According to a recent report from The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), a 20-year-old woman in Ashland, Ohio, saw a seven-foot-tall creature after leaving the Warehouse 24 gym on the outskirts of town last April 24th.

The report was initially submitted by the woman's stepfather, who said, "My 20-year-old stepdaughter had a visual sighting last night in Ashland, Ohio. The date was [April 24th, 2021]. It was about midnight and she had left a 24-hour gym that has woods behind it. She saw a gray, over-seven-foot creature after hearing a twig snap. She stated it was way too large to be human and it moved way too fast to be human.”

The young woman then called her parents in tears from the local Bob Evans restaurant parking lot and asked for them to come drive her home, because she "was so shook up."

"It was a terrifying experience for her," he said. "I went and inspected the area briefly the next day. I found many old deer tracks but no imprints of the creature she saw. I am not a hunter or a tracker and only spent about 10 minutes in the area."

"She is one person I would consider an extremely reliable witness. She is a very responsible college student that is very moral and truthful. She does not drink or take drugs," added the man.

BFRO investigator Matthew Moneymaker said that within a week of the sighting he was able to speak with the father and later the witness herself, adding that “They are both credible. This is not a hoax report.”

Prior to calling the woman's stepfather, said Moneymaker, he "had figured out the location and examined aerial photos of the surrounding landscape on Google Maps and Bing Maps."

There are open fields nearby, and a large swamp 100 yards or so north of the patch of woods, but also some businesses nearby including a Motel 6. That made me somewhat doubtful at first, but this is the very edge of town, not in the middle.

The relative lack of contiguous tree cover in the general area, compared to most sighting areas, also made me doubtful before I spoke with the witness and her father. I spoke with the father first. He is a pastor and high school teacher in Mansfield, [Ohio]. He mentioned that there were lots of deer tracks in exposed patches of ground around that parcel of woods when he went to investigate the site the day after his daughter's sighting. Deer tracks are likely still visible around there.

I spoke with the daughter later in the day today. She is very credible. She's a nursing student at the nearby University and works as a waitress in town. Nothing about her story seemed unusual, except for the location. She was certain the gray-furred sasquatch stood at least seven feet tall, possibly eight feet tall. Based on its height, she was certain that it was not some other type of animal nor a person in a costume. They way it bolted off when it fled is what frightened her most. It was very fast.

As she walked out of the gym around midnight and turned to her right in the direction of her vehicle, she was walking in the direction of the tree line. She heard the crack of a twig breaking and looked up in time to see the creature turning to run back into the woods about 30 yards away from her, illuminated by the lighting for the brand new parking lot. It ran back into the woods at an angle to the right and was quickly obscured from her view by the corner of the gym building. She only saw a side view of it as it ran off with large arms swinging. She said she most likely would not have noticed it at all but for the noise of the twig snapping, which she assumed was caused by the creature standing on wood debris.

There were no other vehicles parked on that side of the building and no vehicles driving on the roads within view.

Moneymaker speculated that whichever way deer access the woods behind the gym "is likely the same pathway the sasquatch would have used."

"If deer or a sasquatch came to those woods from the north, then there is only 100 yards or so of exposed field to cross (in the dark) before reaching a large swampy area connected to the Jerome Fork of the Mohican River," he said. "So, the location is more plausible for a sasquatch than it appears at first in aerial photos. The key element is the presence of deer. That shows that there is both a pathway and a reason for a sasquatch to approach the edge of development late at night."

The investigator went on to suggest that the "swampy zone directly to the north is a good area to look around right now. A specific place to look around for tracks would be where the swampy zone and Jerome Fork passes underneath the 71 freeway. Follow the deer paths in the area."

The BFRO has recorded over 300 reported bigfoot sightings in Ohio dating back to the 1970s, with the most recent report coming from four boaters in Salt Fork State Park who heard a "loud, deep howl" come from a heavily wooded area on the adjacent shore.

In February of 2020, Fairfield, Ohio resident Preston Riley uploaded a video to his YouTube channel that featured a series of eerie howls captured outside of his residence.

Reactions to the video were mixed, with some proposing that the sound was made by a mundane animal—such as a hound dog, bobcat, or mountain lion—while others said they thought a cryptid, like Bigfoot, could be responsible.

The sound captured by Riley is similar to the howls recorded by hunter Gino Meekis in northern Ontario, Canada, in October of 2019, and those recorded by Rhinelander, Wisconsin resident Colton Greenhaw in March of 2021.

 

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