Creatures, Myths & Legends

Riegelsville mayor still haunted by Bigfoot encounter

By T.K. Randall
December 3, 2021

Image: AI-generated (Bing AI / Dall-E 3) It had started out as an idyllic camping trip with his girlfriend in Pike County, Pennsylvania, yet what happened that night in July 1984 would lead him on a search for the truth that continues even to this day.

Things had started out fine, with Stokes setting up the tent and starting a campfire.

"About quarter to 10, when it was good and dark, something walked up on our campsite," he recalled. "It was definitely something on two feet, and I could hear it snapping sticks as it walked."

Terrified, he gripped his knife and hatchet as the intruder came to a stop just outside the tent.

"This animal let out a scream that was just the most terrifying thing you can imagine," said Stokes. "This creature, this thing, was so close to our tent that I could hear its lips pop open when it started to scream."

"It had a terribly deep guttural tone, but also this high-pitched tone, and the scream went on for 20 or 25 seconds. I didn't think then, and I don't think now, that a human being is capable of making that sound. ""This scream was definitely territorial, and it was definitely directed at us."

"It shook my body so hard, I couldn't see the inside of the tent. It was like looking through shimmering water. The sound went all the way through me."

"If you stand in front of a big bass amplifier at a concert, that's what it was like."

Stokes would go on to spend the next 37 years attempting to find an answer to what it was he encountered that night.

"I didn't know what I heard," he said. "But I knew what I didn't hear - any animal found in North America."

Source: Bucks County Courier Times

Tags: Bigfoot