A Strange Report from a Strange Area

     Last March, a local newspaper photographer and his wife and dog were picnicing in the quiet area that was in my last report. It was later afternoon and the gentleman and his wife were eating supper at one of the back, nearest to the woods, tables in the picnic area. He said he was kinda surprised when his dog didn't seem interested in eating or taking hand-outs. After they finished eating they decided to take a stroll into the woods on one of the well marked paths. The said their dog was rather subdued, not his old bouncy self. They said they hadn't walked more than 70 or so feet into the woods before they started hearing something heavy moving through the brush. They stopped and tried to see what it was. Deer are common in the park and bears are not unknown but are rare. The dog definitely had ideas of his own about going back toward the car. Just as they turned to return to the car, they saw it. Standing not more than 50 ft away, beside a large tree was a huge dark hairy apelike creature that scared them very badly. Making a hasty retreat back to the car they claimed the creature followed them and let out a most fearsome noise. Once back in town they reported the incident which resulted in the typical jokes, jibes, and an avalanch of people tramping out any possibility of evidence. Because he worked for the local paper, the story made page one. Discusted by the bad publicity he had experienced, our newspaper man decided to investigate whether any other such reports from the park had ever occurred., What he found was a bit disconcerting. There were no less than 30 reports of a large hairy biped somewhere in the park area. One of these reports is logged at the local sherriffs office where a ranger at the park reported a huge hairy biped scared him so bad he ran his arm through a plate glass window that required 60 stitches to close. After this report, which couldn't be hid, the park employees were ordered, on threat of their jobs, to tell no one of futher reports. They check out such reports when they are made, blame bears (which  really rarely enter the park) and not to unduley upset campers. Also, they do not want a bunch of wild-eyed nutcases looking for bigfoot in their park; thus causing no end of problems. A friend of mine, works in maintance at the park. When I asked him about these reports, he just grinned and said, "I can't tell you, I need this job".