Wheeler County, Texas 2003
- - Six teenage boys encounter a group of hairy bipeds

Some of the best evidence we have for the existence of Bigfoot creatures comes in the form of eyewitness accounts. The most plausible of these anecdotes are from people who are quite familiar with the animals of the region and are not likely to mistake a deer or bear for what they clearly see as a hairy biped. A 13-year-old boy, who provides the name Jimbob, is one such witness. He very ably, and in careful detail, tells of his encounter. This is Jimbob's story:

It was October 17, 2003. My 13th birthday was Saturday the 18th, and some friends and I were going to my grandma's 160-acre farm in Wheeler County, Texas to play war games for the weekend. Done with school for the week, we piled into my mom's car and headed for the farm at about 6:30 p.m. for the two-hour drive. Six of us all had our clothes, paintball guns and other gear cramped into the white Voyager.

We arrived at about 8:30, found our designated rooms and unpacked. The farm house is a small three-bedroom stucco structure. Behind it is a chicken coop, barn and sheep barn. There was no livestock, except for a few cows. And there were no crops whatsoever. The land was hilly and most of it was covered by trees. That night went on without incident.

In the morning, we all got ready to play war games. We had harmless guns of various kinds: paintball, play, air soft and bb guns. Only I had a real .22 rifle, which was not loaded. One of my friends from church and I were on a team (Team 1), my other friend from church and my best friend's brother were on another (Team 2), and my cousin, my best friend and my mom were Team 3. My team, Team 1, went out first. We went down the hill into the shelter belt that went across the property. As we entered the shelter belt, the other teams left together, which really aggravated me.

The Figures in Black

We went up on a hill that lay behind the shelter belt and on the north side of the pond, which also lay on the other side of the shelter belt. The grass was about three feet tall and could easily conceal us. My friend hid behind a tree, not being very brave. I was in the tall grass, crouched, waiting for anyone to come by. For about five minutes nothing happened.

Suddenly, there was a whistle to our right, where the trees went all the way to the end of the property. We all had whistles in case we got lost. My mom and I were the only ones who knew our way around, but we had whistles just in case. In front of us was the pond and open fields. How the other team got past us, I do not know.

Several minutes later, I was looking out into the fields. From my left, at the bottom of the hill, four adult-sized "people" walked in a single-file line around the bottom of the hill and into the trees to our right. They were all "dressed" in black, from head to toe. My friend, cowering in the trees behind me, didn't see them.

I don't know what I was thinking, but for some reason I thought they were the other two teams teaming up on us to find us, even though I knew none of them were wearing black and my mom was the only adult. Besides, one team was already to our right and there were only seven of us there. As these figures were passing, the one in the lead looked up in my direction, even though I was concealed in the grass. It was as if he smelled me. But they kept on walking into the trees.

Suddenly, we heard "BANG! BANG! You're dead!" It was my cousin confirming that we'd been "shot." We walked back to the house in defeat to wait for the others.

About 30 minutes later, Team 2 came up to the house. We'd asked them if they'd been shot and they said no. So we waited for the others. Soon after, they came. As we told each other where we were hiding, I told my tale of what I saw. To my surprise, Team 3, which was to our right in the shelter belt, had seen the same figures I saw going down in my direction. Team 2 said they had also seen something in the trees. They said it went into the trees near the fence and just disappeared.

Strangely, all our accounts were exactly alike. This scared my mom because nobody but us had permission to be on the property. So the rest of the time I went around with the .22 loaded and we didn't go back out to play war games.

Later in the afternoon, my friends and I went down into the trees where Team 2 saw the "things." It had later been suggested by someone that perhaps these were not people, but in fact some big hairy creature, like Bigfoot or Sasquatch, a theory that seems to fit better than the idea of five adults walking around where they're not supposed to be – all black in the hot sun.

But at this point, we weren't thinking of Bigfoot and we had no fear of people.

So I got the .22 and were just walking in the trees. We stopped to talk about church, school and stuff when one of my friends said, "Hey, what's that?" He pointed to a tree behind me and my other friend. As we turned around, we were startled by what we saw. It was about three to four feet tall, was covered in brown hair and had the appearance of a small human child.

It Watched Us As We Watched It

We got only a brief glance before it ran away. It had apparently been watching us from behind the tree as we talked. For some reason, I was not scared, but curious and wanted to see what it was. So we all hid behind a hill in front of the property fence. We could see the creature was on the other side. We could see it in the distance in some trees. My .22 had a scope on it and I tried to use it to watch the thing up close, but this proved unsuccessful because this creature was amazingly fast. I had to watch it without the scope if I wanted to catch more than a glimpse.

Then it stopped by a tree and I finally got to focus on it with my scope. I saw something I'll never forget. It seemed to be looking right at me through the scope, even though it was a distance away. I froze in fear. My eyes started to water as if I were going to cry, but the tears never came. I felt a lump in my throat and could barely speak. My friends reacted the same way.

"What is it?" one of them asked. I could not answer. I lay the rifle down as not to make the creature feel threatened. Normally, I would have run for my life, but curiosity seemed to overcome my fear.

For about a half hour, we sat and watched as the creature simply watched back, then it finally wandered off into the distance. As it went away, my curiosity disappeared and fear took over. I urged my friends that we go back to the house as fast as we could.

We ran out of the trees and to the pond where we rested before finally going back up to the house. Before we left the pond, however, I saw something run up onto the hill I was on earlier. I could not get a good look at it, but it rustled the grass and there was no wind.

After we told my mom what we saw, we all went down there to look again. My cousin and my best friend didn't believe me and started lighting firecrackers. So with no success, we went back to the house and played games.

The people down the road own some dogs, and late that night they were barking up a storm, as usual. For some reason, they stopped suddenly. My mom had lived at the farm when she was younger and she said she never heard anything like what she heard that night. It sounded like the coyotes were feasting on another cow or some other animal. But as we listened, it became horrible. It didn't sound like coyotes at all. It was horrible! It was as if the creatures were having a feeding frenzy, and it sounded gruesome. After a while it stopped, and we went to bed.

The Bones

The next morning, Sunday, my best friend and I went out to the back of the property to explore.

It's the only part of the property we hadn't explored. I was armed with a small Ruger .22. We found a place that was new to us. I was on the other side of a hill. It was green and rather lush. All the vegetation was ankle high or higher.

When we heard my four other friends coming to look for us, we ventured deeper into the vegetation, deciding to make it into a game and run from them. We ran into some bushes, only to find that the ground for about 20 feet around was littered with bones! Bones of all sizes, probably from 10 different species, but mostly cow. There were a lot of cow bones around the property, but there were more bones here than on the rest of the property, which we now think is a feeding ground and possible place of rest for the creatures we saw.

We all headed back to the house. When we got there, my grandparents (who owned the farm) were waiting there with my brother and sister. We told them about all the strange things we had seen and experienced that weekend.

As it turns out, those weren't the only strange things that happened at the farm. A few years back, my uncle was down near the shelter belt in the evening when he saw a black panther. To this day he still swears he saw it. Just recently we have found big cat paw prints there, but we figured they could be mountain lions, because we haven't seen the panther since.

A few months after the Bigfoot incident, I moved to Kansas because my dad was in the military. But recently we visited Amarillo and on two weekends we went to the farm. My grandma, grandpa, step-aunt and I were in a blind my grandma had set up. We were watching turkeys when two deer came running out of the trees, and then we heard a loud screech, which we believe was the creature.

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