Near the end of summer I stopped at Krekel’s Custard & Hamburgers, the local hamburger joint, near our home in Pawnee, Illinois. As I was waiting for my order an officer from the IDNR, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, came in and placed an order also.

I briefly thought to myself whether I should keep my mouth shut or whether “just for fun” I should engage him in a conversation. I decided to charge ahead.

Here is our conversation –

Stan,  “Sir, I have a recording on my cellphone, would you mind listening to my ringtone and telling me what the sound is?”

The officer was very polite and responded , ” Sure, I would like to here it.”

I went through the four or five tabs required to play back my recording of the Illinois Howl.

The officer listened intently and then I asked, “What do you think is making that sound?”

He responded “Sounds like a bigfoot to me.”

I was very surprised and said “Really, why do you say that?’

He said “Oh, I listen to the documentaries on TV.”  He then said “Where did you get that?”

I said “I recorded it from my backyard north of town.”

He said “Really, north of town? What town?”

I came back with “I live north of town, along Horse Creek.”

He said “What town?”

I said “This town, Pawnee.”  I was starting to get confused.

He said “You mean north of Springfield, right?”

I restated “No Sir, I live here and I recorded that about a mile north of our location.”

The office didn’t say anything, he just stood there looking at me, thinking.

Then he exclaimed, “I’ll be damned!” and walked out the door and got in his vehicle and left.

I remember reading an article from the Peoria Star Journal dated Wednesday, February 15, 2006.

Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokesman Chris McCloud said there has never been a public demand to check possible sightings of a Bigfoot.

The IDNR deals with animals native to Illinois, and Bigfoot is not one of them, he said.

Now I don’t expect the IDNR to publicly acknowledge the existence of sasquatch in Illinois but I do find it interesting to talk with them.  We have also sold our home in Pawnee where we lived along that small creek for 23 years.  I wanted to move to a location where I could do my research that had more woods, more birds and yes, even more animals.