenly filled with fear and agreed to just get the heck out of there, running back up the trail as fast as we could.

    When I think back, it still seems strange. We had absolutely no sense of fear in these woods until we started approaching this thing. I can’t think of any animals that would fit this description. I wonder if it could have been a juvenile bigfoot, and if so, I’m sure the parents were nearby.

    Anybody have any similar stories?

  9. “Seems strange that he was swimming and still smelled bad!”

    I take it you’ve never been in the Illinois river? lol…at least in the Peoria area it has a reputation of being dirty and having a bad odor ;)

  10. I live near Kingman Indiana & I believe I have encountered a sasquatch on more than one occasion within the last year. First time was pre-dawn sun was just rising and I saw a very large upright figure along the road(about 40ft. from edge of road) near a small creek with fairly dense cover. I kind of assumed early morning vision, light and tiredness associated and wrote it off as such. Nearly 11 months later in the exact same location at approximately the same time of morning for 2 days I have again saw it. Guessing to be 8-9 ft. tall, 350-400 lbs., very massive and dark in appearance. Never elusive or on the move, just standing very still. The last time I watched this thing for about 2 minutes before I became uncomfortable and drove down the road, turned around at intersection and came back to see if I was seeing a tree stump or shadow. It was still standing in same vicinity. I continued 1/2 mile, turned around and went by again just to get another look for my sanity sake. As I approached with my high beams on I could see this thing moving further away from the road but it did not appear to be afraid or startled. Very calm and patient in fact. I will continue to watch as I travel this stretch of road M-F mornings enroute to work and it is less than a mile from my home.

  11. It was Winter 2007, my buddy & I decided to go rabbit hunting. For 3 days before that we kept smelling beautifully scented flowers….. In the dead of winter with the ground covered in snow. After a few hours of hunting it started getting dark so we decided to come home. After passing our half way point we started to hear tree branches breaking. Still in the hunting mode we decided to see what the noise was, although we only had a BB gun. A few seconds after beginning our search we looked & seen this big dark mass. All of a sudden whatever we seen walked over by a tree, stopped & stared us down, as we did it also. My buddy offered to shoot it with the BB gun, well of course, me being the more rational thinker, I told him not to shoot at it with the BB gun. 10 or so seconds later the creature took off toward the corn field, it was then that we got a good look at the creature’s body image, it resembled that of a Sasquatch. After seeing that, we ran home, no stopping at all. We were so scared, we know it wasn’t human, whatever we saw. After researching Sasquatch sightings online, I have noticed that people say that they smell a strong ammonia scent, I believe that we may have encountered a female Sasquatch. The area we live in is built atop numerous old coal mines which very well could have become home to these creatures. To this date, we have never returned to that same spot for fear of what we may encounter again. I am wondering if there is anyone else who has seen a possible Sasquatch & smelled the same floral scent as we did in the dead of Winter.

  12. It was Winter 2007, my buddy & I decided to go rabbit hunting. For 3 days before that we kept smelling beautifully scented flowers….. In the dead of winter with the ground covered in snow. After a few hours of hunting it started getting dark so we decided to come home. After passing our half way point we started to hear tree branches breaking. Still in the hunting mode we decided to see what the noise was, although we only had a BB gun. A few seconds after beginning our search we looked & seen this big dark mass. All of a sudden whatever we seen walked over by a tree, stopped & stared us down, as we did it also. My buddy offered to shoot it with the BB gun, well of course, me being the more rational thinker, I told him not to shoot at it with the BB gun. 10 or so seconds later the creature took off toward the corn field, it was then that we got a good look at the creature’s body image, it resembled that of a Sasquatch. After seeing that, we ran home, no stopping at all. We were so scared, we know it wasn’t human, whatever we saw. After researching Sasquatch sightings online, I have noticed that people say that they smell a strong ammonia scent, I believe that we may have encountered a female Sasquatch. The area we live in is built atop numerous old coal mines which very well could have become home to these creatures. To this date, we have never returned to that same spot for fear of what we may encounter again. I am wondering if there is anyone else who has seen a possible Sasquatch & smelled the same floral scent as we did in the dead of Winter. Has anybody else had an experience similar to mine?

  13. It was the summer of 2010, my mother, niece and I were staying at our camper at a campground outside of Erie, IL in Whiteside County, which is real close to the Rock River. Late one night, I got up to get a glass of water and turned a light on over the sink, which has an open window right above. Just as I did that, a weird noise came from directly from the back side I was on. It did not sound like an owl, dog or a racoon. After listening to Bigfoot sounds on Stan Courtney’s web site, it sounded like mixture of a growl, snort and howl all in one. It immediately woke up my mother and niece. To this day, we can not explain it. And surprisingly enough, no one nearby heard anything that night, so they think we are all looney.

  14. To the person that thought it would be smart to dress like a sasquatch and do a one man hoax . Bullets cut through fake fur and I’m sure there are people that shoot first and figure out later. Good luck with that.

  15. Hello Linda. Hopefully you are still out there in hyperspace. I am interested in establishing communications with other big foot researchers within the state of Illinois. I am a professional crypozoologist, meanig I have been paid well for my investigations and research into the strange enigma we generally refur to as big foot.

    I have 35 years of investigiatve experience in the research field, but for the most part work striictly on my own. The exceptions have been when I have made television programs dealing with cryptozoology.

    There is a reason why no one has ever established any formal of contact or most likely never will with our hairy friend.
    I am hopefull of finding intelligent, quality conversation with like minded scientists or mature investigators who can agree to disagree.
    I was just on the BFRO face book page attempting to logically discuss the pros and cons, but was told to leave the page by Ranae Holland herself. Oh well, such is the nature of our work. Gadday mates.

    1. I’m not a scientist. I live on the Il. side of St. Louis. (NOT) finding bigfoot filmed an episode around here and i think the witnesses were mostly BS. They held the town hall at a really nice lodge. PereMarquette State Park. I think the BRFO is a joke also. Hey fly into St. Louis stay in luxury, wander around the woods in a populated flat area. Ridiculous. I appreciate your opinions. I think anybody who is interested in this subject knows the government knows all about them. They just can’t control them so they quell any sighting by Cops etc. If there are actually any sightings around Madison, Jersey, Calhoun counties I’d be interested to hear about it. I just don’t think we have the the topography. Mostly farmland and towns.

      1. Marquette Park itself is nothing but big hills and steep ravines, there’s a lot of areas that are flat yes but what does that have to do with Bigfoot? They prefer heavily wooded areas and our area offers plenty of that!

    2. Hi I would love to chat about your interactions as I’ve been doing this for about three years now and have started a successful gifting relationship with a family troupe near my home. I live in Lake county.

  16. Hi everyone,
    I recently saw a show on National Geographic and was surprised at the amount of towns people who claimed they had an encounter with sasquach somewhere near New York. I live in Chicago and believe it or not back in 1995 my friends and I visited an area where there’s a place we knew as munks castle. We would go there late at night. The place is surrounded by woods. As we drove away my friend my friend who was driving behind me was pulled over by the police around 3 in the morning and I drove further up down the road to wait for him. I pulled over to the side of the road for a bit. I still had my lights on and the car is running. We were surrounded by forest all around. My friends and I were talking. In the distance I noticed a shadowy human like figure abnormally large with long arms and legs casually crossing the road and I kept starring to see if I could distinguish what it was. I turned on my bright lights and the the shadowy figure stopped in mid walking stride and turned his upper body and head in my direction for about three or four seconds then turned back and continued to cross the road and then was gone. The way it’s arms stretched out as he walked and the way it turned to look towards me is the similar to the old video everyon has seen where the bigfoot turns to look towards the camera and keeps going. Even the arm movement is the same but not as fast. This was weird. I just thought I’d share it with you all. Thanks! This is a true story!!

  17. hey, my best friend lives on cole holow road in east peoria and we go four wheeling in all the trails on the road and we started seeing wierd things like bent over trees, horrible smells and green trees in one piece one day and split the next, so we serched these things in relation to cole hollow road and found that it was 1 of the largest bigfoot sighting spots in the area and since then we have been learning alot about him, who knows, we might find him!!

      1. My brother and I was deer hunting in Union co. Shawnee in 2014. We were a few hundred yards apart and we both heard something scream we never heard before and wood knocks.

  18. I went camping with 2 friends in an area off of “Old Cobden Rd.” back in 1980. We brought my 2 dogs with. One was a 180lb Irish Wolfhound, the other an 85 lb Malamute/Collie mix. Early that afternoon the dogs attacked a horse with a rider on it’s back that happened on our campsite. we stopped that right away. Early that evening we heard noises in the brush and both dogs barked and went to check it out. They returned shortly. Later that night we heard more noises but this time the noises sounded like low tree branches were being moved. Neither dog would go check it out. they hid and whimpered. These 2 dogs never backed down from man or any animal. after seeing my dogs act this way I grabbed my .45 and sat up all night. I don’t know what it was. A bear, a big cat maybe. All I know is that I’d camped there several times a year for 6 years. It was the only time something happened. And because I pay close attention to my dogs, i never went back.

  19. I am REAL. I think. But people are scred of me and i dont know why. im not like my cousin the yeti. i am actually nice i like to play with bunnys in the meadow where my pack lives. ill tell you more if you come to my house

  20. I have been interested in Bigfoot most of my life and I just have to believe that something is out there. However, I had moved to Peoria, IL back in 2000 and around 2005 started blogging. Well this one blogger by the name of Randy E. caught my attention as his name seemed to be familier. Turns out this is the same Randy E. who reported a sighting of Cohomo back in the early 70’s. I asked him if he was the same person and he said yes. Turns out he made up this story to scare a friend that was working at some gas station in the area. As for the other reports, they may be true, but his is not. I wish people would not make up stories as it makes the real ones less credible.

  21. I had to comment after reading this article. It seemed that possibly whoever wrote this may have been insinuating that due to Illinois having less forest coverage than some other states ( approx 12% of Illinois land is covered in forests ) this must mean heavy or “over” population, but this couldnt be further from the truth.
    Many areas…in fact “most” areas outside of E St Louis and the Chicago area are very sparsely populated, and in fact the south eastern quadrant of the state and southern portion have opulation densities far below the national average ( less than 20 inhabitants per every square mile approx…this is very saprse population.
    On to thew subject of bigfoot, it seems obvious that these animals are using Illinois heavy river and stream drainage corridors that are heavily wooded. These wooded corridors may not be completely unbroken nor very wide, but run the entire lengths practically of many Illinois rivers for many miles. Given this a bigfoot could run along those wooded river drainages and remain very un detected in Illinois especially given that they seem to be “nocturnal in nature”

  22. As impossible as it is to believe, even for me, in the mid 70’s a friend of mine and I saw what we could only believe to be a Bigfoot, in Illinois, roughly 55 miles Southeast of Chicago in what was at the time all farm land.

    We were more or less lost and ended up going down a long dead end road that was not marked dead end. When we came to the end while turning around we spotted what looked like eyes behind some bushes glowing from my car’s headlights.

    I turned on my high beams and something that was about 9 feet tall or so, all but the face covered in hair, stood up and walked off into the darkness.

    Several times it turned and looked back over it’s shoulder as if to check to see if we were following it.

    I was there, I saw it. My friend was there, he saw it. But to this day neither of us can either believe we actually saw a Bigfoot in the farm lands of Northern Illinois or come up with any way to explain what we saw that would fit what we saw in every way other than to say it was a Bigfoot.

      1. I live sixty miles south of Chicago… And growing up hearing whoops and grunts.. and loud wood knocks.. fork creek has old caves and old coal ones in between coal city and braidwood and water ways and power lines….. I now live about 25 miles near Essex Illinois and still hear whoops ..and grunts…. Love too tell ya more..things I have see and father have experience

        1. I lived in Braidwood from 1998-2007 and during that time I had experiences as well as my husband who grew up in Braidwood. As recently as last year I had an experience that has led me to where I am today. All these “wild” synchronicities surroundings typical Sasquatch experiences are what I’ve come to learn this last year. The smell, the apprehension, the camera pictures distorted, wood knocks, and more. I’d love to hear if anyone else has had similar experiences in Braidwood/Essex area.

  23. Murphysboro Illinois is located near the Shawnee Forest which streches across most of Southern Illinois. The Crab Orchard Wildlife refuge is also found in Southern Illinois. This area of Illinois is sparsely populated in comparison to northern Illinois and provides home to a wide variety of wildlife. I live within 20 miles of Murphysboro, the big muddy river runs along the Muphysboro and provides a route for wildlife migration.

  24. i took a camera the last time and possible footprint and movent in the back between 2 trees u can see it at tobyk222 at utube let me know what u all think

  25. my buddy and i was hunting a lil over amonth ago in southeastern ill we had crossed a creek as we just got over the bank of the creek we heard 3 to 4 wacks on the tree as we turned we seen a tree come down, my buddy nelt down told me to look what we saw was nothing we ever saw before. it was very tall and wide broad shoulders and dark. in the years ive hunted i have never seen anything like this before. ON sept 23rd my wife and i went to same spot and found a possible foot print at the time i took picks i also viedo taped what seemed to be movent of something dark between 2 trees. It is possible it may have a bigfoot or maybe not i know it was big and dark.

    1. Tim, next time, take a movie camera! But… seriously, they tend to sense cameras psychically so maybe it won’t appear nearby if it realizes you’re filming. I wouldn’t consider tree felling a friendly sign!

  26. does anyone think that these werewolf sightings could just be the bigfoot? i am from lockport,il and have numerous friends say they seen or was chased by a werewolf over the past 8 years. one claim was, he was going from in his house outside to his basement to wash clothes and looked into his field and seen it running towards him but got tangled in his volleyball net. he ran inside and the next morning the net was mangled with tore up rabbits in his woods. another one said it chased him through some woods when he hid behind a log and it became aroused with something else and took off. another sighing was with 2 people driving down a back road and seen it jump out of a tree into the road and run off. i have also had a sighting with a friend while driving in the rain, something leaped across a 4 lane road in the third lane from the edge and ran into a wooded field. it looked somewhat like a kangaroo/werewolf.

  27. Illinois is a very intesting state. Although most folks have the impression that Illinois has only corn and soybeans fields there are literally hundreds of miles of wooded streams and rivers.

    Many areas are very heavily wooded and not only have sasquatch sightings but also a large amount of cougar and bobcat sightings.

    Out of 102 counties in Illinois there are published bigfoot reports in over 50. I believe it requires several things for a possible population of squatches. A large deer population and plenty of wooded streams being amongst the most
    important.

    I have a friend who recently had a sighting within about 50 miles of Chicago and this spring there was a sighting 15 miles from the St.Louis Arch. I hear about lots of reports that never get published.

    Thanks for your thougtful article.

    Stan Courtney

  28. After having read several hundred accounts, it’s easy to conceive that something is happening! what I find negative with most is that the spelling is terrible. These people claim to be professionals and can’t seem to spell simple words. On the other hand, if I were to do some serious research on the subject matter, I would try to replicate the smell that most people claim is associated with this creature, and wear a suit to mimic the creaature and hang out in the woods all night to confirm this thing. Most folks stories claim to be of a non aggressive nature, and if you are the folks who claim to be the experts on the subject matter, why haven’t you thought of this? Enough of the camera trips and pheromone spray. I’ve spent some scarry ass nights in woods around the world, and to tell you it’s not an easy thing to do! But your research trips are starting to sound like weenie roasts in the State park with overzealous boy scouts. It’s going to take that “special person” to get to the bottom of this thing. And if you can’t at least do that, then it would be clear that you all make more money in bull@#$% stories than the truth!

    1. Hi Joe! Thanks for your insightful comments. I think you’re right in many respects. We need to take squatching to another level, to develop a relationship of some sort with this elusive and reclusive wild man/creature/ape/Sasquatch… whatever it is. I read an interesting account in David Paulides’ new book, Tribal Bigfoot, chapter one, that was from an old newspaper article. It stated that some people observed a Bigfoot “covered with gore” in front of his cave. That leads me to believe that maybe Bigfoot is intentionally covering himself with rotting meat, which could account for the intense stench. Perhaps that’s done to keep anything/anyone from wanting to be around him. So if you do this thing, to replicate the smell, you might need to do it with rotting meat. How disgusting is that?

      Your idea of wearing a hair suit to your research location is another unique idea. I don’t think I’d try it. What if Bigfoot took you as an equal and wanted to fight with you because you were on his territory? Recently I read an article about Bigfoot in Wisconsin that mentioned a fight between Sasquatches. The article claims to be a genuine sighting report, but I didn’t mention it here because it seemed fictionalized to me. Still, it makes you think… do they argue and fight with one another? Maybe so!

      In any case I wish you luck with your research endeavor! Maybe you are the one who will be that ‘special person’….

    2. I’ll say one thing, there is more to these creatures, than meets the eye. I’ve had plenty of encounters and done enough investigations to know that these are NOT animals! Taking into account all the reports I’ve read, from the basic sightings, to the unbelievable, if not impossible sounding abilities of these things to conclude that these things are not from this world. Just two weeks ago, a friend of mine and I were in an area along the Illinois river where we have been investigating for the last three years. It was around 6pm and very dark out. We were just standing in front of his car talking, when about 15′ directly in front of us, out of nowhere, we heard 3 loud humanlike footsteps, crunching the leaves. Immediately, we turned both of our spotlights on the spot where the sound came from and there was NOTHING THERE! But, what was even stranger, was soon after, the entire sky starting flashing rapidly like a strobe light for about 5 seconds and then stopped. What was that? For now, we have no idea. But, if these things are interdimensional, with abilities beyond our comprehension, who can say? All we know, is that, we had no feeling of fear at all during this time. Could it be they are slowly and cautiously trying to gain our trust and reveal themselves to us? We hope! But, Kokomoe Joe, if you feel the need to hate on those who make a spelling mistake, you may want to proofread your posts before posting…as creature is spelled with one “a”, not two! Afterall, this is a blog, not a novel waiting to be published. ;-)

      1. I absolutely agree with you Ron. I am led to believe that these creatures might even be inter-dimensional beings from experiencers such as myself and others I know, with their ability to communicate telepathically (with and without words) and materialize into people’s homes physically and energetically. I’ve never come face to face like you have with one, although my husband has. My husband grew up in Braidwood and we both had sightings on his parents property that were connected with strange lights and dare I say it, UFO’s as well.

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