On Monday evening, Sean & I were guests on Mar 2 - Show Notes with Shannon - Lon Strickler and Sean Forker. As a result, I received several inquiries and a few sighting accounts by email this morning. One report, in particular, caught my attention...so I followed up on it:
Hi Lon,
I enjoyed the interview you and Sean gave with Shannon. I'm one of those eyewitnesses who has refrained from talking about my sighting. Here it goes:
I currently live in southern Illinois with my husband. I grew up in rural Lyon County, Kentucky and at home in the woods and around the water. My Dad and I spent many weekends fishing.
One early April 2001 morning, when I was 14, we pulled the boat out of the slip and headed south into Lake Barkley. It was an extremely overcast day with a heavy fog. In fact, we almost cancelled that day. About an hour after we moved into the river, the sun broke through the clouds and the fog started to lift, so Dad said he wanted to try out the brush piles in one of the shallow bays off the Land Between the Lakes area.
Dad pulled in into one of the bays and dropped anchor. We then started fishing off the brush piles. I can remember that we were landing crappies and were having a very good morning.
After an hour things slowed down, so we decided to have some lunch. We sat in the boat eating about 100 ft from shore. I think it was close to noon, but I'm not positive.
We had finished eating and Dad started to pull the anchor when we heard a loud splash. We looked towards the brush pile and, again, there was a large and loud splash. Dad thought someone was throwing rocks, so he said that we needed find another location. We started to pull off towards the main lake, when I happened to catch a look at a man walking along the shore after it walked from behind the brush pile. Then I noticed that this was not a man because it had hair over it's entire body. It was a Bigfoot. I yelled at Dad and he looked as I pointed towards it. He cut the motor off and we sat there watching the Bigfoot throw rocks into the water. It looked like it was trying to hit something.
We watched for several minutes as the Bigfoot moved in and out of the brush on shore. Dad wanted to get closer so he could take a picture on his phone, but I was scared and begged him to leave. The water was shallow and I was afraid it would get mad and attack us. He tried to get a photo, but for some reason the phone wasn't working correctly. We then noticed that there was smaller boat heading towards us. There was a man on the motor. As he came near, he cut the motor and looked towards the Bigfoot. He definitely saw it because he looked back at us with a surprised look on his face.
Dad was alarmed and said that we're leaving. By this time, he was upset that someone else had seen us observing the Bigfoot. He recognized the man in the boat. My Dad was well-known in the area and he was worried what would happened if his name was associated with a Bigfoot sighting.
When we got home that evening, we told Mom what we saw. She was upset as well. That's as far as the story went. I was told to never tell anyone what we had seen because it would create problems. I told the story to my husband not long after we were married. His reaction was favorable and he has showed interest in what we saw. I guess we can refer to ourselves as Bigfoot enthusiasts. This is why we listened to you & Sean because we were aware of your encounter and have listened to your pod casts.
That's my story. I wish to remain anonymous, mostly because of my parents' fears of ridicule. Thanks for reading. DE
NOTE: I contacted DE in order to get a description of the Bigfoot. She states that it was about 6 1/2 to 7 ft tall and very broad in the shoulders. The hair was very thick and dark brown. She could not estimate a weight. I asked if it was bi-pedal the entire time she observed it...which she acknowledged. She believes that they viewed the Bigfoot for almost 10 minutes, which I believe is remarkable. DE was not aware of the supernatural lore of the area, particularly the Beast of the Land Between the Lakes. Lon
Bigfoot in Kentucky
The Wildman of Kentucky: The Mystery of Panther Rock
Kentucky Cryptids: The Search for Kentucky's Hidden Animals - Bigfoot, Mothman, the Bearilla in Kentucky, and Others
Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture
