A spat of Bigfoot sightings and encounters started to occur in western Oklahoma in the early 1980's. The incidents were investigated by local officials
The following story was recently forwarded to me by a colleague in Oklahoma. He says local people still talk about the 1980's sightings today:
"Since that winter day when he saw an animal he can't name, Billy Parry arms himself with a deer rifle whenever he goes across the creek to feed his hogs. Just a couple of days before the snow and ice laced western Oklahoma this winter, Billy, a 15-year-old high school freshman, was scouting for coyote tracks along Trail Creek near his home south of Vici when a growl made him stop. The noise came from an animal standing on two legs about 20 yards away, he says. Frightened, the young hunter dashed to his parked car and drove away. "It was four or five feet tall and pretty wide," says Parry, an avid outdoorsman and hunter. "It stood upright and had kind of a reddish brown hair color."
Reports of the unidentified creature in western Oklahoma by the Parry family and others in the Dewey County area aren't the first in Oklahoma. In 1977, search parties were formed after similar sightings were reported in eastern Oklahoma near Bristow and Stilwell. Nothing was found. The Parry family says the animal prowled on their property and near their house for more than a month this winter. It was an animal only Billy saw clearly, an animal they say smelled like a "sewer."
Hair samples found by Parry's house near Vici were sent to Hayden Hewes, director of Sasquatch Investigations of Mid-America. "The hair sample looked very interesting. At this point, we cannot confirm what kind of animal it came from," Hewes said. He said an investigative sample is being forwarded to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation forensic lab in hopes of analysis. "I feel it is just a matter of time before a Big Foot is captured alive," Hewes said. "When we do, in my opinion, we won't find a missing link but an intelligent creature that has been pushed back into the wilderness and forced to migrate."
Dewey County Sheriff Larry Pike, on the other hand, says he has heard only rumors about the strange animal, but nothing official "not that I can recollect." Sightings also have been reported in nearby Roger Mills County. Lorin Damron, a state game ranger in that county, says the animal was reportedly sighted within two to three miles of his house. He lives southwest of Cheyenne.
In recent interviews, the Parry family told how the strange animal disrupted their lives for more than a month after Billy came home from his initial encounter and said, "I saw a Bigfoot today." Billy's father said he originally thought his son must have been mistaken about what he saw. "Billy didn't say anything much he listened to me, and when I got through talking, he picked up his gun and went out to feed his pigs," said Lonnie Parry. "I didn't change his mind at all."
But about a week later, Billy's 2-year-old sister, Melisa, became hysterical when she was frightened after seeing a "bear in the window." Parry and his son immediately got their rifles and circled the house each going a different way. They both smelled an odor "like a sewer," but didn't see an animal.
A few days later while hunting for a coyote, Parry heard a barking noise and then saw a coyote cross toward a strange animal. But he couldn't get a clear shot at it. When the coyote arrived at the place where the animal was barking, there was a short terrible fight with growls and screams. The coyote only yipped a couple of times, he relates. "There wasn't much fight to it. The coyote didn't last long," Parry said.
The next day, Parry found the spot where something had made short work of the coyote. "There was assorted amounts of coyote hair in a spot the size of a card table," Parry said. "The animal had to be pretty quick he caught the coyote in an open place." And the visitor on Trail Creek came back again and again, the Parrys say.
Late one night, a heavy animal ran around the north corner of the house. Mrs. Parry in a north bedroom and Parry in the living room on the south end of the house watching a late movie both heard footsteps. The dogs met at the corner of the house, and they briefly tangled. Reddish brown hair with a strong odor was found there later, they said.
The following night, the animal staged a repeat performance without the dog. Again it was late and the sound of the animal running woke Mrs. Parry. "If I hadn't been here and you had told me this story, I'd have thought you were goofy," Parry said. In the meantime, Billy noticed the sewer odor around the pig pen and heard something "crunching" through the brush. "Billy claimed he could smell that sewer odor stronger than the smell of the hogs," Linda said.
The next day a Saturday Parry, Billy and several friends hunted for the animal. A repeat hunt was held Sunday. "Seven or eight men came out on Monday," Lonnie said. "I had to go to work but they hunted." The hunts didn't turn up an animal, but Parry said tracks were found along the creek.
A month and half later and little more than 40 miles southwest of Vici as the crow flies, Alex Inman of Reydon and his son-in-law, George Springer, of Roger Mills, saw an animal they say they can't explain. The two men were feeding cattle southwest of Cheyenne on land that has been largely undisturbed by human habitation and saw an animal that Inman described as "bigger and broader than a dog would be." The dark-haired animal didn't have much neck. "It's head pretty much set down on its shoulders," Inman said. "It walked on four legs." The cattlemen pulled up in the pasture and started honking their pickup horn to call the cattle in to feed before they saw the animal. They only got a glimpse of it broadside, before it headed directly away from them, he said. Springer said it didn't seem to be afraid of them and wasn't in a big hurry. They had plenty of time to get a look at it even though is was, "quite a little ways off." While moving off on all fours, "it stood up a foot taller than a coyote would and a lot wider," he said. "It didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before. It was dark brown and wide." Springer went on. "It wasn't fuzzy or furry, but slick-haired, like a pig. It was kind of smooth moving. It didn't bounce any. It was pretty heavy, had a pretty big body." The two men watched the animal until it disappeared into heavy brush.
"People won't mention seeing things for fear of being laughed at," says Jeniva Sasser of Cheyenne. But she says that about five or six years ago something was digging at the foundation of her house near Cheyenne one night. No one dared to venture out and see it, she said. Growls and angry noises came from the animal, and it went to the kitchen window where the light was on. She said she turned that light out and another one on. The animal left the dark window and came to the lighted one, she added.
The next morning, Mrs. Sasser checked for tracks. The animal had tried to dig under the foundation instead of trying to get in the window. The tracks were like dog tracks, but as big as a man's hand, she said. No claw marks showed in the tracks but claw marks did show where the animal dug against the house. Whatever it was, it finally gave up and went away. Her dogs didn't challenge the animal. "They just took off," she said. "It makes me wonder what is out there. They need to find out what is going on."
Other people, like Mrs. Sasser, say they would like to know for sure what lives in the creeks and canyons of western Oklahoma. If there is no connection between these sightings, the similarities appear to be remarkable coincidences. More than one person described the tracks to be shaped like a dog track, but very large with toes. Each account notes that the animal exhibited no fear of humans. While it showed no signs of attacking, it growled and stood its ground when confronted by one person and trotted off almost casually when it heard a pickup horn. More than once, something was attracted to a window.
Each person who recounted sighting the animal, except the 2-year-old girl, mentioned, with no prompting, that the animal was very wide-bodied. Perhaps the most common denominator of these different stories are the way they were told. Each person showed a marked reluctance about telling their story of seeing or hearing, "Something." It was as though each one weighed the chance of being laughed at and told their story in spite of it."
Source: 'The Oklahoman' - April 12, 1982
UNEXPLAINED CRYPTID / BIGFOOT / UPRIGHT CANINE / HUMANOID ENCOUNTER OR SIGHTING?
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