S.A. Tired covers fictitious news from an unrealistic perspective for the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. News and views in Spinning the News are claimed by no one else but the author.
SLOAM SPRINGS - Bear sightings have become somewhat common in the Siloam Springs area over the last few years. A young bear was recently captured in the city and another was seen along Sager Creek, but what was seen near the dam at City Lake in the wee hours of Saturday morning really has area residents wondering.
A middle-aged man and a young woman, who would only speak to us on the condition of anonymity, described what they saw from inside their car, while parked along the lake just north of the dam.
“It was a beautiful, moonlit night out at the lake and we were just talking,” the man said, “nothing more. Then, about 2:30 in the morning, my girlfriend looked up and almost screamed in fright. When I sat up and and looked out the car window, I could see it just standing there and looking in at us. It was tall and shaggy and had an ape-like face.”
“I was scared to death,” the young woman said. “I thought, ‘This is it! This thing is going to get us and tear us apart!’” she said, still sounding a little fearful.
“I quick started up the car and put it in reverse to get out of there,” the man said. “When the lights shined in its face, it must have blinded him. He put a big, brown, hairy arm up over his face and then turned and went down the bank and into the water.”
“It already looked wet and muddy from the waist down,” the young woman said. “It must have been wading in the water before it came up to my boyfriend’s car.”
“I’m not positive, but I think it ran down along the spillway and behind the dam,” the man said. “I was just in a hurry to get out of there. I didn’t go back and try to find out where it went, either!”
Wildlife officials wouldn’t verify the identity of the creature in the sighting or even if any of the report was true, but they did admit that other reports have come in over the past month or two of late-night Bigfoot sightings along Flint Creek.
“Yes, we seem to get reports of Sasquatch sightings each year, but they’re usually in more remote locations,” said district coordinator Harry Jackleberry. “Lately, though, we’ve received a few reported sightings in the City Lake and Flint Creek area.”
A local fisherman did report seeing some large tracks in the mud near the spillway last week that left him puzzled.
“They looked like someone had walked barefoot in the mud,” said Bill Wader, a fisherman from Siloam Springs who likes to get out to the lake at sunrise each morning. “But I’ve never seen feet that big,” he added. “They must have been a size 20-plus,” he said spreading his hands apart to show how big the footprints were.
Wader said he noticed that the huge tracks appeared to have come up out of the water along the edge and then turn back into the water near his favorite fishing spot on the lake. He wasn’t willing to disclose the exact location because it’s his fishin’ hole, he said, and he doesn’t want others to be fishing there when he arrives.
A number of residents near the lake have reported their dogs barking during the middle of the night and for no apparent reason. One woman said her dog just whimpered and, when she let the dog in, he went and hid under her bed and was shaking.
Destiny Brown, a zoologist from Humbolt State College in northern California, where sightings are more common, dismissed the Siloam Springs sighting, saying the only valid Bigfoot sightings have been in the Sierra and Cascade mountain ranges in the West.
“The climate and terrain in Siloam Springs — they’re just not right for Sasquatch,” Brown said.
Others aren’t so sure. One local wildlife club has set up game cameras along the lake shore to see if it can get a good, quality photo of Bigfoot and settle the question once and for all. So far, all the cameras have captured were a curious raccoon, a few fishermen and a couple making out in a parked car. One game camera was missing after the first night and was later located by GPS outside a dark cave not far from the lake.
We did check with the local exotic animal park in nearby Gentry and a spokesman there said all the park’s Sasquatch were accounted for over the weekend.
In related news, Arkansas Game and Fish officials reported that snipe hunting is unusually good this summer, with more hunters taking up the sport and a few getting bagged for hunting out of season.