A Darlington area woman reported to The Aegis recently that she and other members of her family found five or six large footprints in their garden the week of May 18. The tracks could have some connection with the seven foot creature reportedly hit by a Harford county motorist in late April.
The woman, whom we shall call Mrs. X, said she did not wish to be identified and that she did not wish the exact location of her garden to be reported for fear that "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch" fans would flock to the scene and cause commotion by roaming the area in search of the mysterious creature.
Mrs. X said that she and her daughter spotted the prints in between rows of strawberries and that the prints were human-like in configuration, were between eighteen and twenty inches long and about three or four inches deep.
When first spotted, Mrs. X's daughter thought they had been made by a bear, but Mrs. X said the prints were nothing like those of a bear. The rows of strawberries in the garden were covered with plastic and are planted about a foot and one half apart. The prints were located close together and Mrs. X speculated that the creature jumped into the garden and then out again; which would have meant it had an ability to jump about eight feet. She also speculated that the prints were close together because the creature was possibly trying to get its balance after leaping into the garden.
It had rained previously, and the sun had "baked" the mud producing "perfectly clear prints" according to Mrs. X. "They would have been perfect to make casts from," she added.
When Mrs. X and her daughter pointed out the prints to her son-in-law, he expressed the opinion that they were "fakes" and proceeded to till them under. "I can't believe," she told an Aegis reported, "that I let my son-in-law plow those prints under."
"I'd given anything to have those prints still there," she noted "because a lot of people don't believe us, and to tell you the truth we couldn't half believe it ourselves when we saw them."
The most unusual aspect of the large footprints, Mrs. X said, was that the left foot had toes and no claws, while the fight food had what appeared to be claws. In addition, rather than having an arch on the inside of the foot like a human's, Mrs. X said there was a curved indentation on the outside of the foot of the creature that leaped into her garden. In addition to the large foot prints, she said that there were also some dog tracks in and around the garden.
The woman said talk of the huge footprints was limited to just the family, but a week later one of her neighbors called to find out why all the dogs in the areas had been barking for two nights in a row. Mrs. X said her neighbor lives on top of a hill and could hear the dogs all around barking, and it sounded as though a group of them had ganged up and were chasing something into nearby woods. The dog barking incident occured about the same time that the huge footprints appeared in Mrs. X's garden.
In April when a motorist reported hitting an erect seven foot creature, there were also reports of dogs barking and becoming upset.
In concluding her comments about the strange appearance in her garden, Mrs. X noted, "some people believe in the 'Bigfoot' creature and others just laugh it off. I don't see how those tracks could have been faked because there would have been other prints around the garden from the person who did it; and anyway, it would have been impossible for a person to make that eight foot leap into and out of the garden. The only thing I know is that those tracks really knocked me for a loop when I saw them."
Mrs. X said if similar prints appear in her garden again she does not plan to let them be destroyed.
In addition to the dogs barking one resident of the area informed The Aegis late this week that over the past month or two there have been five or six Black Angus calves found dead in the road although they were not shot.
Most of the calves had few marks to show the cause of their death, although according to the resident, one did look as if it had been torn apart by dogs. The resident also indicated that the farmers in the area are not the type of people who would throw their dead livestock into the road.
June 5, 1975 - Bel Air, Maryland Aegis