Photos from Ellis County, Tx
These photos were taken as part of a follow up to a reported sighting in Ellis County in mid September 2006. The witness was a nine year old girl who was playing on her driveway when she saw a 6ft black scraggly hair covered figure run bipedally across their back yard. There is a large wooded area that backs up to their property and the family reports that a variety of wildlife have been witnessed over the past serveral years including Bobcat, Hogs and Deer.
We don't think that the known fauna of this area is capable of being responsible for the tree damage shown in the pictures, we also feel that weather damage can also be discarded due to vegatation in the immediate area of these breaks being unaffected. The only remaining source would be human activity, but that would beg the question as to why a person would spend time randomly snapping small trees. We found numerous limb breaks and 7-8ft trees with the central stalk broken out in ways similar to what you see in the photos.
A possible foot impression was found in an area of crushed gravel along the banks of a creek that runs through the area. This creek passes through the housing subdivision and then continues back into the woods, at the time of our visit which was a couple of weeks after the reported sighting, the creek had about 1 foot of running water. Since the the imprint was in gravel we made no attempt to cast it, the length was right at 15 inches and 6 inches across the presumed ball of the foot. The left or instep side of the track was well defined but the outer side of the print was not. See the photos below.
This was not weather damage, all of the trees in the area of this small cedar were fine.
Another angle of the top of the break, this tree was about 100yds from location of the reported sighting.
This area has an abundance of young Eastern Red Cedars, for some reason most of the breaks were of this species.
Pic showing possible track impression in fine gravel along a creek bed.
Photos
This was also not weather damage, the top of an 8ft Cedar had been forcibly rocked back and forth until broken. The tree top had been carried away from or perhaps thrown about 25ft from the tree it was broken off of. We inspected this carefully for possible residual evidence but no hair was found.
Another close up of the break, pictured above.
This is the tree that the top pictured above was removed from, exhibiting additional limb damage.
A second look at the top of the broken cedar.
Red outline to show approximate dimensions of the impression.