Memory told of a possible encounter and footprint found along Horse Creek north of Pawnee witnessed in Sangamon County, Illinois

Open Map

This was circa 1978. As my friend and I were walking from his house along his 1/4 mile driveway that meandered through the woods along side of the creek we had heard some odd noises that caught our attention. At this point, we had been running through the woods for a few years together, felt extremely comfortable in them and knew many sounds and sign. Neither of us could identify these sounds. I do not recall the sounds exactly, but, it seemed to be some tapping noise, somewhat subtle and not alarming, yet it seemed clearly something out of the ordinary. So we decided to hop the old overgrown fence which paralleled the driveway, penetrate the overgrowth and go into the woods to investigate. Heading in the direction from which the sounds had been coming we soon noticed that some of the patches of grass that had managed to grow under the canopy of trees was matted down. The matting looked quite fresh as all the blades were still quite green and showing no signs of atrophy or recovery...