Screaming or howling in Scott County, Iowa

My first of two encounters with a Bigfoot occurred in Eldridge Iowa during the first two weeks of February 1981. I was a paperboy for the Des Moines Register. I would usually start my rout at about 5:00 am in the morning. About week prior to this incidence I started having this feeling that I was being watched and even followed though I never saw or heard anything up to this point. On this particular morning about half way through my rout I came around the corner of 5th St and Donahue Ave. riding my bike loaded with newspapers when I looked down and saw this trail of very large footprints in the snow. I got off of my bike and knelt down and took a closer look thinking that this was some kind of prank. I even counted the number of toes, 5 on each foot and it look just like a human footprint only much larger! The prints were about 6 to 8 inches wide and about 18 to 24 inches long. I remember I slowly stood up and looked around and noticed the tracks came in from the northeast side of Eldridge and cut through people’s back yards and exited the southwest side of town. I remember feeling very alone and scared out of my mind! The worst was yet to come later in the week when I had to deliver the Sunday paper. After school that day I went back and followed the track northeast to southwest all the way though Eldridge and across a small park called Elmer Green park. It was here that the reality of what I had just discovered really started to sink in. when the tracks came to a four-foot high fence on the other side of the park you could see that the creature just stepped over it like it wasn’t ever there! I followed the tracks all the way back to the City of Eldridge sewer treatment ponds were I usually hunted rabbits. The tracks followed Hickory creek around behind the sewer treatment ponds and it was here that I stopped following the tracks out of fear because I was alone. That night I went out collecting money for my paper rout and I made it a point to go to the location were I had originally found the tracks that morning. I remembered it all like it happened yesterday; I looked I my watch and noted that it was 10:30 pm then I went home to bed. The next morning I arrived back at the same location at about 5:30 am and to my shocking surprise there was a new set of tracks in the snow following the original set in reverse! Now I was really scared, my first thought was I have to get the heck out of here; my second thought was this thing is following!!! You see the path that this Bigfoot took paralleled my newspaper rout and I lived across the street from the park were it stepped over the fence. To say the least I was scared out of my 8th grader mind! I remember that this had happened on a Wednesday and the return tracks had to have happened between 10:30 Wednesday night and 5:30 am Thursday morning. Needless to say this creature remained nearby in the area. I remember the rest of the week was uneventful with no more new track sightings but I did feel like I was being watched and followed. Then that Sunday my father helped me deliver the Sunday papers because they were so much bigger that I couldn’t carry them all on my bike so Dad drove the care while I ran them up to the door. Everything went just fine that morning and I was feeling pretty secure because I had my dad with me, until we got to the last house on my paper rout on the south side of Eldridge behind North Scott Jr. High School. I remember running the paper up to the front door and tossing it just a little to hard, it hit the front door with a bang, as soon as it hit the door the noise must have startled the Bigfoot because it let out a horrifying scream! It was just around the corner of the house, between the house I just delivered to and the house next door and behind it just were I couldn’t see it. I knew it was that close because of the Horrifying Scream it let out!!!! I have never been so scared in all of my life!!! I ran as hard as I could back to the car slipping and sliding on the snow and ice and I hit the car so hard I shook it! Me running into and hitting the car scared my dad but when I screamed did you hear it screaming dad? He said he didn’t because he had the heater blower going full blast and the radio turned up, so he didn’t hear it at all, I couldn’t believe it? I did decided right then and there that morning I would get out of the news paper delivery business. I turned the rout over to another kid a couple of months later in April of 1981. I’ll never forget the look of those tracks or of that scream from hell that it makes! It all seems like it just happened yesterday. I never saw it during this encounter and for the next week or two I felt like I was still being watched and followed. The weather conditions during the week were bitter cold. I remember it was between 0 and –15 degrees the entire week. There was little to no wind that week and we had about 8 to 12 inches of snow on the ground. There was no moon that week as well but we did have crystal clear starry skies the entire week at night. I did not see the creature during this encounter, I only saw the tracks in the snow and I did hear it scream. I did not notice any pungent smells from the creature, which would make sense being that it was wintertime and the air was cold and dry. It would not be until the fall of 1986 when I had my second encounter with a Bigfoot that ran across the road in front of my car one night while driving down a gravel road in the southern Rocky Mountains in southern New Mexico. During that encounter I had a girl friend with me that saw it too! I’m 40 years old now and that week and that scream live with me until this very day like it happened yesterday! Every time I go hunting I keep an eye out for them because I know they are in my area. The Bigfoot sighting in Buchanan County Iowa 2006 is about 30 to 50 miles northwest from an area that I hunt just west of Maquoketa Iowa. In July of 2006 a farmer who raises cattle and rents pastureland on the farm I hunt heard a horrifying scream while out checking on his cattle. He said it gave him the ‘willy’s’ and he said, he got out of there as fast as possible! I haven’t seen any evidence of any Bigfoot activity in the area that I hunt but I have my suspicions being that it is only a short walking distance in Bigfoot terms from the Buchanan County 2006 sighting location. Just like many of you who have seen, heard or found Bigfoot and its tracks, I too have been made fun of and laughed at when I have told friends or family members of my Bigfoot encounters. I know that I am not crazy, I have a college degree and another one on the way, I served in the U.S. military and was honorably discharged and I have never used any illegal drugs or abused any legal drugs in my life nor have I ever been drunk a day or a moment in my life! I know what I saw, heard and found and now I know that they really do exist, I need no further proof!