Just incidentally, while researching "The worlds largest glacial copper boulder", for the …
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Ontonagon copper Boulder thread,
I came upon this article from the Ancient Artifact Preservation Society (AAPS),
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"Friends send tributes to Memory of Fred Rydholm", wherein I found this bit, FYI:
yes really cool fr. nash....I cannot find the petroglyph pic though..can you...I did find the official report from AU TRAIN though and I was October 2017 ...really recent...here it is...looking like a tree stump is a common theme...and so is river banks...they travel rivers from state to state north to south as well as east to west...I believe they need as much area as a wolf to survive so there numbers are similar maybe...not as many as we think...I think the same group might be spotted and reported in several states....they need 100 square miles...which means this one in AUTRAIN could be same one in huron mountains and same one spotted in Presque isle and so on....but its a family group I believe also
Posted January 3, 2018
Name: Garry LaBelle
Date: 10/22/2017
Location: Near AuTrain, MI. Specifically, about three miles south of M28 on AuTrain Forest Lake Rd., near the AuTrain River.
Approximately 0200. No moon. Crystal clear skies. Temp. 30º F. No wind. In Marquette, MI for the weekend to watch my son run in the GLIAC Cross Country Conference Meet.
Went out to try and record northern lights. Using a hand-held digital camera. Parked my SUV (Backed off the road into a “two-track”.) opened the sun roof, stood up through the opening and leaned back so I could record the sky. Tried for about 20 min. to get some images but the lights were just too dim and sporadic. Called it a night, packed camera away, was standing outside SUV, drivers side, urinating.
I then heard a sudden and loud ‘splash’ in the river. There was no sort of noise leading up to it. Just the splash. Then nothing. I reached thru the open window and grabbed my Mag Lite from the console. (It’s a small model-uses 3 AA batteries. Has an adjustable light field.) I pointed it towards the river approximately where I’d heard the splash, adjusted the field to ‘wide’ then turned it on. At first I saw nothing. Then what I thought was a cedar stump/tree near the shore began to sway back and forth. Without taking my eyes off the ‘tree’ I reached into the car and turned on the car’s headlights.
For a moment nothing happened then the warning chimes in the car began to ring.(The keys were not in the ignition.) The ‘tree’ suddenly spun around and stood straight up. I then realized it had been crouching down. The creature was huge-easily eight feet tall. Covered in dark brown-to-black hair. It just glared towards me. I know it had to be blinded from the headlamps but it didn’t seem scared at all. More like mad. It seemed to suck in a huge breath then proceeded to let out an enormous scream. It was so loud that it my internal organs were vibrating and even my vision turned momentarily fuzzy.
It then turned around and crossed the river in three strides, stepped up the opposite bank in one motion and disappeared into the woods. I should say “melted”, actually, ’cause it made virtually no noise. None. I got in the car, closed all the windows, and started my vehicle. Before driving away I opened my door and dropped one of my business cards on the ground. (No cell ‘phone coverage or I would have marked it on my GPS.)
I came back the next day with ball of twine and marked some distances. (I don’t carry a surveyors measuring tape with me.) I was about 80 feet from the animal. The river was about three feet deep. It was about twenty-five feet across. The bank on the other side was three feet high. So, it crossed the river in three strides and stepped up the bank in another stride. That’s SIX FEET! (The water was 3 feet deep, bank was 3 feet high!)
One last thought. I believe the animal was hunting me. The river bottom was a mixture of sand and marl. (I’m a trout fisherman-still had my stocking-foot waders in my vehicle.) The foot prints of the animal were still visible in the river bottom five hours later. It had entered the stream seventy-five yards upstream and waded downriver to where I saw it. And I don’t believe it made the splash I heard. Next to where I saw it standing was a ‘beaver slide’….I think the thing spooked a beaver and the splash I heard was a beaver getting into the river, not the creature itself.
