Growling in Madison County, Kentucky

It was about 1972 or '73 in Berea, KY.and I must have been 15 or so. My brother, a friend of mine, and I were sleeping out in our "tent" made of plastic tossed over one of those umbrella type clothes lines. The plan was to sneak out later to walk up town to meet with our girlfriends. It was probably about 2 a.m. when I came out of the tent. Our house was built into a hillside and over looked the college owned cornfield and out across the county which at that time was not very developed. I was standing with my back to the field looking up the hill at the stars while waiting for the others to get up. I got impatient and had turned around toward the tent to tell them to hurry when I saw what I first thought was my neighbor standing at the corner of the house next to the pine tree that grew there. Problem was this thing looked to be about 7 or 8 feet tall, as it's head was into the branches. My mind was racing trying to grasp/rationalize what I was seeing. Why was my neighbor wearing white? How did he know we were out here tonight? Why was he standing so still and how the hell did he get so tall? We, meaning "it" and I, stared at each other for several seconds. Then the thing turned and pushed off against the tree and bolted down over the bank and into the woods toward the corn field. I was impressed with the speed, the lack of noise it made while running and the fact that the tree,which was pretty big,actually swayed when it pushed off from it. About that time my friend came out of the tent and I told him about what I had just saw. I don't remember if he acted like he believed me or not. My brother was more inclined to believe my story because he and my sister had often heard what we called "the cruncher" while sleeping out on the screened in backporch (which is about 15 feet off the ground on the back of the house). You see, back before we had air conditioning we three kids would sleep on the porch during the summer to get the cooler night air. We had a small mutt dog that would sleep with us. Many times we would be waked up the sound of our young imaginations sounded like an animal munching on animal bones. We were scared too death but would look over the edge trying to see what ever it was. We never did see anything because the woods were so thick and we were so far up. We knew we weren't crazy because the dog would sit there stock still and give one of those low throaty growls that would make a person freeze if you heard it in the dark. We tried a couple times to get the dog to go outside and (we were hoping) chase the thing. We never saw a dog resist so hard. She acted like we were trying to shove her into a fire or something. After that dog died we got another that reacted the very same way and was only about half as smart as the little mut dog. Anyway, my dad had flood lights installed which only succeeded in lighting up the wall of trees and vegetation. Back to the sighting, I can't recall a lot of detail, I've often wanted to try being hypnotised to see if I could recall more. What I remember is the thing was covered with off white to tan colored hair with less on it's face and stomach area. I don't recall facial details at all which frustrates and frightens me at the same time. I also don't recall any smell which is not unusual. I seem to have inherited my mothers' poor sense of smell. The arms were longer than a humans and the strength was demonstrated when it shoved the tree. This is the only experience in my life that I can not explain rationally. My brother and sister can verify "the cruncher". We also built a playhousein the back yard which we only slept in one time and that was on Halloween with several other kids! We once went into the corn field and picked so much corn that we had to leave it piled up in the thicket with the idea to get the rest the next day. Problem was the next morning it was gone, every last ear. Way too much for a raccoon or even a family of racoons to have hauled off. I should add that this was what we called "field corn" which became rock hard when ripe and was used to feed cows and pigs. If you caught it at the right time it was pretty good to eat, otherwise it would crack your teeth. It finaly hit me a few years later that "the crucher" was probably eating the field corn and not munching on bones. After a while, the area started to get built up and we heard less and less of the noise. There was an article in the local paper about the time all this was happening about a family that lived further out, but not that far from us, that was some unusual stuff happening around their home. They were finding what they thought were big nests of leaves around their property and had caught glimpses of something on occasion passing their windows. I still have the article somewhere. It was in the local paper "The Berea Citizen". I wanted to contact the family but never did, I was afraid of being called a nut (small town). I've only told a few people of this. It still raises the hair on the back of my neck to tell it and, as I just discovered, to write it down. Like I said this is the only event of my life that is unexplained.