Nighttime roadside sighting by a motorist outside Joplin witnessed in Newton County, Missouri

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It was a student at Missouri Southern State College at the time. And a popular hangout was at Wildcat Park. One evening several students were out there and a friend of mine asked me to drive him out there. Around midnite we were heading back to campus, I was taking a curve and as I got into the corner I saw a large ape-like, human-like creature standing just off the pavement. I would say it was 7.5'-8' tall and 350-400 pounds. I'm not sure of the color since it was dark. I would say it was dark brown, but the moonlight and limited visibility gave it's coat a whiteish sheen. The vehicle I was driving was a 'lifted' pickup truck. I was able to see eye-to-eye with it. The creature appeared to be much taller than the vehicle, but it was either squatting slightly or hunched down a bit. It had very broad shoulders, much larger than anything I had ever seen. They were close to 3' across. I looked right into it's face and it's eyes were a deep black. They could have been brown, and...