"Very Reliable Sighting" of Bigfoot in Illinois Reported to BFRO
59-year-old Patrick Garver submitted a report to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) near the end of November, 2021, describing an encounter with a large, hairy biped had while driving north on Route 78 near the Sangamon River after leaving Chandlerville, Illinois.
According to Garver's report, it was approximately 10:30 p.m. on November 29th, “with clear weather and stars shining,” when he had his experience.
Saturday night I was driving at 10:30 p.m. in Central Illinois, heading from Cass County to Tazewell County. A car was probably [three quarters of a] mile ahead of me and I could see their tail lights.
I saw a large animal jump into the road about 40 yards ahead. When it hit the road, I could see very large legs spread wide in a dead run with large swinging hairy arms. The arms switched back and forth close to the ground as its body was leaning forward. It leaped across the road in two jumps. When it hit the shoulder, it looked back at me. I said to myself out loud, "f***ng Bigfoot!"
It was about two seconds before it vanished in the darkness altogether, but I could see it clearly. It was very large and even though it was hunched over nearly horizontal, it still was close to being wider than my car and nearly to the top of my windshield. It blocked out the lights of the car ahead. It had shiny black hair. I could not see [its] eyes or mouth, but saw its head turn towards me before it jumped into the dark field.
"It was running and leaping very fast," Garver added. "Nearly as fast as a white-tailed deer. Its gate and/or stride was huge."
Although Garver was alone at the time of his sighting, he did discuss the incident at work.
"My co-worker says hunters, fisherman and barge operators have had multiple sightings in that area," he said. "Supposedly the locals say a clan of Bigfoot live there and they are not threatening to humans."
BFRO investigator Matthew Moneymaker later described Garver’s sighting as “very reliable” after having spoken “extensively” with the witness over the phone.
The sighting report was listed as “Class A,” which according to the BFRO, is reserved for “clear sightings in circumstances where misinterpretation or misidentification of other animals can be ruled out with greater confidence.”
Garver, said Moneymaker, "has been a design engineer for the past 38 years, designing parts for custom welding machines," and is married with two children in college.
"He was not particularly interested in the Bigfoot subject but he recognized what he was seeing," Moneymaker explained. "He was driving 70 miles per hour and didn’t slow down much until he reached the next town. He kept going, then stopped in Havana, the next town, to text his wife and kids to say he had seen a Bigfoot cross the highway."
Moneymaker said Garver described the creature as “running frighteningly fast across the highway from left to right into an open field.”
"[Garver] thinks [the encounter] happened a bit further north on 78, further into the open field," he said. "There was no cover on either side of the road at that point, so it is impossible for him to pinpoint the exact crossing point."
Moneymaker said Garver was surprised that his encounter was the first posted visual sighting report for Cass County in Illinois, although he noted that Sangamon County, just southeast of Cass, has had 13 posted sighting reports, while Fulton County, to the north, has had 12 posted reports.
Also mentioned by Garver was that Cass County is very sparsely populated.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the population of Cass County—spread out over 384 square miles—was 13,042 in 2020.
Moneymaker added that Garver "agreed to make a sketch of the figure so it can be added to this report later," although, at the time of this article's publication, no sketch has yet been added.
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