Report 26124: Man recalls seeing a large creature walk across his yard near Tioga

Late one night when I was around 11 or 12 years old.  I was awaken by something at the window of my bedroom.  As I woke up and looked around my room the light from the street light in the back yard cast a shadow on my window.  This shadow filled the entire 8 foot window and had it was the shadow of something walking by.  The outline line looked like a big person with its head leaning forward and messy hair. At that time I though who is in my yard (as we had 6 acres of woods that backed up to rogully swamp and flaggon was near by).  So I got up and went to  the back door and stepped out to see who was out there. What I saw was something big and black that stepped over the 4 1/2 chain link fence and walked into the woods.  I did not know what I was looking at, but we lived rurally and our house set about an acre off the road.  Being in the late 70's the area was not developed.  So I could not imagine it being a person.  When I told my dad about it, he told me it was nothing and not to worry about it.  So for years I put it out of my mind.  To this day I am not sure what I saw.  All I know is it filled up the 8 foot window and stepped over a 4 1/2 foot chain link fence.  In my mind today that has got to be pretty big to do that.