My First Encounter !

Here is why I got started in researching the big guy ............ Let me start out by describing the area , This took place in what WAS a small town just north of Tampa, Fl ( Citrus Park ) . It was primarily made up of woods, swamps, cattle ranches, dairy farms and orange groves . My grandmother had a half acre of land that backed up to a very large stretch of woods .
My encounters started when I was about nine years of age , my bedroom was in the back of the home and we had no air conditioning so windows had to be open during the summer . Anywhere from eleven pm on , this " being " would come to my back window and stare in at me . There were even a few times that it would try to fit its head in between the window panes .
I would scream for my g-ma and by the time she would get back there the " being" would be gone . This went on until I was about twelve and I got my wish to move into the bedroom up in the front . The encounters never happened to me in the front bedroom due to a shed that was blocking the window .

The next thing to happen was when I was sixteen , My sister had moved a trailer in behind my g-mas home a few years earlier and her and her husband were off for the night . My g-ma was home alone and it was around eleven pm when she noticed that my sisters two dogs were going nuts . She grabbed her gun and a flash light and took off behind my sisters place . When she came around the corner she saw the dogs running for the fence barking and then running back for the trailer and whining . Just as she took a step toward the fence she raised the flashlight up and spotted something huge and dark standing amongst the tree line . She then took another step toward the fence and caught a whiff of something that took her breath away . When this happened she fired a shot into the ground and this thing took off into the woods .

I grew up with these or this " being " for numerous years and with my encounters and hearing the stories as a kid , It is what led me to researching these guys going on about fifteen to sixteen years now .

I have more things that happened around the area but they are pretty much second hand stories .
There were alot of sightings in the Citrus Park area but no one really reported them due to the fact that they didn't want to be criticized and the "old timers " didn't want people nosing around their property ....

The Thomas Ranch and the Geracies(not sure of sp) who had several cattle properties around Sheldon Rd and Gunn Hwy had issues with a
"THING" that was killing their cattle .
What was so puzzling to the ranchers was that they couldn't link the killings to any known predators . The local dairy farmers had issues too .

My G-mother who had a couple of friends in the Sheriffs dept & Hwy Patrol tell her of different stories and calls they would get and have to go investigate and how they were just dumb founded at what they saw or heard .
The Hwy Patrol officer ( SGT Harry Mofield ) had a few calls that were strange .

The one that was strange to me was the one about the orange grower who had someone that would eat anywhere between 15 to 20 some oranges in a night and who ever it was had HUGE feet . The Sgt went to investigate it and saw what was left of the oranges , saw the tracks which led to a bay head that turned into a massive swamp area . Well he told the grower he wasn't about to go tromping through the swamp for a very large orange thief . The grower told him of the strange noises that would come from the swamp and Sgt Harry told him that that made it even more in his decision of not going in there .......

Carolann 🙂

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