A teen and his family move into a house near Wekiva Springs State Park, Florida. After a while, he and his brother encounter a 'big, black hairy person' that was swinging from a tree.
I received the following account:
"This encounter happened when I was 15 years old back in 1993. We had just moved to an area called Wekiva Springs, Florida, and our house was built brand new and was on the edge of Wekiva Springs State Park. It was still wild enough at that time that we could only take the trash out 30 minutes before the truck came due to the black bears that still ventured into the neighborhood. The deer population is off the charts and to this day you will see dozens throughout the day randomly in the neighborhood. Wild turkeys, wild pigs, bobcats you name it.
Our home sat perfectly on the one lake in the area and as I said just months prior the lot was just woods. At that time we did not have any neighbors or houses to our left or right although the front of the neighborhood had been built out 20 years prior.
At that time I had heard of Bigfoot but by no means was it a daily thought or even in my interests. When I would get home from school I would walk back into the woods maybe 1000 yards and explore and one day I noticed a spot to plant a pot plant. I had just gotten into smoking a joint here and there and had the bright idea of trying to grow my own plant.
I became very familiar with the square mile around my home and grew quite comfortable venturing out there sometimes returning at dusk. One day while going to check on my failed project of growing a marijuana plant I saw my younger brother who was 11 exiting the patio door about 50 yards behind me. I wasn't entering the woods yet but saw he was trying to sneak and follow me back there. I decided to play along and acted like I didn't know he was following.
As I was walking I would hear him occasionally behind me and I would stop suddenly just to make sure. As I got deeper into the woods I noticed it was much calmer than normal. Keep in mind I had been going back here 5 times a week for a couple of months at this point. There was not much else to do. I didn't see any deer or squirrels and in hindsight, there weren't even any wind or birds. I remember this well because I could hear my brother surprisingly well almost too much so.
I thought it would be funny if I turned the prank around on him and hid behind a tree and jumped out and scared him when he passed by. It had been about 5 minutes of walking back and we were deep enough in to really scare him.
I found my tree, stopped all movement, and waited. I figure he was only 45 seconds or so behind. As I waited I realized now there was no sound almost as if I had earplugs in but this meant. Nothing to me at the time other than observation. I heard my brother getting close and didn't realize how loud he was. He must be only 20 feet back around the turn any second I will see him.....except I never did the footsteps suddenly stopped and now I was in the weird position of just sitting there behind the tree . 2 minutes passed and now I was getting curious and wondered what had happened to him. Or did he just realize what I was doing and was going to scare me?
I finally decided to take a look I went around the corner and could see back a good way and saw nothing. This was impossible because I had heard him following me the whole time and didn't hear anything after I got behind the tree which meant he literally disappeared.
The woods were now suddenly creepy and I got a very anxious feeling for the first time ever that day. My head said to go home now but for some reason, I couldn't seem to get my bearings. I literally was lost. I calmed down and figured out the way back on the trail even though I never left it. It was like my equilibrium was off.
At this point, my younger brother was nowhere to be seen and I was genuinely concerned considering he was just feet behind me a few minutes prior. I was yelling his name and started jogging back towards the direction of my home. After a couple of minutes, I finally heard his voice he was hiding under some palmetto leaves that he had laid across his body off the side of the trail, just lying on the ground.
I didn't know what to think but I said get up right now and still have the weird feeling that I've had for the last 5 minutes he got up and I asked him what was happening and what was going on. He just said, "Please, just run! Run to the house with me!" I didn't ask questions and ran back with him.
Once we got to the backyard he said that he had been following me when all of a sudden he smelled something horrible and looked to his left and said he saw a big black hairy person thing (sorry not trying to offend anyone that's just what he said). Me being a little paranoid because I was illegally growing a pot plant. "What was it, a cop? What do you mean?" He repeated that it was a big person with hair all over them and it scared him so badly that he just fell to the ground and rolled into the palmetto bushes and just sat there frozen until I found him. At that moment we heard a loud bang, bang, bang, and a weird scream from the woods behind us.
We both looked and sure enough, hanging from a tree about 50 yards behind us and swinging from a large branch was the thing he was talking about. If I didn't know better it looked like a human being mimicking a large monkey swinging from a branch. It just made no sense and was completely out of place. Clear as day this was a large burly thing that looked more like a person than anything else.
We both sat there not knowing what to do the thing swung off the branch into the woods and was out of sight but was hollering the whole time. We immediately ran all the way to the house yelling for Mom and Dad to tell them what we saw.
At first, we got the whole, "Oh, it was just a bear. It was a bear." But eventually, later that night, I think they realized we were serious and the next day my Dad was able to find a report that in Florida there were encounters with something called a Skunk Ape.
Over the next 5 years I would continue to have run-ins with this thing and 2 times we had a deer leg and skull put in our backyard. Once I had turkey feathers put on my window sill. I didn't know anything about what that meant and only later as I researched the subject did I learn about that.
Every 6 months or so the park rangers would have to come to our home and put a barrel in our yard with a donut to capture the black bears that were too comfortable coming to the neighborhood. After seeing the same ranger for the third time I felt comfortable enough to ask him what he did with the bears once he got them. He just said that they move them to deeper parts of the park or all together relocate them and extreme cases and then said but that's not what you need to worry about. I asked him what he meant and he just said there were things bigger and worse than bears out in the woods and to always be careful.
I remember that to this day and kind of understand what he meant after having had that experience and knowing that there was indeed something else out in those woods behind my home.
Today my parents still live in that same home and I go visit from time to time. My dad being retired has nothing but time and he's actually grown to be a believer himself and over the years has a few experiences of his own including orbs.
The house is about 15 minutes from downtown Orlando but in an area that is surprisingly untouched by humans as I said it's a protected state park and the home is right on the edge of where the park begins. I think when the home was built we disturbed probably where this thing was staying or its general area and then it's more homes were built it got pushed further back but at that time was still coming in fairly close.
It's not a crazy insane encounter or dangerous or thrilling but nonetheless, it was real. I saw it with my own eyes and then had follow-up experiences. So now I'm just trying to learn all about these things." A
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