My Salt Fork State Park, Ohio Experience August 2014

A weekend in Salt Fork State Park, Ohio-Shannon LeGro

Arrived on the morning of August 3rd, 2014 and set up camp (Primitive Campground-Bigfoot Ridge) and

proceeded to take a long, day hike which included Hosak’s Cave.

This lasted for several hours, and was uneventful.

By the time we arrived back at our campsite, a gentlemen was setting up his own site. For

anonymity’s sake, I will call him Bill. Bill noticed me walking around with my nose to the ground and

asked if I was finding anything interesting. Upon further sizing up of each other’s intent and interests…it

came out that we were both there for the purpose of studying Sasquatch. Bill had a sighting of two

creatures not even 2 months prior, right behind our campsite. He had even purchased a set of military-

grade night vision goggles to try and get a better look If he ever had the chance. Bill being easy to talk

to, and dedicated to his search, we decided to team up that night and do some investigating.

Darkness fell, and we waited until about 10 pm to make our way to the service road that lies behind our

campsite. We were not tree-knocking or calling attention to ourselves. We decided to sit in the middle

of the service road and talk quietly amongst ourselves. It was extremely dark that night and we took

turns using the night vision goggles. We had heard a few shuffles and cracks behind us, but could have

been any number of forest creatures. After about an hour and a half at this location, we made our way

to another portion of the service road closer to the lake, and maybe 50 feet from our original location.

Bill announces he wants to try something, and pulls out a glowstick and a string…we then take turns

swinging this in circles, which makes for a light show plus a lovely whirring sound. (insert Finding Bigfoot

jokes here) Well, it got something interested! We had been at this location for about 30 minutes,

swinging said contraption, stopping then listening. It was about 1am and I had just gotten done with a

swing cycle when in the brush directly in front of us, from ground level, came a loud and long, high-

pitched, monotone whistle. I was standing when it began, but quickly and instinctively went to a crouch.

(yes it freaked me out) I can tell you that it wasn’t a bird, and it wasn’t a person. It had lips to purse to

make said sound and a set of lungs that no human possesses. The guys were also wide-eyed and silent

at this sudden development in our night. We sat there for a time, but nothing moved or made a sound

from that direction. And, we heard no other whistles.

We all returned to camp and went to bed. Before we did however, we set something up on our picnic

table. (not a gift, just an experiment) Something to note…our picnic table was about 15 feet from our

tent, and it wasn’t on perfectly level ground. Here is what we set up before turning in for the night.

Three small apples to act as a base, one apple on top of those, and a small tennis ball atop of it all. I

took a before pic in the daylight for demo purposes. Also note-worthy-except for snapping the pic

below, these apples were not set up until well after it was completely dark.

On this first night, just before dawn…we awoke to footsteps and shuffling outside our tent, along with

the occasional twig snap. There were no other sounds, or any smells. It was unfortunately much too

dark to see what it was while attempting to peer through the air vents of the tent. This lasted for about

10 minutes and then dawn came, taking the sounds with it. Upon exiting the tent, we immediately

noticed this:

I’m not saying that a Sasquatch did this, but it was interesting that the top apple was taken, and the ball

was placed back amongst the base apples so that it couldn’t roll off the table. Would have been a brave

person to come so close to a stranger’s tent, but not impossible of course.

Our second day there, we went on another long, uneventful hike. Bill had already left, and we had the

entire campground to ourselves. Upon searching the grounds for any sign from the previous night, I

found what might…MIGHT have been an old track. It looked much better in person, and it could have

been many other things.

We decided to stick around camp that night, since the whistle we heard was so close to our site. We

played some music, started a fire, but nothing of interest happened before we turned in. We did

however, set the apples up again in the exact same way before we turned in. Once again, we heard

footsteps, twig snaps and shuffling noises at the exact same time as the previous morning. The sounds

stopped at dawn. Upon exiting what did we find? The top apple again was taken, and the ball nestled

among the apples to prevent it from rolling off the table. It all could have been a person, yes. But along

with the insane whistle we heard, makes it all at least interesting and note-worthy.

We visited Salt Fork again one month later and stayed in the exact campsite and also went in the middle

of the night to the site of the whistle. Nothing happened there, or at the campsite with the apples set

up once again. This weekend was though, the strangest I’d had in Ohio.