As recently as April 1999, a family reported an encounter with a man-like creature in the
wooded hollows near Fairmont, in northern West Virginia, according to a submission to the
Bigfoot Field Researcher's Organization website."My
older brother, his wife, and six-year-old son were riding on their four-wheeler back in
old 93 hollow," according to an anonymous contributor to the BFRO site.
"It was between 7 and 8 p.m. when they saw what they thought
to be a black bear walking on its hind legs. They stopped the four-wheeler and turned off
the engine to watch it. When they did this, the creature also stopped and was watching
them."
"They watched it enter into the woods," according to the
organization report, "and then went home. When they got home, their son, scared from
what he had just seen, started crying. He swore to his mom he was never going to ride his
bike or motor bike in that hollow ever again."
Tales of frightening sounds and unnerving encounters have recently
been reported in at least eight West Virginia counties -- from the valleys of the Ohio and
Monongahela rivers to the windswept heights of the Monongahela National Forest.
Several accounts mention at the site mention similiarly unsettling
cries.
"In the early morning hours of December 1,
1997, I was hunting with my son when I heard some weird sounds coming from a nearby
gully," according to a report from the Cranberry Back Country.
"The sounds observed were similar to that of a woman
screaming, followed by a strange sort of chatter, as if someone were playing a recording
of a human-like conversation backwards."
A similar report originates near Huntington: