A West Texas patrol officer describes a late-July night encounter in an isolated farming area where abandoned orchards, tall cornfields, and empty county roads created the perfect setting for something unexplained. What began as a routine stop during a quiet shift turned into a direct confrontation with a tall, dark, foul-smelling figure that appeared to move with disturbing speed. One year later, another deputy had his own encounter in the same general area, leaving behind one of the most compelling details in the case, an enormous handprint on a patrol vehicle.

CASE FILE:

Case Type: Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Hairy Humanoid Encounter

Location: Rural West Texas, specific county withheld

Timeframe: Late July, initial encounter, second officer encounter approximately one year later

Witnesses: Two law enforcement officers, separate incidents

Environment: County road, cornfields, abandoned farmhouses, barns, old apple orchard, isolated agricultural land

Primary Features Reported: Approximately 7 feet tall, human-like eyeshine, black and brown blur, extreme speed, overpowering body odor, apparent vehicle interference, large handprint on patrol unit

Source: HP

WITNESS REPORT

“As a cop, I spend a lot of time dealing with things that scare people. Things they can’t explain, or things they don’t want to try and explain. I am usually the one who gets the call to go check out whatever goes bump in the night. Add in the fact that I usually work alone, in the middle of nowhere, and I have run across and seen some things I can’t rightly explain.

This was probably the first time in my career that I had been in what I would call a supernatural situation. It had happened before in life, but as far as police work went, this was the starting point of what turned out to be a very interesting career.

One night, near the end of July, I was cruising back county roads trying to find some kind of trouble to get into. I was the only deputy out in the county that night. I had been busy for a while, but the calls had slacked off around midnight. I hadn’t seen a single soul for the last few hours, so I decided I would try to be proactive.

The night was hot, and I had the window rolled down. I had been driving for a few hours with no luck finding anything. The only things I had scared up were a few rabbits and a fox.

I decided to stop, stretch my legs, and answer nature’s calling. I pulled to a stop in a particularly empty part of the county. I had driven that road a few times before. It was mostly old abandoned farmhouses and barns. No one lived in that area, making it a good target for thieves looking to steal copper or whatever else they could get their hands on.

The left side of the road was nothing but cornfields as far as you could see. It was getting close to harvest time. The stalks were close to seven or eight feet tall, just a sea of green. On the right side of the truck was an old abandoned apple orchard.

I never did get the full story of how the land came to be abandoned. It had something to do with multiple mistresses, multiple wills, illegitimate children, and other nonsense. The result was about one hundred and fifty acres of fruit trees that had become their own little forest over the twenty or so years it had been unattended.

I was sitting in the truck with my head laid back, just enjoying my little break. I had closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them, I looked out into the cornfield and made direct eye contact with something.

At first, I thought it was a person, and it almost gave me a heart attack right there. The thing stood about seven feet tall. Its eyes were human, but they shone in the night like animal eyes.

I’m not a weak man. I’ve done more stupid and foolish things in my time than I care to remember. I’ve been afraid before, and I’m not above admitting it. But there was something about those eyes that absolutely terrified me.

So, I did what any normal and sane twenty-two-year-old dumb kid would do. I chased it.

I kept eye contact with the thing. I slowly rolled up my window and checked out with dispatch over the radio. Then I grabbed my patrol rifle off its mount above me.

I remember taking a deep breath, throwing the door open, and jumping out of the truck while yelling, ‘Sheriff’s Office,’ in the most authoritative voice I could muster.

I maintained eye contact the entire time, except for the instant my vision crossed the driver’s side A-pillar. As soon as my boots touched the dirt road, the creature was gone. I caught nothing but a blur as a black and brown shape vaulted across the road and ran into the trees.

Once again, my sense of self-invincibility got the better of me. I kicked the door closed on the truck and took off after it, yelling for it to stop.

I stumbled into the orchard and was hit with the most overpowering odor. It was a combination of an unwashed person, body odor, and animal musk. I still remember the smell vividly all these years later. I’ve been around rotting bodies that didn’t impact me as much as that smell did.

I’ve never been a particularly fast runner. I’ve never cared much for it and have always been more of a short-burst kind of guy. Whatever I was chasing was fast, though.

It didn’t dawn on me until much later that it may have been playing with me, leading me farther into its little forest. I would catch a black blur moving in the distance. I would hear a branch break or a sound off to one side. I stumbled around like this for a good fifteen minutes before my bravado and adrenaline wore off.

That was when I decided to head back to the truck because I was alone and scared. The whole way back, I had that itch between my shoulder blades like I was being watched, like I was the intruder in someone else’s domain.

I made it out of the trees and back to the truck. It was in the same place I had left it, but the driver’s side door was open. The dome light was on. The vehicle was turned off, with the key still in the ignition.

I knew I hadn’t locked the door, but I also knew I had left it running. I didn’t often turn it off during my shift.

I checked the truck to make sure it was empty. That same smell filled the cab. It was in the seats and carpet, like something had sat in my seat and wallowed around.

I started the truck and got out of there as fast as I could.

I didn’t tell anyone about the encounter. I just told dispatch I thought I had seen something, that it turned out to be nothing, and left it at that.

Around a year later, during one of the few times I rotated to days and had a partner to work with, I was driving around on the opposite side of the county. I had just cleared a cattle call, playing cowboy and pushing some steers back against a fence, when my partner called me to ask where I was.

He was scared, and I could hear it in his voice.

I told him where I was, and he asked if I could meet him down in the southwest part of the county. There was an old gin down there. It just happened to be in the same general area as my encounter from about a year earlier.

I had never told him about what happened to me, but I agreed to meet him.

The story I got from him was that he had pulled into the same cornfield from a year earlier, not too far from where my encounter took place. He had backed into it, down a turn row used to maintain the pivot. He decided to stop there to get a few minutes of rest. It was a Sunday morning, and like most of our Sundays, nothing would really happen until after lunch, when people started getting active.

My partner had dozed off for a few minutes and was awakened by his truck violently shaking back and forth, with a dust cloud dissipating around him.

At first, he thought it was me messing with him. When he got out to check, he told me he smelled a nasty animal odor. Not finding anything else out of the ordinary, he got back in his truck and drove away.

He drove down to the gin, got out, and walked around the place to make sure no one was there. When he went to get back into the truck, he noticed the handprint on his window.

Anyone who has ever driven a truck down a dirt road will tell you that handprints on vehicles fill with dust and stand out.

He saw the print, freaked out, and called me.

Right over his head, on the top part of the door and the cab of the truck, was the biggest handprint I have ever seen in my life. I have average hands for my size. This print was easily bigger than two of my hands.

I told him my story. He described the smell almost exactly the same way I did.

Neither of us ever found out what was living down there. I heard a few more stories over my time there. I even ran across one guy who was convinced it was the West Texas version of Bigfoot.

I would answer a few suspicious-person calls around that area over the next few years. I always kept an eye out, but I never had another encounter like I did that night.”

COMMENTARY

This account contains several recurring elements common in Sasquatch and hairy humanoid reports: a large upright figure, eyeshine, extreme speed, a powerful musky odor, apparent intelligence, and an interaction with a vehicle. The witness’s reaction is notable because he was a trained patrol officer accustomed to stressful calls, yet he clearly describes a fear response that did not resemble ordinary concern over a trespasser or suspect.

The most compelling aspect is the second encounter with an independent officer in the same general area, approximately one year later. The vehicle shaking, lingering animal odor, and massive handprint on the upper door and cab suggest possible territorial behavior or deliberate intimidation. The handprint detail is especially important because dusty patrol vehicles and ranch roads would make a fresh print visually distinct.

Texas has a long history of Bigfoot and “wild man” traditions. The BFRO currently lists 259 Texas reports, including several from West Texas or West Texas-adjacent counties such as Jeff Davis, Pecos, Hockley, Lubbock, Lamb, Randall, Roberts, Tom Green, and Sutton. While East Texas receives most of the state’s Bigfoot attention, especially around forested regions, the West Texas reports are worth noting because they often involve isolated ranchland, dry creek corridors, agricultural cover, oilfield roads, and sparsely populated areas where witnesses may be alone for long stretches.

Texas folklore also preserves older “wild person” traditions, including the Wild Woman of the Navidad, described in regional lore as a fast, hair-covered figure that avoided capture. Jefferson, Texas, now publicly embraces its Bigfoot history and notes the long-standing state tradition of sightings, though that region is far east of this West Texas account. The broader point is that reports of Texas hairy humanoid sightings are not confined to a single ecological zone.

From an investigative standpoint, the abandoned orchard-and-cornfield corridor is significant. Tall corn could hide a large figure at close range, while an overgrown 150-acre orchard would provide concealment, shade, and possible food sources. The witness’s later realization that the figure may have been leading him deeper into the orchard fits a pattern sometimes described in reports where the subject appears to control distance, remain visible just long enough to draw pursuit, then disappear.

Possible explanations include a flesh-and-blood cryptid using the agricultural corridor for cover, a transient unknown primate-like being exploiting abandoned land, or a more anomalous intelligence capable of manipulating perception and vehicle conditions. The truck being found turned off, with the cab filled by the same odor, is the detail that pushes this beyond a straightforward road-crossing sighting.

CASE NOTES

• Two separate law enforcement officers reported activity in the same general area of West Texas about one year apart.
• The first witness observed a roughly seven-foot-tall figure standing in a cornfield, with human-like eyes that reflected light in an animal-like way.
• The subject moved at extreme speed, appearing as a black-and-brown blur as it crossed the road and entered the abandoned orchard.
• The odor was described as overpowering, combining human body odor and animal musk.
• The witness’s patrol truck was later found with the driver’s door open, dome light on, engine off, and the same odor inside the cab.
• The second officer reported his patrol truck being violently shaken while he was resting near the same cornfield area.
• A massive handprint was later found on the upper door and cab area of the second officer’s vehicle.
• Both officers independently described the same type of foul, animal-like odor.
• The area included abandoned farm structures, tall cornfields, and a long-neglected apple orchard that had grown so dense it functioned like a small forest.
• The witness later answered suspicious-person calls in the area but never had another direct encounter.

For readers interested in similar law enforcement encounters, West Texas Bigfoot reports, and other hairy humanoid cases involving vehicle interference, handprints, and overpowering musky odors, visit the Phantoms & Monsters Fortean Research Bigfoot and Sasquatch Case Archives and continue through the regional encounter index for related reports. Lon

FAQ

Was this encounter reported by a law enforcement officer?

Yes. The primary witness identifies himself as a patrol officer or deputy working alone on county roads in West Texas. A second officer reportedly had a separate encounter in the same general area one year later.

What makes this report stand out?

The strongest details are the repeated location, the involvement of two officers, the overpowering odor, the apparent interaction with the patrol vehicle, and the massive handprint found on the second officer’s truck.

Could this have been a person hiding in the cornfield?

The witness initially considered that possibility. However, the reported height, speed, animal-like odor, movement into the orchard, vehicle interference, and later handprint make a normal trespasser explanation less satisfactory.

Are Bigfoot reports common in Texas?

Texas has a substantial number of Bigfoot reports, though most public attention tends to focus on East Texas. The BFRO lists 259 Texas reports, including several from western or more open counties.

Why is the handprint important?

A handprint on a dust-covered patrol vehicle can stand out clearly, especially in rural areas with dirt roads. The witness described the print as larger than both of his hands combined.

NOTICE: Witnesses Sought for Upcoming TV and Film Project

If you have ever seen a winged humanoid in Chicago or the surrounding region, including the O’Hare corridor, nearby suburbs, forest preserves, Lake Michigan shoreline, or northwestern Indiana, I would like to hear from you.

I am currently assisting with an upcoming television and film project focused on the ongoing Chicago Winged Humanoid phenomenon and am seeking credible eyewitnesses, both past and recent, who may be willing to share their experiences.

If you have previously contacted me or are a new witness who has not yet come forward, please consider reaching out. All serious inquiries will be treated with respect and discretion.

If you would like to discuss your sighting, you can reach me through the 'CONTACT' link at the top of the page.

Your account may help document an important part of this continuing mystery. Thanks. Lon Strickler