Interview with Bigfoot Witness Source: Weird Wisconsin April 5, 2000
As a followup to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, I talked to the original radio news reporter, Keith Edwards. He assured me that Mr. Hughes was a credible witness, and seemed genuinely frightened by his bigfoot encounter.
Later that evening about 8:00 p.m. I called to talk to James Hughes about his bigfoot sighting of Tuesday, March 28, near Granton, Wisconsin. We talked about ten minutes.
Prior to that, Loren Coleman had been sending the story around the Internet. Coleman mentioned that the bigfoot in the story sounded like the Marked Hominid he described in The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide. Rereading this description, and the description of
reported creatures that fell into this classification, I devised questions to elicit details based on these characteristics. Also, because the creature had been seen carrying a goat, Coleman had said that it reminded him of the Momo sighting of 1972. In this sighting, a shaggy haired bigfoot was seen carrying off a dog under its arm near the town of Lousiana, Missouri. As it turns out, this was a most prescient insight.
Hughes had been driving on the left hand side of the road, doing about 25-30 mph, as he delivered the Black River Shopper to rural mailboxes. He saw something standing in the south ditch on the opposite side of the road, the right hand side. At first he thought it was a man, but as he drew closer, he realized it was far bigger than a man, standing some 8 feet tall, weighing (in his estimate) 500 pounds.
He described the creature as having dark gray hair "six to eight inches long," uniform in length across its entire body. Some of the hair was "shaggy," with "clumps, and knotted," and definitely did not look well-groomed. Hughes saw some lighter colored patches, which he described as honey-colored. The largest, and the one he got the clearest view of, was on the creature's left-hand side. It was about the size of a magazine. The head was "over a foot wide ... all hair." Hughes could make out two spots where its eyes should have been, but he was unable to distinguish shape, size, or color, saying only that these two spots were of a different color. He assumed
these spots were eyes. He was unable to see facial features. To my question, he said the creature had no mane, and that all its hair was the same shaggy length.
Dawn was just breaking. This occurred just a few days before the Daylight Savings Time change, and Hughes said it was approximately 5:15 a.m. when he came upon the creature. Hughes didn't get a very long look at it, because of the suddenness, and so wasn't able to describe more than general features. But at that, he saw far more than most witnesses.
I asked about arm length, but Hughes had been unable to get a good enough look. He said only that the arms were long, but whether they hung below the knees or above he could not say.
I asked about the general physique. Was it more like a wrestler, with broad shoulders and narrow waist, or more barrel-chested, with no waist? He just laughed, saying it was big, looking more like "a miniature King Kong."
Hughes never saw more than its back and its left side and couldn't determine whether it had a paunchy gut. In the few seconds it took him to realize it wasn't a man, he felt the first tingling of fear. Then the thing looked at him.
"What the hell, is the damn thing looking right at me!" He said he knew that in "two steps it would be across the road" and "could easily tip his car over." With that, he "stepped on the carburetor" and sped away.
The creature was carrying something in its right hand, which hung at its side. Hughes said "it was about the size of a goat." After several days of thinking about the event, he's now unsure whether it really was a goat as the story first suggested. Whether it was a "goat, or roadkill, or something," he couldn't say, but only that "it was about the size of a goat." When you think about Momo, the shaggy dog-killing terror of Louisiana, Missouri, you wonder whether it was a dog ...
Hughes said the creature looked at him. I asked him to describe it. He said that he had been driving up from behind the creature. The creature's back was to him in the opposite ditch. As he drew nearer the beast, it "turned its
head real slow" to look at him, as if it were saying "Like who the hell are you?" Hughes reiterated this point. Its head didn't snap around quickly, as if startled. It was a very slow turning to look at him, a challenge.
I asked Hughes whether he felt anything or thought the creature was trying to communicate with him in anyway. Hughes said he only felt fear, and "stepped on the carburetor" and went tearing "the hell home as fast as I could." He repeated this too, about the fear, about speeding home as fast as he could.
He described the country as being gently rolling hills. He was vague about the land on the north (his side) of the road, but from his description, I gathered it was rolling pasture. On the south side of the road was a plowed field. When Hughes returned with a deputy, they were unable to find any
tracks, nor did they find any tracks in the adjacent hard-packed field of last year's hay cutting. The nearest woods was some 75 yards beyond the soft plowed field; Hughes said he was told a big swamp lies beyond.
A look at an atlas shows that a large oil and high tension power transmission line runs just north of the sighting area. A large radio tower is marked nearby. Two named Indian mound groups lie to the northwest and southwest. And of course, Panther Creek cuts across the road near where Hughes saw the
creature.
Hughes did not have any other person or animal in his vehicle with him. He snorted when I asked whether he was afraid to return to the area.
He is weary of answering questions, as every reporter, radio and television station across the world has been calling him, and he said he's "getting sick of telling the same story." He only reluctantly talked to me when I told him
I wasn't a reporter, but a serious researcher.
He's said that already, even in this short time, all kinds of people have been driving all up and down the road looking for the creature. A woman even came from Minnesota, bringing "specially trained dogs" to sniff out Bigfoot,
but all they smelled were the other people who had been "pawing around" the dirt along the road.
Hughes said that no one else has come forward with other stories. He laughed when I asked about this, implying that they'd have to be crazy to tell their story now. He half intimated that he wished he hadn't said anything due to the resulting media circus. I cut my interview short because I knew I was trying his patience.
(Edwards at the radio station said that the only reported sightings listeners had called in with were of the 1997 bigfoot sightings near Rice Lake.)
Hughes had heard of Bigfoot or Sasquatch prior to his sighting, but had always dismissed them as stories or legends. But, he "believes in them now."
One interesting aspect is the overall hair-covered body, with hair six to eight inches long, and the lack of distinguishing facial features. This fits the description of the Momo bigfoot of 1972 and the 1965 creature that attacked Christine Van Acker near Monroe, Michigan. Loren Coleman says that these creatures are often referred to as the "Eastern Bigfoot," a much different creature from the Pacific Northwest's Sasquatch.
We'll continue to track this story, and if there are any further developments, we'll post them here.
by Richard D. Hendricks
http://www.weird-wi.com/creatures/grantoninterview.htm