Growling in Ocean County, New Jersey

I have e-mailed you before but wasn't ready to describe my encounter.I have also offered to help in the area of investigations I am experienced in the outdoors and have tracking skills among other skills that would be helpful I am an experienced investigator as well as acriminal justice student.I had an experience many years ago in Jackson NJ, I was a teenager then. My younger brother and I and 3 friends set out to steal some wood from a house that was being built to build on our fort. We really didn't think anything wrong of it at the time we were all pretty young.It was about 8:00 pm when we set out we would have to walk back through our friends property to get to the house. About 3 acres of property past some old chicken coupes and down a narrow path with thick vegitation and trees.I was in the lead position and everyone else following single file through the woods. All I had was a small disposable flashlight it only covered about a 10 foot distance. We figured one flash light so there would be less of a chance of being spotted. As we past the chicken coupes we heard a sound ahead of us in the darkness but figured it to be our friends dog, thinking it followed us. We kept going I was still in the lead with the flash light it was just pitch dark around us surrounded by trees and bushes we could no loger see any house lights from our friends house. I would shine the light behind me now and then to make sure my brother was ok and everyone was keeping up. Then I got butterflies in my stomach I felt like some one was watching us telling my friends to be quiet so I could listen for any one. I shined the flashlight around but couldn't see anything then I heard a noise in front of us I spun around and all I could see was a very large figure what ever it was it's eyes reflected red it looked like a siloute in the darkness with my small light. I tried to talk to it saying hows it going? but got no response then the figure moved closer and I got scared and yelled to my friends to run but they began to pick up anything they could to throw it at the figure once that happened I heard a deep low growl and began too run right past my brother and friends. Then they followed suit when i got to the chicken coupes I plowed through the door and my friends and brother followed me in.We were scared as hell we didn't move for probably an hour we just sat there listening for this thing. When we got brave enough we ran all the way back to our friends house telling his mom and dad what happened but they did not believe us. We then decided to brave again and go back out to look for this thing with base ball bats. We did alot of talking but never went back I think we were just trying to save face with each other. I know what I saw wasn't a man it was just to big and the eyes were red like a dark red. And I never heard of any bears in Jackson NJ and I lived there for at least 13 years. So I don't know what it was but i'm positive it wasn't a man.