Minnesota Update Of Sorts(Shrug)

[Guest Maggie]

I like the new forum.

Anyway, this is kind of a continuation of what I was doing on the old forum, as far as updating when there was some sort of activity. However, there is no PROOF positive it was/is bigfoot. Only when we have put together years of "interesting" experiences does it make more sense. My family moved to the area in 1969 and had something happen the first year, which has set the tone up until now. I have most of those stories and updates in the archives. I dont want anything. I just enjoy the subject.

Anyhow. Around 5 am Saturday morning we were getting ready to head up to the rennaisance festival so myself and daughter had to take the dogs out before it got light out. I took mine out (we have learned out there at my parents house, when it is dark, take the dogs out on a LEASH! ) and heard something BIG around back behind the chicken coop. I kept telling myself not to be concerned, especially since the dog acted like there was nothing. So I brushed it off and neglected to tell my daughter before she took HER dogs out. She said she was ultra nervous too for some reason and heard something moving as well, but with couple differences, she said she smelled something awful and her dogs didnt want to stay outside. As said, I hadnt mentioned anything to her, she came to me with what happened.

Now, maybe it was a bear, or a cougar, or a deer or even the dark spooking us and making it sound bigger than what it was!

This is kind of off topic, but with the different things that have occured over the years, I always thought "maybe we ARE insane. Nobody else is experiencing this, or at least no one that is saying anything!" Until spring of 2007 when a report from Frontenac,MN came up on Bigfoot Encounters.(10 miles from the family house.)

[Guest Robert]

Interesting.

Did you look behind the chicken coop later?

See anything unusual?

[Guest Maggie]

No, I have to admit I didnt.

One other thing I have noticed. For quite a while the coyotes werent there but now they are moving back in. I have heard that coyotes move out when a larger predator moves in. Maybe a cougar? There were sightings of one around there last year.

I heard from someone on the old forum, Prehistoric Fisherman, and then lost touch, but he had talked about coming out and doing some recording and general checking around. Things were completely insane at the time so I didnt pursue it like maybe I should have. I guess its happened so long that unless there is a new occurence it kind of goes to the back of my head. Then I think about it for a little while and shrug it off.

[Guest vilnoori]

I hope someone got out there in the morning and looked for tracks. Then you might get some kind of idea what kind of animal is out there making the noise. You probably should, since if its just deer its no big deal, but if its a cougar or something you'd be right to be concerned.

[Guest danbury242]

Are you still feeding bigfoot these things..............Cheesey crackers, corn chips and cinnamon with sugar on bread or graham crackers. I am just wondering.

[Guest]

maggie, has anyone had a quick sighting? I've followed your thread in the BBf and enjoyed your comments.

[Guest UPs]

Hi Maggie. You had mentioned that coyotes are back in your area and one of the reasons coyotes will move out of an area is a decline of food resources like rabbits, rodents, etc. Once their primary food sources increase, they will move back into an area. From my own experiences, this type of pattern happens over the course of months and not weekly or daily. There are also other reasons, but it is one to consider. UPs

[Guest Maggie]

Squatchaholic, if I remember correctly, the only three times something has been seen by my parents place was my mother seeing an animal walking across the backyard early in the morning before it was light, another time when I was in the chicken coop and saw what I took to be a person, hunched over and going by the window.(That occurence is in the archives) and then the sighting by another party about 10 miles away in Frontenac.

There was a sighting on a relatives farm by Spring Valley, Minnesota back in the late 60s or early 70s, or at least I THINK it was? I had been playing dolls with my cousin, my back was towards the window. My cousin looked up and said my uncle was looking in the window. Which was impossible since he was overseas at the time.

This is awful, but my uncle was very hairy and kind of wild looking. It also could have been someone sneaking around.

Vilnoori, no one has checked for tracks, though there have been cougar sightings in the area over the past few years. A couple times on a farm close to my parents.

Ups, thanks for the information! I appreciate it. A person learns something new every day.

I will be going out to the family place again this weekend. I doubt there anything to be seen NOW but will go and check anyway.

[Guest vilnoori]

OK, good, when you go, take a camera and try to get shots if you see some tracks. I don't know if you know how to make casts, but at least a camera will give you an idea. Also take a tape measure and lay it alongside the tracks you photograph, it gives a sense of scale. Try to take several different angles of shots, and if there are multiple tracks of anything significant, measure from toe to toe (stride) as well as length of the footprint itself. If you double the stride you can estimate the height of the individual if it is comparable to a person. Also make a note of how far the tracks go, try to get a feel for where the individual was going, how fast, did it step over anything (vs. going around obstacles) etc. Good hunting!

[Guest Maggie]

Well, I got back from the family place yesterday. I didnt find anything around the chicken coop, but that is no big surprise since there is a section of lawn and then underbrush on the far side of it. I looked anyway, I felt sort of stupid in not looking in the first place.:/ However, it has been very wet so I thought, just MAYBE...

Over the couple nights I was there I stayed up most of the night, reading a book and listening.The only things I heard were coyotes the first night and an owl the second night.

Both days/nights I was there it was clear and cool.

[Guest vilnoori]

No worries, if they are out there they probably won't constantly be in the same place since foraging must be widespread to support such large creatures. In fact they probably have quite a large range if other great apes and large animals are any indication. The best thing is to go out there at the same time as previous years when there has been an incident, and take a look around then. You need to be in for the long haul if you are investigating or researching any animal. And it looks like you are.

[Guest]

10 miles from Frontenac would be (depending on the direction) about 30 to 50 miles from me. In addition to the sighting mentioned, back in the 1980's the Rochester Post Bulletin reported a woman seeing a hairy biped cross a highway ahead of her as she was driving about 2-3 miles north of Rochester.

[Guest Maggie]

When I was a little girl in the late 1960s, early 1970s there was some sort of bigfoot flap in the rochester area. My grandparents lived on a farm by Spring Valley,MN. It wasnt until I was older that I read about those sightings, but apparently my family had heard of them. My younger aunts and uncles (who were like older siblings to me) were warned to watch me carefully and I wasnt allowed to go out into the fields.(I liked the ride on the tractor with my grandpa) Mostly they kept me in the house and talked about the "hairy scary monster" and how it liked to grab little kids.

There was also supposedly a sighting by Lake City, I think in the 1980s but I am not certain of the time frame. A hunter supposedly surprised one and flushed it out.

Oh and I remember reading about a truck driver who encountered what he called "monkeys" in the rochester area often. That was also an older story.

Plus different strange incidents on my uncles farm by spring valley, though I think those were more attributed to something paranormal than an animal. Their dogs were always dying and the vet couldnt explain why, the horse came down too with something and they didnt know what that was either. My uncle was in the barn milking and saw one of the cows being thrown past the barn door. What picks up a COW???? I wasnt very old at the time of these things either and only my uncles now ex wife would talk to me about the incidents when I got a little older because I was so fascinated with it. No one else wanted to talk about it. At all.

My parents moved to my childhood home in the Frontenac area when I was four and still reside there. Different things happening over a period of 40 plus years, some easily explained away, others not.

Currently I live in the Kellogg area, close to the river and a few incidents over the 12 years I have resided here.

A couple things all of these places had in common, kind of hilly and wooded with a river or a creek. Turtle creek by my grandparents, wells creek by my parents and the zumbro river and mississippi close to here. My uncles place too, but I cant remember the name of that creek?

Just speculation, I know.

[Guest]

I live "up the hill" from you. My in-laws are in the Theilman area and I have hunted their woods many times and have never seen or heard anything unusual or heard them talk about such things. Of course, this area receives incredible hunting pressure and I can imagine anything out there would have to keep moving or eventually be seen.

[Guest Maggie]

You never know. I feel whatever these are, they are WAY more woods wise than any of us and could be right there without us knowing anything. Many of the hunters that have had experiences start out with "I have hunted these woods for YEARS and never saw anything until now"....

My worst experience here was when my youngest daughter was at summer camp and I was at the house alone. Around one am the dogs went totally crazy and I smelled something awful, hard to describe...sewer, wet dog, skunk combination if I recall correctly. We had been having a bit of a drought and it was the middle of August or so I think. Anyway, I could hear something walking, pressing into the dry grass. It sounded bi-pedal. I brought the dogs upstairs with me and sat up there terrified and trying not to draw attention as itcontinued to move around the house until around 5 am. The dogs were so upset they were slobbering, barking, whining. I had never seen them act like that,completely insane.

Why didnt I call the police? I told myself that I wasnt going to unless I heard "it" trying to get into the house so there would be proof. If there was no evidence of something like this, well, I am sure you know what I would have been labeled as. I am still confused as to why I was so scared to even look out the window? I have never had that kind of reaction and more likely to be curious or at most cautious/nervous than scared out of my mind. I asked some questions of the neighbors the next day, as well as I could without revealing what had happened the night before but they work nights.

In all honesty, I CANT say this was bigfoot. I have gone over and over this in my mind. I did post it on the old boards.

And THIS was on the very edge of town. Whatever it was, it wasnt afraid of ME, thats for sure, or the dogs. I remember being so scared I felt physically sick. Like I said, I STILL dont understand that. Its not as if I hadnt had anything weird happen to me in my lifetime. And never went into full blown panic like that.

And ack. The previous was not what I started out to say. Are you familiar with John A. Latch park between here and winona. My older two kids used to camp down there in their high school days. My oldest daughter said she was laying awake in the tent one night listening to something wood knocking. One knocking quite close to the camp. She never went camping again, it really got to her.

Another time she and I were driving to my parents house, we had pulled on to goodhue county road 2 when she jerked and almost went off the road. I turned to look at her but she was getting that car to go as fast as she could manage. When we got to my parents house, she told me she had seen an animal just inside the woodline off to the left,(wells creek is close) its head was the most visible. She said it was standing up. And then she just shut down and wouldnt talk about it.

I tried to talk to her about it a couple weekends ago and she got angry. She said she doesnt WANT to remember.