I used to joke that the visitor center was the safest building in the entire park. Steel doors, floodlights, motion sensors, radios, cameras, it had it all. But one night, just after 9pm as I was locking up alone after a late evening nature workshop, something stepped into the lights right outside the glass entry, and it stood there waiting for me. It was too tall for a man, too human for a bear, and it knew the building as well as I did, and it knew my routine.
I'm writing this because I've heard you say that you tell the stories for people who don't want to tell their own stories for whatever reason. Well, this is my story. I'm not guessing here. I'm not just filling in blanks with my imagination. I saw a big foot up close in the bright light, and I am sure of what I saw. I've worked various positions for the parks here in Ohio, but for a time about 9 years, I worked as a facilities tech at a State Park Visitor Center in southeastern Ohio.
At that time, my job was kind of a jack of all trades. I would fix the broke stuff or call people to get them fixed. I did whatever needed doing when the public left, and I would help set up and close down different events. Then I would do the lock-up and do the last walk around. Visitor centers usually aren't staffed overnight, and ours isn't either. But late programs do happen there. There will be different AL talks.
We have astronomy nights, winter workshops, and you know, someone has to stay for the cleanup and the final lock-up. That means I'm up to bat on those nights. Now for some context of what was going on that evening, that night's workshop, as I recall, was called something like "night sounds of the forest." There were about 30 people in attendance. Our naturalists played different AL calls, coyote-halves, fox-barks, things like that. Then gave a talk and took a lot of questions.
By 8.30 it was over, and by 8.45 the naturalists and the volunteers had packed up, and they were out the door. I watched their tear lights disappear, and I figured I'd be in my truck by no later than 9.15. The building is modern, but plain. Big front glass, steel-frame doors, a concrete apron and three motion-light zones across the entry plaza. There's a side-service door on the east wall, loading door and back near maintenance. My lock-up is a routine of muscle memory.
The doors closed, gift-shop alarmed, theater-wing checked, empty and dark. Restrooms checked. Back hall doors latched. The exterior looped. Then I returned to the lobby, do a final bar check on the front doors, then do an east-service handle tug, make sure that's closed and locked. I close out the reports, then I'm out the door. Now a week before this all happened, little things had been going wrong.
On the first night, the metal trash can behind the amphitheater was tipped and rolled some 30 feet down slope. But we do get wind up there, so I just picked it up, put it back, and I moved on. The second night, motion lights on the west path fired in sequence from the tree line to the building, like something big had moved straight in. But the lights were out before I got there to check. The third night, I got a smell near the rear deck. This wasn't like flesh-rock from a dead animal.
It wasn't a skunk or something like a bare den. This was a different smell. It was a hard smell. Sour, wet, and sharp. I went looking for it, but I didn't find it. But the thing was, if I walked 20 feet in any direction away from the deck, the smell was gone. But I walked back, there it was again. So the smell was on the deck. I checked under the deck. There was nothing there. I soaked down the deck, but the smell was still there. It took powerwashing with hard detergent to get rid of it.
And let me tell you, powerwashing in November and Ohio is not fun, even on an unusually mild day. Now the other thing was the side gate. I don't remember which nights, but it was that same week. I found it unlatched twice. Now yes, it could have been me forgetting the first time. But after that, I was double checking the next couple nights. And you know, I found it unlatched again one morning. There was no explanation, so I just logged it and moved on.
But I knew I had latched it the night before. Then came the night of November 14th. The weather was cold and still. Rain had passed around dinner and left everything out there wet. The temperature was dropping fast. There was no moon through the clouds, and there was no wind. By 8.45 I was alone in the building, as predicted. At 902 I finished stacking the chairs and wheeling the audio visual carts back to storage. At 906 I locked the gift shop and armed the sensor.
At 909 I stepped outside for the exterior loop with a flashlight and the radio was clipped to my vest. That's when I noticed how dead it sounded out there. There was no highway hum. No frogs from the low pond behind the lot. There were no owl calls. Just one steady drip from a roof corner and the sound of my boots on the wet concrete. I walked the west side first. There was nothing there. At the rear loading area there was nothing but wet pallets and some hinge metal.
On the east wall, which I did last, there was that sour odor again, and it was stronger than ever. It hit me so hard I stopped breathing for a second. The thing was it smelled warm in the cold air and very fresh. I swept the light across the swale, shrubs, sign-base. Nothing reflected, nothing moved. At 9.13 I came back through the lobby and checked the monitors in the office. Camera 2 had faint static lines. Camera 4 facing the entry looked clean. I rebooted the splitter anyway.
All feeds returned to normal. At 9.15 I started final lock sequence at the front vestibule. The keys were in my left hand, clipboard under my arm. I pulled the left doorbar, then the right, and I heard that familiar metal clack, closed and locked. Then suddenly the flood lights outside fired, left bank, center bank, right bank, one, two, three. I looked up expecting to see deer. What stepped into the center light was no deer, no bear, and no man. It stood upright almost to the door header.
I know that header height because we replaced the frame two years ago after some storm damage. It set seven feet, eight inches to the lower beam. The top of its head sat inches below that line while it stood with a slight bend in the knees. Its shoulders were wider than a single door panel. Chest deep and thick, like a power lifter's torso, and stretched taller than human proportions. Arms, they were long enough that the hands hung below mid-thigh, but not quite to the knees.
Those hands were open, they had thick, long fingers. The hair was dark brown to black, wet and matted on the forearms and shoulders. It took one step forward, smooth, balanced, quiet. It wasn't the bobbing weight of a bear on hind legs, and this certainly was no costume. Then it lifted its head and it looked straight at me through the glass. I mean, at me. I saw the face clearly. There was a prominent heavy brow bone. There was a set of forward-facing eyes deep set under it.
The nose was broad and flat. There was no muzzle, no snout, and no round ears like a bear would have on the head. There was a wide mouth with tight lips, massive jaws. It was thinner hair around the eye sockets where dark skin showed. It was looking right at me. I took two steps left without thinking, and it tracked me with its head at the exact same speed. It was smooth and deliberate and focused. Then it raised its right hand and it laid it flat against the glass.
The sound was soft, a damp thump on the glass. I saw the full spread of the fingers, all five of them. There was a thumb low and thick. The hand covered more area than my whole face. I froze for maybe one second, maybe upwards of five. I couldn't guess. My body went cold at first, then went hot. I could only hear my own breathing and the fluorescent buzz of lights overhead. Then it lowered its hand, turned its torso slightly, but it kept its eyes on me.
Then it stepped sideways along the facade toward the east entrance. That was the door that I always checked last. It knew where to go. It knew where I was going to go. I backed up, hit the interlatch, and moved fast toward the office. My legs felt numb but worked. I keyed the office door, shoved my way in, killed the hall light, and I grabbed the desk radio. Dispatch. This is visitor center. I need a Ranger unit here now. There was no answer, just hissing on the radio.
I switched channels, tried again. Unit check, unit check. I have a large, aggressive subject at the main entry at the visitor center. Nothing but static. Then suddenly a clipped response broken by interference. Copy, partial, repeat, location. I repeated everything again louder. I gave the building code, said I was alone, said it was upright, and it was at the doors. Dispatch came back clear. Closest unit was handling a disabled vehicle near the south trailhead, ETA 12 to 15 minutes.
A hard hit landed on glass out front. Not shattering it. Just a heavy impact that made the window frames buzz. And another farther right. It was moving, panel to panel across the front. Not striking hard enough to break the glass, but letting me know where it was and where it was going. I killed the hallway light and crouched at the corner just outside the office so I could see the lobby without silhouetteing myself. Through the glass panels I caught pieces of it passing.
I pulled her upper arm side of the head and it was too high, just too broad. I knew what I was seeing. A second later I heard the east service handle click. One pull. Then a pause. In a second pull harder jiggling the door. This wasn't some random powing. It had gone straight to the one door less visible from the lot, yet closest to the brochure window line that I use when I close. I whispered into the radio. It's trying the east service entrance.
Stay inside, unit in route was the reply I received. Its silhouette crossed the front glass again, close enough to fill most of the pain. It stopped at the narrow side window by the brochure rack and looked in. I could see one eye catch interior light, an amber brown reflection, not glowing, just light catching wet surface. It leaned forward slightly and fog bloomed on the glass from its breath. Bears don't stand like that and peer through windows to find you inside. Then it moved out of view.
For the next several minutes I tracked it by motion chimes and the light triggers. Westside lights popped, then rear deck lights, then at a whole went dark. Then the east side lights would go. It was circling the building, slowly controlled. It wasn't crashing around the building frantically. It wasn't making any stumbling sounds. It knew how to move quietly, even at that size. If it hadn't been for the motion chimes and the lights, I never would have known it was circling the building.
At one point something heavy stepped onto the rear wooden deck. I felt the vibration through the floor under my boots. Three steps, then a pause. One more step. Then nothing. I expected the rear door handle to rattle, but it didn't. Instead the side hallway sensor pinged and then the east lights came on again. It had somehow doubled back without me knowing. I called dispatch every two minutes. Sometimes I got through. Sometimes just static swallowed me up. My speech got clipped.
I kept repeating the same details, so they wouldn't think this was some weird panic, prank call from the shadows. A bright subject. Over seven feet, at glass, moving around perimeter, testing doors. Tell unit to be careful. At that point I made a decision that I kind of still hate. I had to get to the maintenance closet to pull the lock bar for the rolled down steel grill that secures the lobby from the office wing.
We usually only use it in storm events, or if we're closing for extra long holidays. The pull handle is halfway down the public hall, exposed to that side window. If I got that grilled down, even if a door failed, at least there would be one more barrier. I waited for silence. I counted to ten. Then I moved. Halfway down the hall I heard a low vocal sound outside the side window. Not a growl, not a roar. It was a deep, chesty, two note sound that rose up sharply at the end.
Sort of like a question. It stopped me dead. The sound came again. This time much closer to the glass. I could feel it in my ribs. I forced myself three more steps. I grabbed the pull handle and yanked. The grill dropped with a screaming metal rattle that echoed throughout the building. The second it hit the floor, something slammed the side window, hard. Glass boom, the frame shuddered and rattled. But incredibly, it didn't break.
I turned and looked because instinct overrode fear for just a half a second. And it was right there, less than five feet beyond the glass from me. Its face was angled directly at me. The mouth was slightly open. Teeth were visible at the front. Broad, worn and block-shaped. With that were noticeable canines, but not prominent enough to call them things. I would say they were moderate canines, much like ours. That hair clumped around on its cheeks. One hand rose and spread against the pain.
Its fingers sprayed wide. It looked right at me. And tapped the glass with a finger, slow and rhythmic. Tap, pause, tap, pause, tap. It didn't have the feel of a friendly tapping like, "Hey, come here!" It was more like, "I'm watching you. I'm looking at you." It was something more like that. A chill went up and down me. I ran. I ran back to the office and slammed the door shut, dropped the bar, and shoved a file cabinet up against the door. Then I keed the radio with both hands shaking.
Dispatch. It's at the east window. People is confirmed. This is a massive upright, primate-like subject. Seven plus feet. It took everything I had to use that term, primate-like. It was as close as I could get to saying what I knew it was, but I felt I needed to warn whatever unit-ranger was responding. Outside. Motion chime started firing all around the building. Not in TREEPING, West Hall PING. Rear deck lights went on. Then it went dark. East side lights again. It went on and on.
It was circling, staying just out of my sightline, testing where I watched it from. At one point I felt vibration through the floor again under my boots. There were very heavy steps on the rear deck boards. Three more steps than another pause than one step than nothing. Twice, I heard that low two note vocalization again. It was very close. At 9.25, Dispatch said that units were two minutes out. I'll tell you, those two minutes were the longest part of the whole night.
The building went absolutely still. Quiet. No chimes. No impacts. No footsteps. I watched the office monitor showing the front vestibule. For several seconds nothing moved. In a dark mass lit across the frame so close that it blocked most of the image. Auto exposure blew up white and then corrected itself. I got one clear look at an upper torso and arm length before it passed. It was far beyond any human proportion. And the feed fluttered was static and froze.
At 9.28 headlights washed through the office blinds. Engine noise. Doors opening. A ranger shouted my name from the front hall. Two rangers came in. They came in hot and armed. I answered and I stayed put until they gave code confirmation. When I did unbar the office door my knees were shaking hard enough I had to brace myself against the frame. The two rangers swept the interior and the exterior. There was no subject on immediate perimeter. But I saw it one last time.
Through the rear office window beyond the employee lot at the edge of the amphitheater clearing there was movement. The ranger beside me swung his light over there just a fraction too late to see it. But before that in the beam spill I saw the figure break from the shadows. It was upright. Its arms pumping low with long strides. It crossed open ground fast. Faster than a man could run that wet slope.
And it stepped over the drainage ditch without breaking its pace and disappeared into timber near the interpretive trail. It was gone in seconds. And it was upright on two feet the whole time. We secured the building and moved to vehicles. My statement took probably an hour because my adrenaline kept surging. I gave the exact times off the lock sheets and the radio logs and my badge swipes. I described the face three different ways so there'd be no confusion with a bear.
There were marks on the east door handle and there was a smear on the side window at a height that was above my head. That was where it had put its hand. The ranger's photographed everything. I never asked what any lab did or didn't say about the photographs or any other evidence they collected. I didn't care. I don't care. I saw it in floodlight at 15 feet and at side window range of about 5 feet. I don't need a report to tell me what it was I saw. And what saw me?
I ended up taking ten days off. I came back and requested day shift only. I do still work for the parks but I don't close that building alone anymore. I don't run routine by memory either. I vary lock order. I vary my times. I vary my route. I keep my radio and phone in hand at all times. I make sure I park facing out. Now maybe all of that sounds paranoid. That's fine with me. I can live with that. What stays with me after all this time isn't the size or even what it was that I saw.
What stays with me? What wakes me up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night is its behavior. It didn't wander up there by accident. It appeared in the exact window of time when everyone else had left and I alone was visible behind glass. It moved to the secondary access points around the building. It knew where I was heading next. It knew the only places I could have left the building. It moved from point to point that had been my actual routine path.
It circled that building again and again without noise. It tracked me through the window panes. It tested the door handles. I don't know what more I can say. That was a very deliberate approach, a deliberate testing of doors. If anyone listening has to work nights and remote buildings or areas and you think that some walls and some lights are enough, I tell you, don't count on that if you're the last one out. Never run your lock-up exactly the same way night after night.
Don't ignore repeated odd triggers or strange things that happen. And if you're out there in the woods go dead quiet. Look with your gut instinct and you need to keep your coms redundant. And if something upright meets your eyes through glass and moves with intent checking the door handles, you need to stop worrying about how calm you might be. You need to lock down, call for help and survive.
Now people still ask me if I'm sure what I saw, including some of my coworkers, even some who have had some strange experiences of their own, but we don't talk about them very much. But yes, I am sure of what I saw. I know exactly what black bears look like. I know what a man looks like. What I saw was neither. If you share this on your show, leave my name and my park out of it. I'm not too far from retirement now. I won't jeopardize my pension. I don't think I have to explain further.
And whatever you're doing if you're listening to me, don't get complacent with a routine, because a routine almost got me killed. I survived because the locks on the building held and helped arrived in time. That's the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I'm withheld by request. You've been listening to the Buckeye Bigfoot podcast. Find more stories, hundreds more, over on our YouTube channel. Just look for Buckeye Bigfoot. [MUSIC]