Messing with Sasquatch may not be such a good idea

CHATHAM – There’s something amiss in the backwoods of Chatham, something potentially big. Lately there’s been talk around certain areas of town of an unusual howling and screeching sound as well as evidence of some very large footprints.


Since June there have been at least five to six instances of residents discovering or hearing evidence that the infamous Bigfoot may be lurking somewhere in the Chatham community. One case in particular has garnered some attention from local police, as well as a few proclaimed Big Foot experts.

On Wednesday, June 15, 2011, Michael Patrick’s mother was getting the liner to her pool changed at her residence, when workmen noticed an abnormally large footprint under the apple tree in the back yard and brought the footprint to Patrick’s attention.

Over the years Patrick and his mother had, at times, heard bizarre noises, but had always passed them off as coming from some common forest animal. But they weren’t the only ones that had heard the sounds either. The night before the footprint was found a neighbor had also commented about unusual sounds.

“My neighbor has a German Shepherd, and it heard something that night that spooked him. The dog went outside to investigate, but came back cowering, now it won’t leave its owner’s side,” Patrick said.

Unsure about what exactly the footprint was, and concerned for his mother’s safety, Patrick called the Chatham Police Department. An officer came to investigate the scene, but was unable to determine what might have caused the print.

“The responding officer stated that there was a large footprint approximately 18 inches long and 8 inches wide, and it appeared there were five claw marks,” Chatham Police Department Deputy Chief, Vernon Foli said.

To give you an idea how big 18 inches is, retired NBA center Shaquille O’Neil's feet are approximately 15 inches long, and he wears a size 23 shoe. The average human being’s foot measures approximately 9 ½ inches. Most shoe size charts end at a size fifteen shoe. An 18-inch footprint is about the size of a healthy newborn baby. Considering the size of the print, it’s understandable for a person to show a little concern if they found such a print in their yard.

Patrick documented his discovery on Facebook where he struck up a conversation with a friend. Patrick’s friend knew John Winterbauer, a Bigfoot investigator. Winterbauer in turn contacted local Bigfoot expert Stan Courtney.

Courtney has documented sightings and gathered sound recordings and evidence of Bigfoot for years. He has interviewed over two hundred witnesses who have seen Bigfoot.

“I literally know hundreds of people who’ve seen these animals. There have been lots of them in central Illinois. I’ve recorded lots of sounds that other researchers and witnesses believe come from these animals. People in Springfield don’t realize it, but there have been a lot of reports from the Sangamon River around Riverton.” Courtney said in a previous interview.

Courtney said that there have been five to six other reports of finding footprints and howling in the Chatham area since June.

So why is Bigfoot in Chatham? Well it’s hard to say really. Patrick’s property does back up to a wooded stream which flows into Lake Springfield. Courtney proposed that the creature was drawn to the house because of the apple tree that grows in Patrick’s mother’s back yard.

Stan Courtney explained to Patrick that the apple tree might have somehow been interpreted as a gift of food. In the past the Patrick’s had noticed that apples from the tree had been picked, but only to a certain height. They believed that the culprit was a wily raccoon, but the large footprint seemed to suggest otherwise. Courtney told Patrick that a creature such a Bigfoot will usually return the favor, and present a gift of its own as a show of appreciation in the form of a dead animal or a strange arrangement of flowers.

The day after his meeting with Courtney, Patrick discovered the Sasquatch’s gift, a decapitated rabbit, near his mother’s house. In Courtney’s account he stated that the rabbit had, “its head pulled off, not bitten or cut, but just simply pulled off.”

Since that strange June evening, no more incidents have occurred at Patrick’s mother’s residence. You might think that such a strange series of events would frighten most people in to staying out of the back yard, but the occurrence has not deterred Patrick’s mother from going about her normal routine.

“She’s not scared, she continues to do her yard work, she thinks it’s neat. My mom has never been skeptical of it.” Patrick said.

While his mother may not be skeptical of what happened, others aren’t ready to pin the event on Bigfoot just yet. Vernon Foli posed a possible explanation, albeit an indirect one.

“One thing I can tell you is that approximately ½ mile south of this location is the former Grindstone Valley Zoo that use to have exotic animals. The zoo is no longer in existence but the owner is Brad or Larry Reynolds and he still has some animals at this location,” Foli said.

Could the print have come from an animal from the old zoo? The Reynolds had kept large animals such as buffalo, antelope, elk, deer, tigers, leopards, monkeys, and zebras while the zoo was open. Or could it be a bear footprint? It’s widely believed by many that there are no bears in Illinois, but with their presence in neighboring states, Wisconsin and Missouri, would it be so far fetched to think that there are indeed bears in Illinois?

At this point it’s hard to tell what exactly made the footprint, but with other accounts of strange happenings and unusual howls and screeches in Chatham, many residents are raising an eyebrow.

“I definitely don’t think it was a hoax, and it was more than just a coincidence. I think that people should just be a bit more vigilant and careful, because you never know what you’re going to find out there,” Patrick said.

By Kevin Tremain (ourtowns.sj-r.com)


http://www.sj-r.com/ourtowns/chatham/x121481200/Messing-with-Sasquatch-may-not-be-such-a-good-idea

Illinois authorities puzzled by armadillo sighting

Thursday, May. 12, 2011

The Associated Press

HOMER GLEN, Ill. -- Roadkill is part of the routine for highway crews in northern Illinois, but the dead armadillo spotted along a Will County road was a bit of a surprise.

Armadillos are normally found in warmer areas in the South.

Homer Township highway crew member Dan Bills found the armadillo while doing road maintenance last week. Bills tells the (Tinley Park) SouthtownStar he'd seen armadillos while visiting Texas but was shocked to find one in suburban Chicago.

David Robinson works for the Will County Forest Preserve, and he says he wonders if the armadillo had some "human assistance" getting so far north.

Wildlife biologist Joe Rogus also says he's never heard of any armadillo sightings in the area. He says armadillos are expanding their territory but aren't capable of traveling long distances.

Information from: Southtown Star, http://www.southtownstar.com

http://www.bnd.com/2011/05/12/1705850/will-co-authorities-puzzled-by.html

A panther in northern Kane? Experts skeptical (Via Paul Cropper)

A panther in northern Kane? Experts skeptical
Dave Gathman; dgathman @STMEDIANETWORK.COM
8 April 2010
The Beacon News
Copyright 2010, Sun-Times Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by NewsBank Inc.

BROOKFIELD - Could at least 16 witnesses in northern Kane County be mistaken when they claim to have seen the mysterious big cat dubbed the Plank Road Panther?

Probably, said an assemblage of experts on the mountain lion (which also is known as the cougar, puma or American panther). But after a genuine, laid-out-dead-on-the-table-in-front-of-you, 120-pound cougar was found and shot to death right in a residential neighborhood of Chicago in April 2008, "we can never say never again," biologist Chris Anchor of Cook County Forest Preserve District cautioned. About 90 people, most of them employees of Illinois forest preserve districts and police departments, attended a recent seminar about the possible movement of cougars into the Chicago area. The workshop was held at Brookfield Zoo and sponsored by the East Dundee-based Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation. Zoologist Mike Kinsel of the University of Illinois performed the necropsy on the 2008 Chicago cougar. He said it was a male about age 3 to 4 and it seemed to have been a wild animal, not an escaped pet.

Kinsel said DNA testing showed he was the same cougar who left a blood stain on a farm in south-central Wisconsin a few weeks earlier. Genetic similarities suggest he came all the way from the Black Hills in South Dakota, probably by walking but possibly (in what one person at the conference dubbed "the Boxcar Willie Theory") by hitching rides on trains. That's not totally surprising, according to Professor John Jenks of South Dakota State University. Jenks has been studying the cougars of the Black Hills for 12 years. He said young males wearing radio collars have traveled as far away as Oklahoma and Manitoba before dying or disappearing. In fact, Jenks said, the cougar population pressure in the Black Hills is becoming so great that 87 to 92 percent of the male cougars born end up walking out of the area, trying to find a promised land where there is no competing male but plenty of females and lots of venison. Since few females leave, and those that do don't go far, these optimistic males tend just to keep going, often until something bad happens - such as being hit by a train (as one was in southern Illinois in 2000) or being shot by a cop in the middle of Chicago.

False sightings
The group also heard from Seth Riley, a National Park Service biologist who has been studying cougars in a mountainous national park that abuts developed neighborhoods of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Jenks and Riley both said that even in the two experts' own areas, where there are large numbers of genuine cougars, as many as 80 to 90 percent of sightings turn out to be mistaken identity - probably large dogs, bobcats, coyotes or even housecats. One reassuring fact, they said, is that despite some well-publicized cases in California, cougars rarely attack adult humans. "A mountain lion looks at you and he sees second-class prey," Jenks said. "You're not mom's home cooking" that the cougar learned as a kitten to enjoy. Their favorite food in both the Black Hills and the Los Angeles area is deer, with dead deer being even more enticing than live ones if dead ones can be found. However, they often also eat domestic cats and dogs and they will go through garbage cans. Surprisingly, Jenks' students also find that many South Dakota cougars attack porcupines, which leave behind painful quills in the cats' stomachs and mouths.