Bigfoot reportedly spotted in the PA Wilds

One Sunday recently, with nothing else to do, I took my son out to Centre County to look for Bigfoot. As one does.

Bald Eagle State Park is in Centre County, along the I-80 Frontier. It’s a wonderful state park with camping, hiking, and swimming. And, oh yeah, recently Bigfoot has been sighted there, too.

A Centre County man, who preferred to remain anonymous, was staying at his cabin in the area in early October of 2020. At about 6:30 p.m., he stepped outside and saw something moving in the nearby hemlocks. He moved within fifty yards and then saw what he described as an eight-foot humanoid in the trees.

The man said it had broad shoulders and dark, shaggy hair. The creature walked into the trees and disappeared, and later that night, the man said he heard something knocking and making howling sounds in the forest. The man said it was definitely not a black bear, which he is used to seeing in the area.

Most of it sounds plausible enough, but the original report online contained a few geographical errors that made me wonder about the rest of it. That’s not all that’s happened recently, however.

Over the past summer, a woman who spent time at Bald Eagle State Park with her family reported seeing a footprint near the creek as well as hearing sounds that she couldn’t explain, including chattering and howling that didn’t sound like any animal she could recognize.

So, with all this activity happening in the next county over from me, I had to go out and investigate. I’m teaching my son, age 6, how to scientifically and responsibly investigate the paranormal. Also it’s been really boring staying at home during the pandemic, so this could get us outside safely. We took my investigation kit, which among other things has a camera, binoculars, a measuring tape, and compass. And we had my wife drive us over.

Once we got there, we took a little hike in the correct area. We found a path and hiked down the hill, and then along one of the trails not too far from the lake.

We didn’t see Bigfoot. That’s always a long shot anyway. It might have helped if we’d been out at night, but this was mid-afternoon. I’m not getting my son all wound up at night; bedtime is enough of a struggle.

We looked for prints, but didn’t find any of those either. A footprint is the most likely sign of Bigfoot you’re going to find. If you should happen to see one, you can sometimes tell an actual print from a hoax — bipedal animals kind of roll their feet as they walk, so an authentic print is more likely to be deeper and more pronounced at the toes and heels. Fake ones tend to be uniformly clear and deep. I’ve shown my son examples of this, but this time, we didn’t see anything. The ground in that area is incredibly rocky, which explains why there aren’t many prints reported: there’s nowhere to leave one.