"We Saw a Hairy Head in the Middle of the Raccoon River that Night" | Bigfoot Seen in Dallas County, Iowa

0:00 Either you're listening to the Big Society podcast and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Every week I talk to individuals who have experienced sasquats in some way or another, so you won't want to miss an episode. Make sure you're subscribed on the platform that you're listening to, and share this episode where a friend does not cost a thing, and it helps the show continue to grow. If you'd like to hear Bigfoot Society episodes early in ad free, you can do so by becoming a Patreon supporter or a YouTube channel member. Links to those are in the show notes in Bigfoot Society. I've taken far too much of your time so far, so let's get on with the show, all right, Bigfoot Society. We've got the privilege of talking to a gentleman that I met at the Van Meter Visitor Festival this last weekend September thirty, twenty twenty three.

0:54 He came up to the booth and he had let me know that he had something really interesting happened to him back in the nineteen eighties. I believe. So, Dave, how's it going today? Going pretty good? I'm excited to chat with you, and I wish we had gotten the time to do it at the festival, but it was so busy. It was incredible, like just person after person coming for hours. So I'm glad that I had gotten your phone number so I could give you a call. Yeah, I remember, there's quite a line there. A lot of people want to get in. Absolutely, so, Dave, You've told me a little bit about what happens, But I'm just curious if you kind of let the listeners know what you had experienced back in the nineteen eighties with your sighting. Sure, yeah, it was. It was in the summer of eighty four, and it was I can't tell you what day of the week it was, but I remember that a friend of mine by the name of Rob and I were catfishing, and we normally fish off a boat, but this time we decided to do a little high bank fishing. In other words, we go to the river and fish off the high side, the highest bank, because that's usually where the water cuts in deep and the catfish like to lay down in there, and we just put our lines out and kind of let it float down in. So it was about ten o'clock that night and we've been there for maybe an hour and kind of give you a lay of the land.

2:25 We're about maybe a quarter mile from the road where we pulled over and walked up into the river bank, and we're in trees. It's kind of a wooded area, and we're just out there fishing in the dark with one little dim flashlight because we don't usually need to see much when you're just fishing, to kind of just let the line do the talk until you And about that time, we heard something stomping through the woods up stream from us. And that's not unusual for us, because we'll hear deer, we'll occasional beaver will come down and splash the water, but this time it was kind of breaking the sticks, making a bit of a noise, and then all of a sudden there was a splash. So we figured whatever was walking through there kind of fell off into the high banks just like we were fishing. Didn't think much of it, and then just a few minutes later we could hear it.

3:19 It had swum across to the other side, the other side of the bank. You could hear it kind of stomping around on the bank, and then another splash, like it fell back in. By this time it was swimming again. Back towards our side of the bank, but the current of the river was pulling it down towards us, and we could hear the thing breathing. We could hear this thing rather breathing heavy, because I think it was running earlier. So we're starting a little concerned about this thing going to get caught up with our inner fishing lines. So we're really in our lines and it's not really splashing, just just breathing heavy, and we finally decided to get our flash flight out and try to light up what this thing was.

4:01 At this point, I remember we had kind of a dim flashlight. So what we saw right in the middle of the river was ahead and I'll say it was it had like a human head in shape. It didn't have any ears sticking out, it didn't have any antlers. There was no not muzzle or nose sticking out. It was it was just around head. And of course it was covered with hair and the water had gotten it wet, so when we hit it with a flashlight, it kind of shined a little bit off of the wet hair. Its eyes were looking right at us. They were in front of us like stereoptics, and when it saw the flashlight.

4:43 It went under the water, and that's what kind of spooked us. What animal would be swimming in the water above water, breathing heavy, looks like a human face, human head. And then the minute we lighted up, it was able to grab a breath and go underwater. We decided to get out of there. We weren't too sure what the thing was. All we knew was it was it was coming closer to us, and it was going to end up between us in the car, and we decided at that time we should get out of there. That's really about it. In a nutshell, that's wild. And that was in nineteen eighty four. You said, yes, and what river was that? I believe that was a raccoon.

5:30 I believe you're on the raccoon. Yeah, that's what I figured, being over by Minburn. That's your main river over there. And have you ever shared this with anyone else before? No, well, other than my family the night of, but didn't really talk about it a lot. The gentleman I was fishing with was a one of the local teachers of the school system in that area, and he was a science teacher, and he really he kept it to himself. He told me later on when we got together, he said that he really was concerned about telling anybody about that because of his position. Well that's you know, being a teacher, that's even inches, so he was a science teacher. Man. What kind of conversation did you guys have afterwards after you saw that that Harry had kind of disappeared down into the water, And we did have a little bit of a conversation like what did we just see? I mean, we tried to rule it out because, like I said, we both dow a lot of cat fishing, and we've been on the rivers before, and you know, if you've ever been out at night, the beaver sometimes will slap that water pretty hard with their tails, and that's kind of what we thought. The first splash was might have been a beaver or that thing had fallen in. So he ruled that out because beavers don't duck. I mean, yeah, they can swim under water, but this head was as much larger than a beaver head would ever have been when we let it up, So we ruled out beer and

7:00 muskrat, any kind of critter that likes the water, and of course the fact that we didn't see any years or antlers kind of took care of anything like gear, so we just kind of checked off what it wasn't and kind of left us with what could it be? And that's where we kind of felt that, you know, if anybody tries to we tell this story to anybody, they probably won't believe us. And remember in nineteen eighty four, you know, a couple of guys out fishing, they would I could just hear them, you know, oh yeah, how much beer do you have before you go fishing? The truth of matter was that we didn't have any beer that night, so we were stone cold sober and just did not enjoy what happened to us. You know, that's a great detail to know because sometimes you know, I have these interviews and the person can't say that they were actually one hundred percent sober, and that makes a huge difference. So that's a that's a huge detail that you were actually you know, you weren't drinking that night. And you know, when you remember, if you can remember back looking at the head in the water, the hairy head was the was the hair mostly on one part of the head or was it just like completely covered with hair that you could see or do you remember any details like that. Yes, it was looking right at me. Rob was doing my right and by the time I had the flashlights, so the time I lit it up, it was basically straight in front of me. And I'd say the distant from from where I was standing to wherevers and wherever might have been.

8:26 We'll be back with more big Foot society after these words from our sponsors, maybe fifteen. So I got a really good look at it, and what kind of surprised me was that it was wet topped the bottom dome shaped head, if you will, hair all the way around, and they did have eyes. I could see its eyes and they did not reflect They were normally you know, when you light up a raccoon or something, those eyes flashback gold at you and the flashlight. Now these eyes are just black, cold black, not reflective, just two black spots. And the only thing that was reflecting was the wet hair. Very very interesting. Could you see the skin color at all? No, No, we couldn't see the thin color. But I will say the hair overall was a very dark colored, very dark brown, maybe black. It was night. It was dark, the river was black, the sky was there was no moon or anything that night. If I remember, and like I said, the flashlight wasn't that bright. We just had an old flashlight with us. Wasn't a very bright light enough light to make sure you didn't step in a hole or something when you're trying to walk back to the car. Can you think back to what the let's say, the soundscape, you know, what kind of things were

9:56 you hearing around you at that time, if you remember any certain animals or anything out of the plate, out of place, or anything like that. Okay, before before the big splash, the first splash, I'd say, we could hear it in the woods. You know. It was like you could hear it breaking twigs or snapping branches, if you will. So we kind of thought maybe a deer was being you know, it was on the run or something. But it was ten o'clock at night and that's dark here, and so something we could hear the cracking and the breaking of the twigs and then the splash, and I mean it's like if you had jumped in, just jumped in off the bank, a big splash. Then there was silence for a while. Then the next thing we heard was I'm going to say, like stopping feet stopping on on a muddy bank if you will.

10:52 It's like it was trying to get us balanced or climb up the bank and it couldn't. So here there was no real pattern. It was a thumb splash and then then more of a splash again, but not near as big as splash, more like someone entering the water just turned around and kind of jumped back in. At that point, we didn't hear anything for a while. Then you could hear the breathing and I'm gonna say heavy nasal breathing through through like a nose, and it was breathing heavy, big, heavy breaths. There was no splash into the water and like it's like someone doing a swim with their arms, you know, breaking the water. There was none of that, So it was it was it's nothing breaking the water just says, you know, almost like someone's out of breath breathing. It was getting louder. That's when we turned the lights on. That's when what is making that noise? Because I've never heard of an animal breathing in the water like that. So then the duct it's very very interesting. What about let's say, any any birds or other creatures of the forest or was it maybe no other sounds at all that you were hearing. No, there was no other sounds. Ten o'clock, most of the birds are asleep, trying to think if I've heard anything else. Not, No, not, I don't think I even heard any any of the farm dogs in the area. I think

12:24 it was pretty quite that night. Was interesting. By the Minburn area and the raccoon there's a few nature areas. Were you in close proximity to any of those nature areas. We were about two to three miles west of men Burn itself, and we were down in the valley. And this is a pretty good little valley. This is some really nice bluffs and hills in that area, So that I can't tell you if there was a nature valley or a nature area that, but I do know it was really would it In that particular part There was some crop land, but that was only in the floodplains. But for the most part we were in between the hills, which were all of all good of hills that that yeah, that's I mean, that's that's the area. Yeah, the valleys, the ridges, the gulches, I mean, that's it. Man. Do you remember around that that time, or maybe a few years before, were there any other reports of creatures or being seen like Bigfoot or anything else in this area. Uh No, I can't say I remember. And at that time I really wasn't following anything. I wasn't even looking for anything, so unaware of anything at that time. Interesting if I don't know if you're familiar with the BFROO at all, which is a big Foot Field researchers or organization, but if you look

13:56 up Dallas County in there, there there were a few reports by the Raccoon River around nineteen seventy eight. I believe you may find find that interesting. So in the reports around the Raccoon River, albeit you know, not in Minburn area per se, but in other areas. Uh you know, they've even gone into the two thousands where there's been sightings, and it's just it's a very very interesting area, the Raccoon River. But man, do you ever do you ever feel like you want to see that kind of creature again?

14:41 Or how did that affect the rest of your life? Well, I will say that it it put a question mark in my in my belief so of what's out there and what's not out there. I've got room for a lot of things that could be walking on this planet. And and when I listen to people that stories, I you know, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But in this case, since I can have an experience that I did have an experience, I'm going to say that I guess I lean more towards they're out there. But how can they be? You know, how what what allows them to continue? I mean people talk about where the bones, you know, where's more evidence yet yet I saw one, or I think I saw one, and so more of a believer, But as far as I wanting to see another one, maybe not at night with a dim flashlight. That's that's a little too close for comfort. Absolutely, And and I'll I'll end out with this question. If you had to categorize what you saw, because people categorize Bigfoot in many different ways, would you some people say maybe more more of an eight type creature, more of some type of human creature, or something in the middle. Do you have any leaning towards what you might categorize what you saw? As what I saw, I would lean towards more of a humanoid type person, more very very hairy.

16:17 I don't see a lot of ape features in it. It was more human shape with hair from head to the shoulder, and of course the shoulders are underwater, so that's where I would categorize it very interesting. Well, Dave, I really appreciate you taking a few minutes to chat with me today. And this is pretty cool because it's yet another incident that happened in Iowa that was not documented and now it's documented. So I really appreciate you talking to me this afternoon. Well, my pleasure. I enjoyed it. You're a big for Society article is to provide a platform for those that have encountered Bigfoot to share their encounter in a safe and respected environment. But we need to hear your story. If you've experienced something that you just can't explain, please send me an email at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. Then we can start the conversation. And I know a lot of you have not shared your encounter at all. It's been twenty years and it's time that you get this off your chest and then you can get some well deserved for rest because I know you haven't been sleeping. I understand what you're going through and I appreciate every one of you listening