Morgan County, Indiana
Morgan-Monroe State Forest Fall 2001

This was just told to me at one of my talks this summer (2006). Morgan -Monroe State Forest , Morgan Co. Indiana -Fall 2001.

Two men decided it was going to be a good day to go deer hunting because of the rainy, foggy weather usually meant that the deer would probably be active. They were in a very remote area of the forest and the one man knew of a deer stand that was about one hundred yards from where they were standing.

The other man decided that the heavy underbrush would be easy to conceal himself and just a few feet away was a heavily used deer trail so he was going to hunt from that location.

His friend headed off for a deer stand while he sat down and made himself comfortable for what could be a long cold wait. His friend had not been gone 20 minutes when all of a sudden he could hear a gunshot from the direction of the deer stand. Then another shot rang out, he thought man that did not take him long to get a deer.

Then he could hear the deer running thru the underbrush heading directly toward him. He thought," he is flushing the deer my way and it sounds like the deer is heading toward the small clearing right in front of me". He held his rifle in position and was ready to kill the deer as soon as he could see it.

It got closer and closer, but what sprang out of the undergrowth was not a deer. He described an animal that walked erect, was about 6 feet tall and covered with gray colored hair or fur. What he saw he could not shoot , he could just look at it.

The animal looked at him for a moment, and then turned his head and ran even faster. He thought, "What the Hell is that?" And in his own words, "I have never seen any animal that moved that quickly”. And then it was gone. About two minutes after it disappeared in the forest he could hear his friend yelling, "What was that?” And he thought, "I have no idea".

Larry Battson
Wildlife Educational Services
Filed September 13, 2006