Thursday, May 1, 2025

 

My Amish Country Bigfoot Experience:

In September of 2020, a year we all remember well due to Covid-19, I was doing some paranormal research for a book I was writing in Millersburg, Ohio near Amish Country. While doing this research I stayed with my friend, Veronica and her husband Jim, in their 1800’s log cabin for a few days.

Veronica and I were having a girl’s night in with her sister, Cindy, at the cabin one weeknight and we were all having a good time laughing and telling spooky ghost stories. Later into the night, Cindy announced she was going outside to her sister’s front porch for a cigarette and she wanted us to come with her. We could tell that Cindy didn’t want to be alone on the porch in the dark countryside night so we all joined her.

It was a beautiful fall weeknight in early September around 10 pm. The front porch hung off of the front of the little cabin which was built into a cliff.  The property went back to the Civil War era and even had an old fireplace that still sat upon a hill from a previous house during the war.

Veronica and I both sat down next to Cindy on the outdoor wooden porch as she smoked and soon picked up our conversation were we had left off.  Ten minutes later I began to hear something from across the street in the woods. I didn’t say anything at first to anyone, but began looking around.  I thought I heard the noises coming from the property across the street. There was a small white home with green shutters, which had a small driveway leading to a tiny garage. To the right of the little house were large woods with a wire fence, like those used on farm land, lining the property.

The sound seemed to be coming from the large area of woods next to the home. The property had electric and phone wires on a telephone pole barely sticking out from the woods, which sat 50 feet from the white house.

As I looked more at the woods across the way, still trying to identify the unfamiliar sounds I was hearing, a feeling of dread shot through my whole body.  I knew someone or something was watching us on Veronica’s front porch.

I sat completely still and continued to listen across the street, looking around the wooden property. I didn’t know what to expect or look for really. Was this a person, was it a spirit, or a creature? I didn’t know and it was so hard to see into those woods from across the street and through the darkness.

Soon Veronica and Cindy stopped talking and looked around. I could tell they too could feel it.  It was the same feeling I had, someone was watching us. A minute or two went by and still no one spoke as we all sat on the little porch clinging in fear to our wooden chairs as we sat and listened.

“What is that noise?” Cindy whispered quietly.

          “I don’t know,” I replied, “but I think it’s coming from the woods near that telephone pole across the street,” I replied as I pointed at the pole. “I have been hearing noises for a while.” I told them. “Girls,” I said, “Do you feel like someone is watching us?”

          We all exchanged terrified glances and I knew they felt it too. Soon they asked me the big question since I was the gifted one in the group: “Rosella, what do you think it is?”

“I feel a creature, something I have never experienced before and I feel dread throughout my whole body, like we should run,” I replied.

          As soon as I had spoken my sentence we saw the telephone wires across the street begin to move as if a HUGE beast-like creature, or force, had taken its fists and had pushed them down in anger. Then we heard a frightening sound begin to bellow out from the dark woods right behind the telephone pole and its wires. It sounded like an angry large creature, almost like a twist between a lion’s roar and an unknown beast. 

          “RUN!!” I screamed out as I bolted out of my wooden chair on the porch and ran inside the cabin and hid like a child, behind Veronica’s couch in her family room.

Frightened out of their minds, my two friends followed suit and soon we all were crouched down low, behind Veronica’s couch while we waited for the roaring sounds in the woods to stop.

          Veronica’s husband, Jim soon walked into the room and saw us all hiding like small toddlers in fear behind their couch and asked us what was going on? We peaked out our heads from behind the furniture enough to tell him what had just happened.

          Laughing with a chuckle, Jim said, “Oh, so you heard the Bigfoot?”

          “What?” We all asked Jim in unison then looked at each other oddly.

          “You heard the bigfoot!” Exclaimed Jim with smile as he reached into his pocket of his flannel night coat and pulled out his cell phone. Jim began rummaging through his cell, looking for something as he spoke to us.

“I hear it almost every night when I put out the dogs around midnight. Sometimes I hear it earlier in the night during the summer and fall. They roar and get upset because the dogs are outside. They don’t like the dogs.” Jim told us stilling smiling as he tried to pull something up on his phone. “Here,” he said as he held out his cell phone showing us a voice recording marked June.

Jim pushed play and soon you could hear the same roars and sounds that the creature across the street had made before we all ran inside. Jim seemed to have many recordings from all times of the year. He explained to us that he always heard it at night when he was outside, either on the porch or their driveway with the dogs.  Jim told us that sometimes he would hear them (Bigfoots) banging on trees, as if in conversation with one another. He also told us he would hear bangs or roars sometimes from even miles away, as they communicated to each other.

“This was their means of communication,” Jim told us as we continued to hide from the creature outside the cabin. You could see that Jim was so excited to share this information with someone, as if he had been sitting on this wonderful research for years.

Veronica’s husband then told us that he believes that the creatures, as in Bigfoots, think that “outside” is their territory. Which is why the Bigfoot tonight roared, trying to purposely scare us away from its territory. Jim told us that sometimes he will hear many Bigfoots at night from inside his cabin, when he is up late watching TV. Jim will get up and go out to his front porch to record the sounds.

          Jim’s enthusiasm for the creatures seemed to calm us. He let us listen to his recordings and told us stories of what he’s  heard and witnessed over the years; living and growing up on this old property. Veronica explained that she never heard the Bigfoot sounds that Jim had until tonight because she often went to bed early. So tonight was the first time she had experienced the ominous sounds.

          Jim’s love for the creatures he called Bigfoots, and his discoveries on his property regarding them, were truly fascinating. It really opened up my eyes and mind, hearing the knowledge and patterns that Jim had experienced over the years.

Veronica’s Husband also told us stories about their neighbor’s experiences with these Bigfoots on their farms and properties. One couple was locked in their own barn for hours by a Bigfoot, when they were working inside the barn to remodel it. When they were busy and had their backs turned away from the doorway, the couple heard the heavy barn door close. As they ran to the door they heard a large creature placing a wooden board over the door to barn, locking them in for many hours.

I will never forget that crazy night in Amish Country and what Jim taught us that evening.

It’s funny; I had come to research paranormal activity in an historic home nearby, but instead witnessed an angry Bigfoot while sitting on my friend, Veronica’s front porch of her country cabin in the woods.

-Rosella C. Rowe