Knocking in Kosciusko County, Indiana

Ok... not "just a story"... this happened to us recently here "at home" one night... Friday night, Oct. 10th, 2003 - Saturday morning, aprox. 1:00am....... My son and two of his friends were coming home late one night, just about 1:00am on a Saturday morning after recent home-coming activities. Since their plans had gotten changed, I wasn't expecting them home; they were supposed to stay somewhere else. When they pulled into the drive/yard, I was already in bed halfway sleeping, when I awoke to the sound of someone pounding on the front door and yelling excitedly. Then I heard my name and "dad" coming from them. So, I slowly pulled myself from bed and made my way to the front room where I heard the sound of one of the bedroom windows sliding open. My son came falling thru and ran to the front door just about the same time I reached it so we opened it and let his other two friends in. They came in very quickly. In a jumbled mess of excitement, they started telling me about "it" being "down there and coming up here" and all sorts of things I was too groggy to understand. Saturday after work, I finally sat down with two of them to hear it all again and get the whole story, in order, and without all the confusion there had been the night before. Here's how they explained it.... After pulling into the yard up near the trailer, they walked in the dark up to the porch and started to knock. Friday night, the 10th of October was right around a full moon, and the sky was absolutely clear that night. As they walked up on the porch to knock, one of the three looked back over his shoulder 'coz he heard something and noticed a "stump" down in the yard, about 150' away, near the boats at the edge of the water. The other two looked then to see what he was talking about, when "the stump" got up and just stood there. Even in the moonlight, they could see it was NOT a deer... not an "anything" except the form of a person, 'coz it stood there directly facing them and they could see it easily. So as they started to knock more excitedly, it began to walk away quickly to the east on the shore line, but then abruptly turned around and began to move much quicker right back across the yard where it had been and toward the marshy area and light woods and tall grass immediately south of the porch and trailer. When my son saw this he came running around the trailer and let himself in through the window. Now the other two could hear the sound of "this guy?" running heavily into the tall grass, sticks, branches and all the stuff that was down in the woods between the trailer and the lake, but then heard it starting to move closer in up the hill. That's when the hard pounding and yelling to let them in really started. We let the other two in, locked the door... I went back to bed, while they stayed up half the night rehashing what had taken place and how it freaked them out. 4 hours later, I was up... ready for work and out the door around 5:25am. I had my son get up and briefly talk me thru what they had seen earlier. Even at 5:30am as I was leaving, the moon had made it mostly west in the early morning sky and was still so bright I could easily make out every tree, patch of grass, boat at the shoreline... every little thing we're used to seeing out here. Back at 1:00am when this happened, it was even much more illuminated with the moon directly overhead, especially with the light bouncing off the water as well. So, maybe it was "just some guy" out squatting and then standing in 5 inches of lake water at 1:AM in the middle of the country? Well, when I'm 6 foot and about 200 pounds, and they see some "guy" who's way taller than me and a lot larger... and built a LOT larger... way taller... way larger... and grunting slightly as he ran...?? We only have one neighbor, and knowing them, they don't run around in a yard of standing lake water at one in the morning... or Noon for that matter. He's also not approximately in the range of 8 feet tall, and built large at that height. Then my son reminds me when I asked what it looked like, he says, [ you know, like that thing xxxx and I saw about a year ago up between the sheds one night. >] You see, somewhere about a year ago, he and a friend were out running around with flashlights and a paintball gun after dark, when they see what they thought was a stray dog laying in some tall grass between two of our outdoor sheds. They decide to shine the light on it and then shoot a couple paintballs at it when "it" starts to get up revealing that it isn't a dog, just some LARGE hairy...??? bigger than a man... but "we don't know what it was... so we just ran" kind of thing. They never saw a "face", but did see a large eye that reflected orangish red back at them when the flashlight hit it as it seemed to turn it's head slightly toward them. When they DID see the eye reflecting back and realized that was a head, they observed there was no muzzle of any sort. That's when they realized it wasn't a dog. They didn't stick around for "it" to get up all the way off the ground. They could see that as it was getting up, it was large, hairy, more like a person and not a dog. So he really felt like this Oct. sighting was the same thing they had seen some 6 or more months ago. So... that's basicly it. After much grilling on my part, I do believe them. I didn't see it myself. I wish I had the presence of mind that morning to grab a gun and stand on the porch and see if something did make it's way up the hill in the little woods. Why I didn't, I'm not sure. Too late to speculate.. only thing to do now is plan for "the next time".