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I've written about an elderly couple I know in Stone County, Missouri who have had activity on their property for two decades. This wasn't an habituation situation. It was a matter of the clan making regular stopovers on their property and an adjacent lot. They've had relatively few actual sightings, but plenty of activity around the house, including the movement of heavy objects in the night to gain access to food. In recent years the couple's health has declined, and the wife was actually menaced by more than one bigfoot as she prepared to leave one predawn morning to visit her husband in the hospital. They moved in on her between her first trip out to the jeep to load items and her second trip out to leave. Of note, the elderly widow from whom they purchased the property was considered batty because more than once she drove recklessly down the ridge into town in the middle of the night in a panic over things from the woods trying to get into her house. One of the consistent behaviors when the bigfoot were around was what the wife considered to be constant surveillance during the day. Their house is at the top of a ridge overlooking Table Rock Lake with a woodpile near the edge of the slope going down to the lake. I've walked the slope to get a sense of it. To me, it seems younger members of the clan climbed trees downslope to view their activity around the house, and larger members approached within twenty feet of the house using the heavy vegetation just downslope of the woodpile to provide concealment. The jeep is usually parked between the front door and the woodpile. The wife tells me that their cats, during times when there was other activity, would get up on the furniture and stare, in an alert stance, for hours at specific trees on the slope. During these periods the cats refused to go outside unless accompanied by one of the couple, and stayed close to the house. On one occasion about five years ago the husband went to the woodpile to restack it, and a large black animal that he at first thought was a massive dog, broke cover and ran from behind the woodpile, not downhill, but along the level crest of the slope to the adjacent property in full view. It ran rapidly and powerfully on four legs until it approached the low fence at the property line, then transitioned into running on its back legs for about sixty feet as it approached and vaulted the low fence. Then it cut to the left into the tree line, changing it's direction, like a "halfback avoiding a tackler" without using its forelimbs to execute the cut. Up until that point, though he acknowledged that there was "something" in the woods, he had refused to consider that it might be one or more bigfoot. Though he's now privately convinced, he still will not mention the words bigfoot or mo-mo. About two years ago the adjacent property was purchased and the new owners built a house on the lot, clearing the level wooded area into which the large animal had run, and building a house there. Since that time activity levels have dramatically declined. The wife says that there no longer appear to be periods of prolonged surveillance, and believes that prior to the new construction the itinerant group had been staying in the level wooded area on the adjacent property when visiting, just 100 yards from their house. Occasionally something does happen to indicate that they still come through, though there isn't enough sustained activity to indicate that the group stays nearby anymore. Earlier this summer, the husband bought a live trap to catch a squirrel that was raiding the bird feeders on their upper deck and successfully caught the squirrel not long before sunset. Because it was late, he decided to leave the squirrel in the trap overnight. During the night while his wife was upstairs, something heavy walked onto the deck and she could hear it rattling, and then banging, the trap (somewhere between five and ten pounds) against the deck furniture, then leave. She chose not to look out the window (she'd seen them a few times before). The next morning, the trap was gone "as if carried off like a lunchbox". I've offered to put the couple in touch with investigators. They've consistently declined. The wife reads this forum, though she is not a member, and I've provided her with Branco's book about encounters in Alabama. They simply don't want to upset the balance of things, and the fact that there's a certain mystery associated with their retirement property is something they accept and apparently value.

What I find odd is that while you apparently have an opinion on everything (leading poster of all time on BFF) yet, a working knowledge of anything BF related appears nonexistent. In looking up the definition of busy body.....

Wow. Thanks for reminding us about this story, JDL. I remember pretty much all of it, because it was very interesting to me when you first told it (and when you told other parts of it). And I'm sooooo glad that the wife reads these posts, because that means there's now an opportunity to invite her, once again (I've said this before, about her situation, so she may have seen these words already), to consider that she may have been consistently misinterpreting the actions of her hairy visitors for years. This is not uncommon. Most humans respond to things they don't understand in a fearful way. So she is not alone in this. It's important to remember, however, that fear distorts things. It is my opinion that the apparently heightened presence that the BF seemed to have when her husband was ill was a reflection of their concern for her: not a rubbing of their hands in glee that the obstacle to their domination of that property was about to be removed. An old man is not an obstacle for a BF. A BF who wants to eat you for dinner will eat you in a heartbeat, whether you're small, tall, old, or young. BF carry off deer and elk and hogs in one hand, or slung over their shoulders. We weigh a lot less than full-grown hogs and elk. :-) I believe they had no interest in harming her. I think it was quite the contrary. They had lived side by side with her for a loooong time, and they understood the stress she was under. That concerned them for her, and made them forget that physically being visible to her could increase, and not alleviate, her stress. When has THAT happened before? There are many stories of humans -- forget BF -- reaching out to help other humans, and having their advances rebuffed, because they were misunderstood. But anyway, I'm glad the wife accepts and values the mystery. I think the only thing that could make all that even better is to accept, to understand, that there is no need to fear that mystery. She knows this, somewhere. I just wish her greater ease in embracing what she already knows. Here's a great interview that Michael Merchant just did with a long-term witness that I think the wife might like. It explains a lot of things and covers a lot of bases (but you have to listen through to the end to get to the most interesting part). Oh, and I think the title is a bit of a joke. Please don't be deterred by it. The video is about anything BUT what the first part of the title claims it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-QWL6pwC9M&t

Odd not a single habituator willing to divulge anything new. Other than sharing garlic.