Investigation Report___________________________________

Investigated by:  Pat Barker

I interviewed Shaun by phone on November 10, 2010 for approximately 1 hour and 20 min. Two weeks later, on Saturday, Nov. 20, two investigators, myself and Joe M., conducted a follow-up site visit, meeting Shaun in St. Thomas where we hiked in to the sighting location.

Shaun, 46, and his niece were hiking in a ravine on the Elgin Hiking Trail, they saw a large creature walk down one side of the ravine, cross the small creek at the bottom, then go up the opposite side of the ravine and out of sight.

Shaun has lived in St. Thomas for the past four years. During that time, he's hiked this part of the trail, on the western edge of St. Thomas, regularly and in all seasons. On this particular day just before Christmas his house was full of relatives from out of town. Since his 10 year old niece was getting underfoot with all the holiday preparation, he decided to take her for a hike on his favourite trail to show her some of the local wildife he'd seen there, like a herd of deer he'd recently spotted. It was a cold, clear day. The sun was shining. There was snow on the ground, but it was hard-packed, so hiking the trail wasn’t all that difficult.

About 20 to 25 minutes after starting out, Shaun and his niece followed the trail up a knoll about half way up the southwest side of the ravine. As they reached the top the knoll and could see across the ravine again, Shaun noticed movement across a run-off gully slightly above him and to to his left. Looking in the direction of the movement, he saw a tall hair-covered creature ahead. Initially, when he filled out the report, he thought it was 500 meters away, but later realized that his distance estimate was inaccurate and it must have been closer. During the site visit, we determined that it was roughly 200 meters (218 yds or 656 ft) away. It was walking downward at a steady gait, arms swinging slightly. Shaun quickly pointed it out to his niece, and both of them watched the creature walk behind a pile of trees, down the ravine, cross the small creek, and go up the other side. We later determined that the direction was from SSW to NNE. The length of time they watched it from the time they first saw it until it passed out of sight was approximately 2 to 2 1/2 minutes.

He described the incident an creature to me as follows:

 “I saw this thing coming down and it had reddish hair. It had a conical shaped head. It didn’t have a neck. The head seemed to be right on the shoulders. It had a hunched back, long arms and a very easy gait. And it was just there. And it just came down the hill. It either was ignoring us or it didn’t see us, because it was walking with a purpose. It was a very easy lope. I mean it didn’t hesitate. It just came down the hill, crossed the creek and up the other side, and it vanished,”

... meaning it disappeared out of view at the top of the ravine on the other side of the river.

Both Shaun and his niece were surprised, and shocked. Shaun wondered if he was hallucinating, but reasoned that since they both saw it, and since both of them were wide awake and talking to each other afterward, they couldn’t have been mistaken. But it was completely unexpected and not something he’s forgotten.

After the animal left, they went to where it had walked behind a stacked pile of downed trees on the side of the ravine to look for footprints. But the snow was too compacted and there was too much leaf litter covering the snow to see any tracks. Shaun also looked along the creek edge, but couldn't see tracks there either. Feeling freaked out a bit, they didn't look very long, and left for home after that.

Neither he nor his niece told anyone what they had seen. But it was bothering Shaun. So on Christmas Day he made a post about the incident on a backpacking forum he belonged to. Eventually, a couple of months later, he told his wife about the incident too.

Approximately one week later, Shaun ventured out for another walk along the hiking trail, thinking that he might see something, but also worrying that he would. He didn't see the creature again, but he did find a dead deer, a buck, under some scrub bushes. It looked like a fairly fresh kill because it hadn't deteriorated yet, nor did it appear to be gnawed on or disturbed in any way by predators. He couldn't see any woundmarks on the carcass to indicate how it was killed. This really unnerved him. He wondered how it could have gotten there, stuffed under the brush like it was. After seeing the creature the previous week, he wondered to me if the buck could have been killed by the sasquatch and stashed there. I told him that it was impossible to know, especially since it happened four years ago. But there have been cougar sightings in the area. A cougar will stash a fresh kill in the underbrush, then return to feed on it for two or three days.

Witness’s Description of Creature:_______________________

Site Visit:  Saturday, November 20, 2010___________________

Two weeks after the interview, I made a site visit with fellow OSR team member, Joe M., a retired police detective. We explored the surrounding area and then met up with Shaun who took us to the location of his sighting. The area was just as Shaun described it.

The terrain is gently rolling farmland interspersed with an abundance of forested bush lots. We noted that to the southwest is Fingal Provincial Wildlife Area. Just northeast of St. Thomas and more close-by is Dalewood Provincial Park and Yarmouth Crown Game Preserve. Kettle Creek flows through both the park and game preserve, and on it’s journey south it skirts around the north west side of town where Dodd Creek meets up with it from the northwest. There it continues to wind it’s way south to Lake Erie. The Elgin Hiking Trail crosses the river route on a somewhat straighter course from it's start in Port Stanley, but it often drops into the thickly treed ravines that that carve down into the river bottoms along the way. Just west of town, and just north of where Dodd Creek intersects with Kettle Creek, the trail follows the meandering river course, and this was the location of the sighting.

We met up with Shaun at the hiking trail at 2 pm in the afternoon. The sun was shining as it was on the day of the sighting three years previously. The difference was that we were one month earlier with no snow on the ground this time.

In the vicinity of the sighting, the hiking trail goes up and down a tree filled ravine that is approximately 50 to 60 ft. high. At some points the hiking trail runs along the top edge of the ravine beside farm fields. In others, it winds up and down the side of the ravine. We discovered that it isn't really a groomed trail, but is nothing more than a thin wandering path that at times is quite steep and difficult to traverse, particularly with leaves covering slippery mud. It took us about 20 minutes to reach the sighting location, just as Shaun said. We arrived there at roughly the same time of day that he had his sighting, so light conditions were similar. The area is very natural. As we came up to the knoll where the sighting occurred, Shaun pointed across the way to the spot where he first saw the creature. The pile of stacked trees that it walked behind was still in the same location although it appeared to have sunk lower to the ground now. To our left, coming down from the top of the ravine was a wide gully or cleft that cut its way down into the river bottom. On the opposite side of this wide gully, still on the southwest side of the ravine was the location where Shaun saw the creature. Shaun described its travel path and indicated the direction it had come down the hill, where it crossed the creek, and where it climbed the opposite side.

We climbed down into the gully, making our way to the tree pile where the creature had walked. At the base of the gully we saw fresh, very deep ruts carved into the soft earth where a skidder had come down into the ravine right to the river bottom. This was between where the witness had been standing and where the creature was first seen on side of the hill. Shaun noted that there were a lot more stacks of downed trees here and there on the hillsides than had been here a few years ago. It appeared that a local farmer was cutting and removing wood. While there had been a few tree piles at the time of Shaun's sighting, most of the tree cutting had occurred in the years since.

We searched the area for tracks in case the activity was ongoing and did an examination of the location where the creature was first seen walking behind the tree pile. We did not see human-like tracks, only those of deer and small animals. We then took photos of the area, and did our calculations of the approximate height of the creature.

Measurements taken at the site of tree limbs in the vicinity of the creature suggest that the animal was approximately 7' 3"- 6" tall.

Shaun recounted the incident again, in fact several times during the day and in previous discussions. Every time, his account was the same and consistent with his previous descriptions. Joe M. took a GPS reading where the creature was first seen coming down the ravine. Lat. 42 degrees 46’ 85.7”N, Long. 81 degrees, 13’ 13.4”W. Direction of travel was from south/southeast, heading north/northwest.

Impressions of the Location: The sighting occurred on the west edge of the town of St. Thomas. The area is well populated, there’s no doubt about that. But the ravine itself is very natural, thickly wooded and is not frequented by many hikers, particularly at that time of year. It is flanked by farm fields and many woodlots. The ravine is fed by a long, meandering river system that flows south to Lake Erie through more farm country. Upriver, the ravine and river bottoms skirt around the town winding northeast through Dalewood Provincial Park and Yarmouth Crown Game Preserve, both well forested areas close to one another. This is the direction the creature was travelling in. I always look for water sources, swamps and forests nearby to see if there is even a remote chance of, at a minimum, a travel corridor for a nocturnal animal to travel through unnoticed when humans are sleeping. While I question whether the area could sustain a small full-time population of these creatures, it could certainly hide something that was passing through to another more hospitable location.

After looking over the terrain, I noticed a couple of things. Shaun and his niece climbed up to the knoll from below. It’s a rather steep incline. From the creature’s vantage point where it was coming down the southwest side of the ravine, it couldn’t see the two people approaching on the hiking trail because they were below and behind the knoll. So the element of surprise was with Shaun and his niece. When they suddenly surfaced on the knoll, the creature was more than halfway down the side of the ravine. If it noticed their arrival, which it likely did, there was no place conceal itself from prying eyes, because there were no leaves on the trees. Since it had already been seen, it simply kept moving in the direction it was going, continued down the side of the ravine, crossed the river, then moved steadily up the other side in its haste to get out of sight.

Conclusions: 

I think Shaun is telling the truth. He was credible and consistent in his descriptions of the location, the event, and the creature. In addition, Shaun is a trained professional in the health care system, and holds a position of trust and responsibility at his place of employment, and within his community. Two investigators who interviewed him and visited the site came to the same conclusions, that this was a real occurrence and a sasquatch actually travelled through this area several years ago, close to the town of St. Thomas.

Whether a creature of this type actually lives in the area or was just passing through is a difficult question to answer. You would think that it would avoid areas of human activity and only travel near them under cover of dark to get to some other destination. And yet, this one was seen mid-afternoon in broad daylight, very close to town. One can only assume that it was using the cover of the forested ravine and the river bottoms to travel through with relative anonymity, particularly during the winter months where there would be less likelihood of anyone being on the hiking trail.

The area will need to be more closely examined in the future.

Height:  Roughly 7 1/2 ft. tall
We arrived at this measurement by positioning Joe M. behind the brush pile where the creature was, while Shaun and I stood on the knoll. Shaun realized that Joe was quite a bit shorter than the creature. Joe reached above his head with a large branch. Shaun told Joe to keep raising the branch until it reached the spot where the top of the creature’s head was. There was a sapling tree close by. Joe and I marked the height of the branch on the sapling, then measured how high that mark was off the ground.

Weight:  over 250 lbs.

Gender:  Male. He didn't see breasts

Build:   Muscular but lean. There was no fat on it. No body fat. It looked buff, like somebody who looked after themselves.

Body shape:   Hunched shoulders and long arms.

Hair appearance and texture:  It covered him from head to toe. Didn’t see any bare spots. It didn’t appear to be matted or messy, but it was too far away to see detail. Just that it was covered in hair.

Hair colour:  Red. It wasn’t deep red, it was reddy orange colour. An orangutan colour, but not that deep of an orange. A little lighter. It was a light reddy sort of orangey colour. It was a uniform colour, top to bottom.

Hair length:  Too far away to distinguish length.

Facial features:  He didn’t see any facial features, because it was too far away, and it didn’t turn to look at them, only kept walking so the view he had was from the side, from a good distance away. He just remembered seeing hair. But since it was a profile view, where he did notice the elongated head, he also noticed that there was a brow ridge. Below the brow ridge, the face seemed more flat. It did not stick out past the brow ridge in profile, but seemed to go straight down from there.

Shape of head:  The head was conical shaped. [I asked Shaun if he had seen the Patterson/Gimlin film and if he could compare the head shape to that creature] The top of this creature’s head was a little more conical than the Patterson one. More elongated.

Shape of head: The head was conical shaped. [I asked Shaun if he had seen the Patterson/Gimlin film and if he could compare the head shape to that creature] The top of this creature’s head was a little more conical than the Patterson one. More elongated.

Shape and colour of eyes: Did not see

Neck: There was no neck. It was like the head met the shoulders.

Skin colour: Did not notice

Limbs: The arms were long. They seemed muscular. If it had been a man, it definitely would have been a well built man. It was hunched at the shoulders, and the arms, the fingers reached down to its knees.

Shoulders:  Like a strong man. The back was straight. A hunch in the shoulders. [I asked if the shoulders were broad or narrow]  It was a broad animal. If it had turned around and looked at us, it definitely would have been a wide, wide shoulder.

Hands: Very big hands. It was swinging. As it was walking the hands were coming out. They were big, big hands. A very large human hand, with long fingers. The hands had hair. He didn’t see any bald patch on the hands, they just had hair.

Fingers:  They appeared to be big long fingers. I saw the thumb.

Legs: Powerful, like a muscular fit man, but covered with hair. Muscular, bigger then the arms, thicker in the thigh area.
 
Feet:  Didn’t look that far down, didn’t notice them.

Comparing Leg length to Arm length:  The arms seemed slightly longer than the leg. Shorter in the leg then the arms.

Posture: It was standing fairly tall, not slouching. It was walking with a hunch to its shoulders, from there it went straight down. But it wasn’t hunched over. It was standing fairly erect.

Stride/motion: The walk was very similar to the Patterson creature. The gait with the arms swinging was similar. A swinging easy gait. It had a purpose in its walk, but it didn’t have any concerns. Like it wasn’t worried about anything. Like it was just a purposeful walk. It seemed to know where it was going. It was a big gait. A long stride.

Arm swing: The arms were definitely swinging. Not a long way out from the front of the body, but the arms were swinging.

Odours: No

Sounds: No 

Media___________________________________________

Images:   Photo of sighting location - taken from the knoll where Shaun and his niece stood