A Lee County, Florida resident encounters a Skunk Ape on Thanksgiving night 2020 after several incidents of activity around his property.

I recently received the following report:

"Lee County, Florida:

This has been ongoing for months, but this is what has happened so far.

The 1st night this all started was a few months ago. I was woke up one morning by something tapping on the window to my bedroom, sounding like a fingernail on the glass. Light tapping, but enough to wake me. I woke up, made some coffee, and grabbed a glass of water and went outside. I sat down and had a smoke, and heard some odd noises. Weird clicking sounds, not cicadas or grasshoppers, I'm use to those. Then about 5 minutes later a growling sound. Very deep but short. This was around 3 am.

Coffee was done about 20 minutes later, so I grabbed a cup and went back outside to my porch. I took my first sip and I heard this blood curdling scream about 150 ft behind my porch, maybe the next block over.

I finished my coffee and I'm walking inside. Just as I open my glass slider, something attacks my porch door. It beat the hell out of it for almost 5 minutes straight and scared the hell out of me. I rushed inside and waited about 20 minutes looking out the kitchen window to see if anything was there. Being that my back yard is completely dark, I'm not sure what I expected, but I gave up waiting and went back outside. I sit down and I hear what sounds like my neighbors new aluminum fence getting the crap beat out of it. I'm looking on my side and nothing. My guess is it went to the other side of his property, to beat the hell out of the panels. It stopped quickly, and that was that. No noise for the rest of morning.

Fast forward 2 months on Thanksgiving 2020.

I'm woken again at 3am, same nails on the window event. My dogs haven't barked either time, so I'm suspicious. Make my way outside, iPhone up in case there is something there, and nothing. I'm talking on the phone with my buddies about what happened before Thanksgiving and they don't have a clue. Mind you, we all grew up in these woods, well before the internet was invented. So we naturally played in the woods.

About 2 hours go by and the sun is up enough that I can kind of make out this shape in the woods behind my house. It's about 5' 5" and just standing in this position for a good 45 minutes. I managed to get a picture of it, but it's poor quality. The rest of the day, and that night, will live with me forever.

Not 2 hours later, I heard this tree branch snap off and something crash to the ground. Something heavy. No mistaking that sound for a tree falling over. Turns out, a tree on the edge of my neighbors property, about 25 feet up, a large branch about 5 inches diameter is just twisted off and snapped like a twig. It's still hanging there. It doesn't even touch the ground but its about 12 feet long. I did have a look in the woods to see if I could find anything. There's a human trail that is used often, 2-3 small animal trails, and a really crappy make shift trail with broken trees littering the outline of the sides of the trail. Quite a bit of big stuff to climb over, logs piled. I've seen and heard about odd teepee shapes, and several grass beds throughout the woods. One was recent. The others didn't look too comfortable.

So I get done exploring and go inside for a drink and go out to my garage where i can work on stuff I've been doing for awhile. We recently moved to this house, so stuff isn't quite unpacked yet. As I'm going through the boxes I hear this loud ruckus coming from the small .25 acre plot across the street from me. Something big is moving the palmetto bushes, and there was a large dead tree knocked down before, but something cracked it open and was eating the grubs, I assume. The sound quickly went away. I heard whatever it was run north towards the canal which is super close, maybe 90 ft from my driveway.

Fast forward to 10 pm. I'm still in my garage, but the door is closed this time. I accidentally banged on the garage door, and I heard something on the other side bang back. Me thinking it's my kids, being the teenagers they are, I bang again. I then heard this really loud growl. I run out of my garage and through the house to the outside part. The trash cans are open, and my thanksgiving turkey carcass, which was in a box, had been taken. But the rancid smell stayed. I followed the smell to my backyard. I called a buddy whose seen stuff in the woods, and he tells me to be calm, and move slow.

I turn off my porch light, and I'm sitting out there smoking a cigarette. I hear my bushes on the corner of the house being brushed loudly. I turn around and I heard something large trample the grass down the side of my yard. The neighbor's dog is going crazy barking at it. So I'm not stupid enough to chase it into the street. Where's it going to go? I stayed on my porch and waited.

Then this big 6 ft+ blackish thing runs by from the other side of my house and runs behind my neighbor's house. His security lights kicked on, and it ducked behind their above ground pool. It's crouched over and I can see it. Reddish brown, large eyes, twice the width of me, easily 400-500 lbs. No hair on its nose, and it's 10 feet from me. The lights turned off and it ran into the woods. I haven't seen it since, then again, I haven't been outside at all tonight. There could be more to come. I've been recommended to get trail cameras or a home camera for thermals, which I'm in the process of doing." TB

NOTE: A Phantoms & Monsters Fortean Research affiliate has been assigned to investigate this report. Lon

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