Are Eastern Bigfoot Aggressive?

I was talking to Roger Knights today, about the August 13, 1965 story of Monroe, Michigan, when Christine van Acker and her mother Mrs. Ruth Owens, had an encounter with a black 7-feet tall Bigfoot. The Bigfoot reached inside their car, giving Christine a black eye. Knights reminded me that it might not have been an “unprovoked assault” from the Bigfoot’s point of view, because their car had “brushed past” the Bigfoot before coming to a stop.

Maybe I have been blaming the eastern Bigfoot for being too aggressive? Maybe not? Talking about this case certainly reminded me of other ones from the East where Bigfoot seem to be aggressive, either in response to being bumped, crowded, or harassed by people and perhaps dogs. Certainly this is how I feel, and why I detail it that way in my 2003 book, Bigfoot!

There’s, of course, Momo carrying around a dog under its arm. Not exactly the image of a gentle giant that Sasquatch in the West places in your mind. What’s going on in the East?

Then there’s the James Hughes sighting in 2000, in Wisconsin, of a Bigfoot seen allegedly carrying a goat. How about looking up some more on that one, I thought.

So here you go…the original news article, and a contribution from Richard Hendricks, the unsung hero archivist at The Anomalist Newsline and over at Weird Wisconsin. He has given permission to share, as a guest posting below, his summary of the interview he conducted with James Hughes.

Granton – James Hughes was minding his own business, delivering the Black River Shopper last week when he says he saw something he’ll never forget – an 8-foot-tall, two-legged, shaggy creature carrying a goat. Sasquatch? Bigfoot? Yeti? Abominable Snowman? Or just a really tall hairy guy carrying breakfast? Hughes isn’t sure, and authorities are scratching their heads over the reported sighting.

“He was all covered with hair, a real dark gray color, with some spots that looked a honey color. It was walking on two legs, and it was mighty, mighty, big,” Hughes said in a phone interview Tuesday.

“You better believe I was scared. That creature could have tipped that car upside down and thrown it in the ditch. It was that big.”

Hughes filed a report with the Clark County Sheriff’s Department, and a deputy was dispatched to the scene but couldn’t find any big footprints, said Capt. Mark Cattanach.

“We have no goats reported missing, or any other types of small animals that may meet that description,” Cattanach said Tuesday.

“I’m not sure what we could do. I don’t know that there’s ever been any indication, at least that I’ve been told, that there’s any danger to the public.”

Hughes, 57, was on his newspaper delivery route around 5:15 a.m. March 28 when he said he saw the creature at the side of the road, on County Highway H about 1 1/2 miles from his rural Granton home. At first, he thought it was a man, but as he got closer he said he realized it didn’t look human – about 8 feet tall, 500 pounds and hairy with an ape-like face. After getting a closer look at the creature, which he said appeared to be carrying a goat or small sheep in its hand, Hughes said he floored his gas pedal and quickly drove away.

“I didn’t call it in (to the Sheriff’s Department) until the next day, because people would think I’m crazy. And I don’t drink, I don’t use dope, and I was wide awake,” Hughes said.

Cattanach said Hughes gave a very detailed description, but without tracks or other evidence suggesting a creature was in the area, there’s not much the Sheriff’s Department can do. He also said the reported Bigfoot sighting is the talk of the community. “There’s been a fair amount of joking around with this,” said Cattanach.

As a followup to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, I talked to the original radio news reporter, Keith Edwards. He assured me that Mr. Hughes was a credible witness, and seemed genuinely frightened by his bigfoot encounter.

Later that evening about 8:00 p.m. I called to talk to James Hughes about his Bigfoot sighting of Tuesday, March 28, near Granton, Wisconsin. We talked about ten minutes.

Prior to that, Loren Coleman had been sending the story around the Internet. Coleman mentioned that the Bigfoot in the story sounded like the Marked Hominid he described in [his and Patrick Huyghe’s 1999 field guide, now entitled] The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates. Rereading this description, and the description of reported creatures that fell into this classification, I devised questions to elicit details based on these characteristics. Also, because the creature had been seen carrying a goat, Coleman had said that it reminded him of the Momo sighting of 1972. In this sighting, a shaggy haired Bigfoot was seen carrying off a dog under its arm near the town of Louisiana, Missouri. As it turns out, this was a most prescient insight.

Hughes had been driving on the left hand side of the road, doing about 25-30 mph, as he delivered the Black River Shopper to rural mailboxes. He saw something standing in the south ditch on the opposite side of the road, the right hand side. At first he thought it was a man, but as he drew closer, he realized it was far bigger than a man, standing some 8 feet tall, weighing (in his estimate) 500 pounds.

He described the creature as having dark gray hair “six to eight inches long,” uniform in length across its entire body. Some of the hair was “shaggy,” with “clumps, and knotted,” and definitely did not look well-groomed. Hughes saw some lighter colored patches, which he described as honey-colored. The largest, and the one he got the clearest view of, was on the creature’s left-hand side. It was about the size of a magazine. The head was “over a foot wide … all hair.” Hughes could make out two spots where its eyes should have been, but he was unable to distinguish shape, size, or color, saying only that these two spots were of a different color. He assumed these spots were eyes. He was unable to see facial features. To my question, he said the creature had no mane, and that all its hair was the same shaggy length.

Dawn was just breaking. This occurred just a few days before the Daylight Savings Time change, and Hughes said it was approximately 5:15 a.m. when he came upon the creature. Hughes didn’t get a very long look at it, because of the suddenness, and so wasn’t able to describe more than general features. But at that, he saw far more than most witnesses.

I asked about arm length, but Hughes had been unable to get a good enough look. He said only that the arms were long, but whether they hung below the knees or above he could not say.

I asked about the general physique. Was it more like a wrestler, with broad shoulders and narrow waist, or more barrel-chested, with no waist? He just laughed, saying it was big, looking more like “a miniature King Kong.”

Hughes never saw more than its back and its left side and couldn’t determine whether it had a paunchy gut. In the few seconds it took him to realize it wasn’t a man, he felt the first tingling of fear. Then the thing looked at him.

“What the hell, is the damn thing looking right at me!” He said he knew that in “two steps it would be across the road” and “could easily tip his car over.” With that, he “stepped on the carburetor” and sped away.

The creature was carrying something in its right hand, which hung at its side. Hughes said “it was about the size of a goat.” After several days of thinking about the event, he’s now unsure whether it really was a goat as the story first suggested. Whether it was a “goat, or roadkill, or something,” he couldn’t say, but only that “it was about the size of a goat.” When you think about Momo, the shaggy dog-killing terror of Louisiana, Missouri, you wonder whether it was a dog …

Hughes said the creature looked at him. I asked him to describe it. He said that he had been driving up from behind the creature. The creature’s back was to him in the opposite ditch. As he drew nearer the beast, it “turned its head real slow” to look at him, as if it were saying “Like who the hell are you?” Hughes reiterated this point. Its head didn’t snap around quickly, as if startled. It was a very slow turning to look at him, a challenge.

I asked Hughes whether he felt anything or thought the creature was trying to communicate with him in anyway. Hughes said he only felt fear, and “stepped on the carburetor” and went tearing “the hell home as fast as I could.” He repeated this too, about the fear, about speeding home as fast as he could.

He described the country as being gently rolling hills. He was vague about the land on the north (his side) of the road, but from his description, I gathered it was rolling pasture. On the south side of the road was a plowed field. When Hughes returned with a deputy, they were unable to find any tracks, nor did they find any tracks in the adjacent hard-packed field of last year’s hay cutting. The nearest woods was some 75 yards beyond the soft plowed field; Hughes said he was told a big swamp lies beyond.

A look at an atlas shows that a large oil and high tension power transmission line runs just north of the sighting area. A large radio tower is marked nearby. Two named Indian mound groups lie to the northwest and southwest. And of course, Panther Creek cuts across the road near where Hughes saw the creature.

Hughes did not have any other person or animal in his vehicle with him. He snorted when I asked whether he was afraid to return to the area.

He is weary of answering questions, as every reporter, radio and television station across the world has been calling him, and he said he’s “getting sick of telling the same story.” He only reluctantly talked to me when I told him I wasn’t a reporter, but a serious researcher.

He’s said that already, even in this short time, all kinds of people have been driving all up and down the road looking for the creature. A woman even came from Minnesota, bringing “specially trained dogs” to sniff out Bigfoot, but all they smelled were the other people who had been “pawing around” the dirt along the road.

Hughes said that no one else has come forward with other stories. He laughed when I asked about this, implying that they’d have to be crazy to tell their story now. He half intimated that he wished he hadn’t said anything due to the resulting media circus. I cut my interview short because I knew I was trying his patience.

(Edwards at the radio station said that the only reported sightings listeners had called in with were of the 1997 Bigfoot sightings near Rice Lake.)

Hughes had heard of Bigfoot or Sasquatch prior to his sighting, but had always dismissed them as stories or legends. But, he “believes in them now.”

One interesting aspect is the overall hair-covered body, with hair six to eight inches long, and the lack of distinguishing facial features. This fits the description of the Momo Bigfoot of 1972 and the 1965 creature that attacked Christine Van Acker near Monroe, Michigan. Loren Coleman says that these creatures are often referred to as the “Eastern Bigfoot,” a much different creature from the Pacific Northwest’s Sasquatch.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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