The Sam Sherry Encounter

 The Sam Sherry Encounter

By Cole Herrold

When it comes to Pennsylvania Bigfoot accounts, there are countless cases. The state is often included in the top 10 to 15 states with the most sightings, which depending on what site you go to, range from 120 to 300 separate occurrences. If you dig deeper, however, you'll find that this number is not accurate and that there is easily two times the amount of sightings from newspapers, online websites, and in the private collections of Fortean researchers. In these collections, there are some bizarre accounts, and Pennsylvania has been host to several out-of-this-world encounters with the big fella, from UFO-connected sightings like the Presque Island incident to the Uniontown sighting that Stan Gordon made famous. Yet, in all of these encounters, the Bigfoot seen typically looks as how you'd expect a tall hairy hominid that matches the description of what has been seen elsewhere in the United States. In May 1988, however, one man would have perhaps the weirdest sasquatch account on record with a creature that looks nothing like what one would see on Harry and the Hendersons.

It was 11:30 pm one late night on May 17, 1988, when 67-year-old WWII veteran Samuel “Sam” Sherry had driven down a dark path towards the Loyalhanna Creek in an area known as Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is a bucolic piece of secluded hideaway that is well known for being a famous fishing spot. Its location is nestled in the Chestnut Ridge, specifically in between Latrobe and Ligonier by Route 30 in Westmoreland County. Sam was an experienced outdoorsman and had frequented the location on more than one occasion. It was a warm and cloudy night, and Sam was in his blue 75’ Maverick and had pulled up to the creek. Leaving the metal confines of his car, he went to the trunk to retrieve the various fishing gear that was in the back; he searched for the various lures by lantern light. While doing this, a sudden strange smell seemed to permeate the area that he could not identify. Unperturbed by this, he continued searching for his gear, and after grabbing a rod and several other lures, he headed toward the nearby creek and checked the water level to make sure it was currently deep enough to fish in.

Before he could even ascertain as to whether or not this was a good spot, he heard the most bizarre sounds that he had ever heard about forty feet to the left of him. The area the noises were coming from was a wooden area that was directly below the eastbound lane of Route 30.  “I heard this commotion…like something breaking up the woods," he later would state in follow-up interviews. The sounds of breaking branches, brushes rumbling, and footsteps of animals and general overall disruption that rang out in woods was not alone as disarming enough as that was there were also several bizarre noises which Sam would describe “there were shrill whistling, grunting, and monkey-like chattering sounds coming out of the woods”. Sam lifted his lantern up to attempt to see what was making the ruckus, but he could see nothing for the longest time until he noticed that there were a pair of bright orange eyes seemingly moving through the woods. These eyes burned like "coals of fire" and were about the size of golf balls. Sam attempted to figure out what animal these came from, but as he ruled out the usual suspects of bear and deer, he realized whatever this creature was, it was much bigger than anything that he knew should be in the woods. He attempted to see what the creature was, but all he could see in the darkness were the glowing eyes. He wouldn't have to wait long, however, for as he followed the path of the creature with his head, he soon saw a dark shape standing out of the woods some twenty feet away.

Sam reeled around towards the dark shape and lifted his lantern high there; he saw what is perhaps the most bizarre Bigfoot on the books. The creature he noticed was about an inch or two shy of being seven feet tall, and unlike the typical hairy hominid, the creature lacked the typical fluff and fur that is associated with the beast. The creature was covered in a reddish-brown leathery skin that was covered in wrinkles with the occasional gray, scabby, almost scaly patch here and there. The creature's head was bigger than a soccer ball but smaller than a basketball and had wide cheeks and small flat ears on the side of its face; the nose was flattened to the face and exposed two large nostrils. The creature's eyes which he could now see clearly, were giving off an orange eyeshine, yet there were no discernible pupils or iris; however, whenever the light was aimed at the head, the eyes appeared to constrict as if they were trying to refocus or that the creature was squinting. The creature, whenever it would turn its head the eyes would also change color to a yellow, green combination tint. He did not notice any neck, or if there was one, it was very thick or very short. The creature seemed to weigh several hundred pounds and incredibly massive, and was about 24 inches wide across the shoulders. The creature's arms were incredibly long and dangled down beyond the creature's knees, and the creature's body seemingly was bulky as there was no discernible waist, hips, buttocks, or genitalia. The creature's feet had five stubby toes and were hairless and very narrow, and Sam estimated them to of been about 13" long. The creature's features, however, were surprisingly proportional to each other, and no feature was extraordinarily large in comparison. The creature’s shoulders, knees, and elbows were extremely deteriorated in comparison to the rest of the body as there were excessive gray patches in those locations. While the creature seemingly was devoid of most of the hair on its body, specifically the arms, hands, legs, feet, or torso, there were several spots that did feature fur; these spots were mostly on the head, and they formed bizarre patterns. The creature had a tuft of reddish-brown fur on the top and center of its head that was two inches high by two inches wide and gave the creature the appearance of having a mohawk. The creature also had horseshoe-shaped fur patches that happened below the ears and ended underneath the eyes. As Sam looked at this creature, however, he noted that while there was very little hair, the hair that was on the creature's body seemed very preened as if it was recently groomed or taken care of. As Sam looked the creature over, he noticed that the creature's lips were pushed out, revealing the creature's colossal maw, but shockingly the mouth had very little or no teeth.

As Sam looked at the colossal creature, he felt a twinge of pity, for he felt that the creature was both extremely old and as he stared at the scabby gray splotches most likely suffering from a disease like mange. The creature, as the man watched, continued to be very animate in its motions as it seemingly scratched its coarse splotchy body, its thick long fingers seemingly digging into its skin. As the creature did this, Sam realized that the creature bore no fingernails or claws, perhaps due to its constant scratching. As Sam stared at the wildly bizarre creature, there was a sudden realization that he had no idea as to how the creature got there. While he saw eyes in the woods, the timing seemed off from when he saw the eyes of the creature to seeing the creature itself as if it had suddenly manifested before him.

Sam, overly surprised by this sudden realization, continued to stare at the creature lifting his lantern high up. The creature, becoming growingly annoyed by the light, lifted its hand to its face and blinked several times. This led the creature to seemingly make some of the most bizarre sounds that were similar to those in the forest; it first made a grunting sound like that of a pig. Then the creature began to have some form of respiratory problems as it unfurled several wheezing asthmatic sounding noises and drooled and unleashed a rain of spittle on the ground. The creature's mouth was puckered as it did this bizarre salivatory sprinkle, almost as if the creature had some issue swallowing as well as breathing. Sam would think that it "It appeared to suck in more air than it breathed out," but eventually, it seemed to catch its breath and let out a heavy sigh. As it did this, the creature stood perfectly erect with its arms at its side and was not bent at the shoulders or the hips as one would think a creature catching its breath or coughing would.

The creature then looked away from Sam, removing eye contact, and unfurled its lips with a loud snarl; suddenly, with long steps, it swayed back and forth and began seemingly challenging the would-be fisherman. The creature, in a behavior similar to what we see in gorillas, began to posture and grunt at the man while it swung its arms, beat its chest, flexed its muscles, and bellowed loudly. Sam was seemingly not perturbed by this display as he felt that’s all this creature was doing and felt that the creature did this to show off or as a defense display to protect other similar creatures that he could not see. Sam later would say when asked about why he was not afraid in the following “I wasn’t scared at all. My instincts told me this thing wasn’t going to harm me. I’ve been hunting and fishing for years and my instincts have always told me whether an animal is dangerous or not”.  Sam did not move but watched the creature continue its screaming, thumping, and thudding, and after a few minutes, the creature stopped and continued to stare at Sam for several minutes.

Realizing that he was in no imminent danger, Sam calmly and coolly turned his back on the creature and proceeded to walk towards the driver-side door of his Maverick. As he opened the door, suddenly he noticed that the creature was directly in front of him. He did not hear the footsteps of something running or even walking, so he felt that the creature had to of done something faster than traditional locomotion. The creature looked down at Sam and using one of its incredibly long arms, it reached out and began fingering and feeling his jacket on the shoulders, elbows, and side as if it was interested in the fabric. Sam, much like one would react to a dog seemingly nipping at their pants leg simply just shook himself quickly and hopped into the car's driver seat. Sam swung the door shut, and as he did so, the creature leaned into his car as the driver's side window was down. The creature had its hand on where the window would come up and was seemingly holding down the car. Sam could feel as the creature began to lean down on the car that the vehicle's suspension system was giving under the weight of the colossal creature. As the creature looked in at Sam once again, it began to wheeze, ultimately raining foul-smelling saliva all over the man's face. Sam could smell now the creature's terrible breath which he compared to rotting seafood that was so repugnant that it, along with the impromptu shower, made him want to vomit. Sam, however, did not wipe the spittle away and instead spoke to the creature after feeling that the creature might wreck his car. “Listen Biggie, you’re going to bust my tires if you don’t stop that”. The creature seemingly did not understand, and so he slowly reached over and turned the key in his ignition. The rumbling roar of the vehicle seemed to startle the creature as it stepped back and made a shocked facial expression. As soon as the creature stepped back, Sam began to drive away, leaving the creature behind, and as he looked in his rearview mirror, he could see in the taillights that the creature was still where he had left it. As he watched, the creature raised its right arm up into the air and was seemingly waving to him as if it was saying goodbye. He then watched as the creature began to move as it leaped across a ditch and back into the woods.

Sam continued to head out of the area, and as he did so, he seemed to notice something just as peculiar as the creature he witnessed. The causeway was unusually quiet; there was little to no traffic on Route 30, which was usually quite bustling at all hours of the day and night, but during his approximately 20-minute encounter with the creature, there was not a single car that exited Route 30 and crossed over the causeway. Sam continued, however, even with this lack of vehicular companions to his home in Wilpen, and after parking his car and sitting quietly for a short time, he got out and headed straight into his home. Naomi, his wife, was still up at the time and was extremely shocked to see him back so early as she expected him to of been gone for most of the night. Sam said nothing to his wife, who only stared in surprise and proceeded to head straight for the shower. Naomi grabbed his clothes, expecting them to be covered in creek water and mud was quick to notice that the clothes were wet but also reeking of a strange and powerful odor. Sam washed up for an incredibly long time as he tried to remove all smell and saliva from his encounter with the creature and proceeded once he finished to go straight to bed. He did not tell Naomi of his encounter out of embarrassment and confusion and felt that his encounter was too strange for anyone to believe him.

A short time later, Sam had decided to write to Rick Schwab, the editor of the Ligonier Echo Newspaper, as at the time that seemed to be the only place to possibly try to find out if others had the same or similar type of experience as he did. Rick Schwab read the letter, completely amazed at what was written, and, after talking with Sam for some time, decided he was the real deal and that he needed to talk to a professional. Rick Schwab felt that the main individual to send this information to was WCUFOSG leader and researcher Stan Gordon and so managed to tell Stan all about the bizarre encounter and put him in touch with Sam. This all took place one week after the initial sighting, and Stan proceeded to drive back to the location with Sam and look for any evidence that might still be around from his encounter. The group found ultimately nothing, but the area was recently heavily flooded due to a rainstorm that occurred a few nights prior. Stan felt that Sam was a reliable witness and genuinely believed his encounter, but all the while, Sam was starting to develop an itch that would drive him till the end of his days. He became a bigfoot researcher.

On December 20^th of that same year, Dr. Paul Johnson, a chemistry professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh who was heavily involved in Bigfoot and UFO research, received a phone call at 11:20 am from Sam asking whether he wanted to hear his encounter. Johnson expecting a hoax but curious about the call, drove out to his home at Wilpen and heard Sam's encounter while Naomi made them coffee. Johnson proceeded to investigate the merit of Sam's character and learned his full history; his father immigrated to the area from Hungary in 1912 and was a coal miner and built the house he now lived in, he was the third oldest of four siblings, he fought in World War II specifically against the Japanese in the South Pacific, and it was in one of these epic battles that he was severely wounded and ended up in a coma for months. Upon awaking and after a years' time of recovery, he married Naomi and had two children. When asking Naomi about whether or not Sam had any interest in the bigfoot subject before the incident, she claimed that while Sam was an avid reader, he never read or showed any interest in Bigfoot or UFOs. It was from this that Johnson felt Sam was reliable and that he truly saw the inexplicable that night. Johnson would later work hand in hand with Sam on several bigfoot investigations then over the remaining 15 years of Sam’s life. Sam was driven after his encounter and, with his background in hunting and trapping, to find a way to capture a live specimen of the creature to prove not only that the creature did exist but that he was not lying, but he never encountered it again.

The Sam Sherry encounter is perhaps one of the most bizarre ostensibly Bigfoot accounts on the books. Everything about the encounter is bizarre; from the overall appearance of the creature to its behavior to the possible supernatural implications of the creature, it's simply incredibly surreal. Unlike other accounts, there's not much that could be mistaken for this creature, and even a hoax is unlikely; however, it is important to note that Dr. Johnson did notice that when Sam was telling his encounter to other researchers and chroniclers, he did quite often embellish on the story, but he was firm that the main points were constant. With that said, there is the chance he made some of the behavior or his reactions to the creature up but the fact that he spent the remainder of his life searching for a creature that for 66 years he never even cared about seems to prove that he saw something near Loyalhanna Creek.

When breaking down this case, there's plenty of avenues to look at, but I think the best one, to begin with, is the creature itself. The creature has many features of the typical Bigfoot, from the long dangling arms to the thick body and egg-shaped head; however, the creature's lack of some features of a typical bigfoot which at a glance make it look almost like Rick from Netflix's Big Mouth. To me, this is indicative of three possibilities, the first being that this is simply an example of a sasquatch with mange. We know in the animal kingdom that many species can, unfortunately, succumb to the disease, but since we don't have a sasquatch in captivity or any biological samples which can confirm or deny this possibility, we are left with just speculation. However, the creature's behavior does seem to indicate that this might be the most probable possibility.

The second possibility is that this might simply be an old sasquatch. We currently do not know how old Bigfoot can get or if, like humans, they have effects to aging, such as hair and tooth loss. There have been some reports of silver back Bigfoot, which many feel is associated with older sasquatch as well as reports of white-haired Bigfoot, which could also be connected to old age but perhaps much like people, this is not exactly universal and that some would have an equivalent to male and female pattern baldness with maturity.

The third possibility is that this creature is not a bigfoot. While this creature bears many features similar to the typical sasquatch, many things about it seem incredibly wrong, so perhaps this is an example of an entirely different kind of hominid cryptid. I feel that there may be something to this even though it is unlikely, but looking at all the various kinds of hairy hominids reported in the united states alone, from the Honey Island Swamp Monster to the Skunk Apes to Momo to the classic Pacific Northwest type there seems to either be multiple species, subspecies, or at least incredible geographic variation of the sasquatch species.

Now while there's plenty of biological aspects to look at when it comes to this creature, there's one feature in particular that some researchers feel might be indicative of a supernatural origin to the creature. Sam would notice on several occurrences that this creature seemed to either move at incredible speeds without making a sound or that it could simply teleport or materialize in a matter of seconds. This is something that has been surprisingly described before, even though these accounts are exceptionally rare, and some feel that this creature could be from either another dimension or a supernatural shaman of sorts, as some Native American tribes indicate. Now this creature's behavior seems to indicate something more primate-like than what we would associate with a highly intelligent dimension shifting entity or supernatural nature spirit, which seems to make this unlikely. From a biological perspective, these creatures would have to be masters of their environment to of remained hidden for so long, and so in this time, they could easily be able to seem almost supernatural when in reality, they simply know the best ways to get from point A to point B. Now alternatively, if this creature was simply shifting through dimensions by some cosmic force, there's a chance it's completely random and that the creature has no real control over it, but if it did indeed pop up by the car on its own accord as the report seems to be the case that almost has to imply some control of this force.

This is one of perhaps the most bizarre Bigfoot encounters ever. Cases where the creature seemingly disappears or turns into a ball of light or even is seen in conjunction with UFOs just don't compare. The fact that the creature is so incredibly bizarre in appearance and behavior, as well as the potential teleporting, just seems to add layer and layer of absurdity and, in some ways, absolute disgust that is mind-boggling. The only case that might be even more bizarre is the Uniontown UFO-Bigfoot case because that had a spectral scythe wielder, bulletproof Bigfoot, a shape-changing and disappearing UFO, men in black and psychic bird control, and that's on a whole other level and ventures onto Mothman flap and Jersey Devil flap high strangeness. With that said, there's no clear answer as nobody since has encountered a creature anywhere near as close to what Sam encountered, be it Bigfoot or otherwise, and Sam now is hopefully at rest even though he never bagged his quarry and so we are left scratching our heads in the same way as the creature that is until another one is reported.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal most likely a Hominid

Location: Loyalhanna Creek, Sleepy Hollow, Latrobe and Ligonier, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: May 17, 1988

Works Cited

Astonishing Encounters: Pennsylvania’s Unknown Creatures- Casebook Three by Stan Gordon

Chasing the Elusive Pennsylvania Bigfoot: A Cryptid from Another Reality By Paul G. Johnson

Monsters of Pennsylvania: Mysterious Creatures of the Keystone State by Patty A. Wilson

Strange Pennsylvania Monsters By Michael Newton

Invasion on Chestnut Ridge. Small Town Monsters. 2017.