SC EP:971 Behind My Parents Home

Jeff writes "I am 52 and grew up in Deep East Texas on Lake Sam Rayburn about 55 miles north of the big thicket area I have heard mentioned on your show. I spent 12 years as an Infantry soldier in the US ARMY and I have hunted all my life all over the US.
The events I’m about to tell you about happened behind my parents house and in front of my grand parents as the crow fly’s about 3 miles apart. This is a really small community pop back then was 312 people. Today 172 last time I was home. The area is a largest lake in the state and multiple rivers The Angelina, Sabine a Trinity are all in close proximity. Plenty of water in the area along with very large national forest and private land. Beside the lakes and rivers the terrain is kind of hilly but covered in tall Pines with hardwoods mainly along the creeks and bottoms. Over the years a lot of clear cutting and replanting of pines also in the area.
The first incident actually happened to my cousin on Christmas morning 1985. He had gotten a bicycle and took off down the dirt road from my grandparents. Everyone was at my Grandparents that morning and it was just another normal Christmas until he returned crying and scared to death and had even peed on himself. This is what he told us when he had calmed down.
The chain had come off at a curve in the road where the creek crosses. Note not 30 yards from second sighting I will tell you about. While trying to fix the loose chain he heard something in the woods. He said he looked up and couldn’t see anything . He thought it was one of the dogs from my grandparents home but then something leaned out from behind a big pine tree and stared at him. He stated it was tall and hairy. At the time he was 13 and I was 15. No one ever thought about Bigfoot. We grew up in those woods from playing in them to hunting in them and never once ever though about a Bigfoot.
Myself and the same cousin had parked my truck on the other side of the curve and creek I mentioned previously about 30 to 40 yards up the road in a lane that went into a pine sapling thicket where it had been clear cut and replanted. We got the dogs out and just like always turned them loose on the creek. It was windy that night so it was kind of hard to hear the dogs. After about an hour and a half of walking the woods and going up and down the hills and creek beds I had a feeling like something or some body was watching us. I stopped to listen for the dogs and turned to my cousin and before I could say anything he stated something just felt weird and I told him I agreed he stated he also felt like something was trailing us. We had herd rumors that there were big cats in our area but never thought much about it till then. We kind of just shook it off and kept hunting listening for the dogs. After we stopped two more times to listen we heard an extra step to our rear. We both heard it and looked at one another. I told him to get in front of me and the next time we stopped I would shine my light behind us and shoot if I needed to. I always had a 22 pistol six shot revolver with 10 in barrel.
The older westerns style. We walked and stopped probably 3 more times and I would turn and shine and nothing was ever there. We then decided to just go back to the truck and come back in the morning and find the dogs. We had done that before I would leave a tshirt or jacket in the woods and the dogs would come back to it. As we started back to the truck one dog came back to us about 200 yards from the truck we put her on a lead rope and continued to the truck. Once we got to the dirt road across from my truck I heard something to the right and shined my light coming down the road was my male dog so my cousin caught him and put him on another lead rope. We went to step out of the bar ditch onto the road and neither dog would move they were locked up looking to the left where the creek crossed the road in the curve. Neither dog barked or growled they just stayed froze. My coon hunting light had separate spot light that I used when needing more light than the standard walking headlight I unsnapped it and shined to the left what I seen was not what I expected To my left about 30 yards was a hairy something about 7 foot tall the same color of dead pine straw a rusty brownish orange color. When I shined my light it raised its hand and covered its face its palm was darker color with huge long fingers I did not see claws the hair on the arm was short at the wrist but got gradually longer towards the elbow.
I saw one eye shine for a second and it was a greenish yellow color nothing I can recall has ever shined that color, I told my cousin to get in the truck we drug the dogs across the road over the closed tail gate and into the back of the truck. The whole time I held my light straight in its face and watched it. Once I got the door open to get in the truck I seen it step off the bank of the creek and down into it. The creek was dry at this time and about 8 feet deep at this area. There was a big metal culvert that was under the dirt road at that point not a bridge. We both were scared at this point and I backed out and with out thinking headed back to my parents. I did not even back out enough to get fully on the road I went up the hill in the ditch and drug the side of my truck against the bank roughly 2500 dollars worth of damage.
There are more times that I could say involved something we cant explain I can cover more in detail later."