Tom Priddy thought he was about to die.
It was 2013 and he and a buddy were fishing along a creek in Salt Fork State Park when they heard something coming toward them through the tall grass on the other side of the water.
“When it was right on the edge of the weeds, a head appeared that was like a human or monkey ... dark, but with long hair ... and it was on all fours,” Doug Waller of the SouthEastern Ohio Society of Bigfoot Investigation told a crowd gathered at Akron’s downtown library Saturday.
The fishermen stared in silence as the creature stuck its face into the muddy Guernsey County creek to drink and then stood upright on its hind legs, apparently not noticing the men across the creek, Waller said.
“Tom and his friend were just flabbergasted,” Waller said. “What was this thing?”
Then Priddy’s friend coughed. Priddy’s eyes met that of the creature, Waller said, and it appeared the creature was going to attack.
Priddy raised the only weapon he had — his fishing rod — over his head and the creature dropped back to the ground and disappeared again into the weeds.
Waller unfurled Priddy’s story during the Akron-Summit County Public Library’s “Search for the Truth: An Afternoon of Cryptozoology.”
Cryptozoologists study creatures that have not been proven to exist, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.
“It’s my personal opinion that Bigfoot looks and moves around like a bear and that’s why no one can find him,” said Waller, who has published two books, and is working on a third, about Ohioans who claim to have seen or encountered Bigfoot.
More monsters
Another monster hunter, Seth Breedlove of Norton, also screened his latest documentary, Beast of Whitehall, for the library audience. The slick production revisits the tiny upstate New York town of Whitehall where, in 1976, 11 people reported seeing the same red-eyed, hairy monster stalking the nearby fields and forest.
Breedlove, a former columnist with the Massillon Independent, became intrigued with monsters while reading old newspaper clippings. His first film was Minerva Monster, dedicated to the 7-foot, stinky creature that reportedly roamed the intersection of Carroll, Columbiana and Stark counties in 1978.
The film last year spawned the first Minerva Monster Day, a festival that drew 1,200 to a town of about 3,600.
“It was a shock to the chamber of commerce because they weren’t expecting it,” Breedlove said.
But crypto-tourism can have a huge economic impact, said Breedlove, pointing to the annual UFO festival in Roswell, N.M., home to Area 51. After decades of downplaying its monster sightings, Breedlove said Whitehall has started embracing its creature with a festival.
Minerva’s second Monster Day is Sept. 23-24.
No DNA matches
The audience listening to the monster hunters Saturday remained skeptical. Where was the evidence, they wanted to know.
Neither Breedlove nor Waller had any photos or DNA proof.
Waller said he hopes evidence will come with emerging science. Hair from suspected Bigfoot creatures has been collected and tested, for example, but DNA tests can only rule out what it’s not — a deer, a cow, a bear — based on other samples. DNA can’t prove hair belongs to Bigfoot because there’s no Bigfoot DNA sample to match, he said.
Until then, he encouraged people to be aware, particularly around bridges that cross over streams or railroad tracks, places where something that looks like a Bigfoot is often seen in Ohio.
“You never know what you’re going to see,” Waller told the crowd, “unless you look.”
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.