Media Article – Macoupin County, Illinois # 1
Tuesday, April 9, 1991
Sounds of bumps in night at Staunton Lake
Alton Telegraph
by Mary Brase, Telegraph staff writer
MACOUPIN COUNTY – A foul smelling creature, that witnesses said may have been Bigfoot, apparently slipped away from Staunton Reservoir without a trace.
Cheryl Kampmann and Eric Schlechte reported hearing what may have been a large creature running up a hill on the south side of the lake about 1:30 a.m. Monday.
“We were sitting out near the beach when we heard the shuffle of leaves and three loud thumps,” Schlechte said.
It sounded like the creature was pulling up trees causing a lot of damage, the two said.
Schlechte said there was a “terrible rotten fish smell mixed with the odor of algae when the pond turns over.
“It’s hard to describe, but it’s pretty potent.”
Later Monday morning, as deputies with flashlights combed the area, Kampmann said she heard a growl and a roar from across the lake.
“At first I thought someone was fooling with a public address system, but the sound wasn’t near the cars, and the car doors were not open”
Schlechte added “It sounded like a cross between a lion and a grizzly, and lasted  three or four seconds.”
The Telegraph – John Badman
Eric Schlechte and his girlfriend, Cherly Kampmann, both 21, sit on a pier at Staunton Reservoir; where they say they heard something moving through the tree line early Monday morning.
Schlechte and his girlfriend, both 21, come to the lake often, usually during the daytime to catch crappie and bass. They said they have never encountered anything like Monday morning’s episode.
Neither have police and sheriff’s deputies, who found no evidence of a foul odor or even one footprint, authorities said.
“We didn’t really see anything because it was so dark and cloudy, but we heard it on the side of the hill. We first thought someone, was goofing off,” Schlechte said.
“Police advised us to clear out and we did. ” he said, but the two can’t help believing there may be something to the Bigfoot legend.
“It could be,” Schlechte said, looking across the water to the curve of inlets surrounded by trees.
“Well, if you find him, let me know,” Staunton Police Chief Larry Grabruck said, “But calm him down first.”
Macoupin County authorities said the spring sighting may be related to a recent Bigfoot documentary on television.
“I think my kid was watching the movie on cable last week, ” Grabruck added.
The Sniffer, Pt. 3, Cattle
As I have mentioned in earlier posts when ever I leave recording gear unattended in the woods it always gets inspected by forest creatures. And usually those animals are small, such as raccoons, possums or mice. Once in awhile the inspector might be a White-tailed Deer such as happened on the 4th of May 2011. And sometimes I am left to just wonder what or who the visitor was. This happened on the 30th of March, 2011.
Recently I have been recording full-time at an area close to my home that I refer to as the Groves. It was originally pasture land but now the trees and brush are gradually taking it back over. There are quite a few cows and one bull in this pasture. It is close to a country home where the resident no longer lives but comes out and feeds and waters his 10 dogs a couple of times a week.
Belle and a nameless Black Angus bull sizing each other up in New Mexico in 2005.
My interest lies in the fact that the dogs go wild barking at certain times. I am suspicious that something is coming in from the woods, irritating the dogs and then leaving. My goal is to record these other animals. I have recorded what sounds like yells, whistles and last October I recorded what appears to be whispering.
On the 17th of this month I recorded a 45 minute segment of something that was very close to my recorder and microphones. All the sounds and movement appears to be of a cow. But it is still interesting to have the recording to compare against other unseen animals.
This log is about 20 feet log and 3 feet high. I placed my recorder on the other side in between the two adjoining logs assuming the cows could not get into that area.
The short version of the sounds can be listened to here: Â Short Version
And the longer (45 minute full segment) can be listened to here: Full Version
Mississippi River Project – Presentation
I am going to be a guest speaker at the:
Grant River Campground in Potosi, WIÂ Â this coming Saturday, Â May 28th, 2011 and
Blanding Landing Campground in Hanover, IL Â Sunday, May 29th, 2011.
This Saturday
May 28th, 2011
8:30 p.m.
Grant River Campground
Public Invited
3990 Park Lane
Potosi, WI 53820
42.65127, -90.69988
——————————————————————————————————-
This Sunday
May 29th, 2011
8:30 p.m.
Blanding Landing Campground
Public Invited
5720 South River Road
Hanover, IL 61041
42.28583, -90.40333
Guest on WDLJ – 97.5 The Rock
This coming Thursday morning (07:30 a.m.) , the 26th of May, 2011,  I am going to be a guest on  Moose in The Morning at WDLJ – 97.5 which broadcasts locally from Breese, Illinois. You can also access the show live through their internet website at 97.5 The Rock – Your Southern Illinois Rock Station.
Hopefully one of the local witnesses will also be available for comment. Clinton County is the area where I recently spent time researching the “Screaming Hairy Lady.”
To listen to the archived version please click on image below:
Moose in The Morning, 26th of May 2011
Who’s Throwing Things In My Woods
We have lived in our new home for two years. It was chosen on purpose for being “in the woods”. It is situated on a point between two lakes. It is in a mature oak forest and the amount of birdlife, amphibians and mammals is prodigious. It is a short drive from where I have been involved with my research for the last six years.
I have heard the “Ohio Moan Howl” and human-sounding calls from this location and recorded many distant howls and whistles. Â There have been several times when we thought perhaps we were not alone but nothing definitive.
Yesterday afternoon my wife and I planted some hosta in our backyard overlooking the lake. Our property is on the lake, although the slope to the shore is much too steep for the casual walker. Â While digging holes for the plants I stopped to knock off a few branches of a dying pine tree in our yard. Some of the branches I broke off with my hands, some of them I broke with a small shovel.
The pine tree I was knocking dead branches from.
I didn’t think anything about it until about 5 minutes later we heard what appeared to be a rock being thrown with force against a metal object. Others may think it is wood, I am not sure, but I do know it was purposeful. Â The sound came from across the cove probably about 70 yards away. I was fortunate to have my Telinga parabolic pointed that direction and my recorder to be on at the time.
This is a picture through the trees in our backyard showing the area  across the cove where the rock throwing sound came from.
Click here to listen to sound clip: Â Rock Throwing 1
Waveform View
Spectral View
Red Wolf Finally Captured
One afternoon in May of 1994 I received a call from a neighbor who was looking for people with ATV’s to help roundup a red wolf that had escaped from a local zoo. My son Evan and I took off on our 4-wheeler and went to our neighbors. The red wolf had been spotted close by and after twenty minutes it was shot with a tranquilizer gun. The medication failed and she seemed to run even faster. Eventually we got close to her and a neighbor bailed off his ATV and pinned her to the ground with his body. I took my belt and tied her legs together. We then waited for the zoo officials to get to the scene.
The following is the local newspapers take on the events.
May 15, 1994
Author: John O’Connor, Staff writer
State Journal-Register, The (Springfield, IL)
Swashbuckling volunteers cruising open fields in all-terrain vehicles popped off two tranquilizer darts Saturday to finally snag Scarlett, the Henson Robinson Zoo’s red wolf who has been on the loose since Monday.
Zoo officials and federal experts knocked the pregnant wolf down at 7:45 p.m. in a field near Lake Sanchrist, southeast of Springfield.
In the end, zoo director Mike Janis believes Scarlett wanted to come home.
“It was probably a rush to be free, but it was probably terrifying,” Janis said. “It had to be terrifying to be out there, exposed to cars and dogs and unfamiliar territory. I think she’s going to be very relieved, if that’s the right word, to be back” at the zoo.
At a holding pen at the zoo, Scarlett will be watched for 10 days to ensure she didn’t pick up parasites or hurt herself in any other way, Janis said.
“We want to cool her down a few days,” he said. “She’s been out theredoing work she isn’t used to and she needs a couple of days to settle down some.”
Scarlett, expected to give birth by week’s end, didn’t appear sick or injured. She was so healthy even two tranquilizer darts didn’t completely fell her.
Janis and zoo staff members learned Scarlett was in a resident’s yard at 5 p.m., eyeing guinea and peal fowl there. They arrived on the scene and followed the wolf for about an hour as they readied humane traps and tried to get close enough for a shot.
Unlike previous nights on her trail, she didn’t escape into any forested areas. Officials ringed her in two farmers’ fields.
“We had three all-terrain vehicles out there,” Janis said. “She broke, and we took off after here. Talon Thornton, the assistant zoo director, got the first dart into her, but she still ran a ways before we got the second shot into her.
“She never did go competely down,” he said. But the trackers threw a net over her, covered her face with a shirt and Thornton sacrificed his belt to hold her jaws while she was transferred to a mobile kennel.
Scarlett, who escaped briefly from previous homes — zoos in Victoria, Texas and Knoxville, Tenn. — will be separated from her mate, Blizter, for more than a week while she’s observed. Officials will test her waste material for parasites and await results of a blood test taken Saturday night.
They will watch for fever, that’s she’s drinking enough water and eating enough. Her diet for a week likely has been road kill.
“She’s an amazing animal and a real adversary,” Janis said. “She gave us all she was worth and we gave her all we were worth.”
Janis continued to praise the many people who called in with tips and sightings.
“I can’t thank the public enough,” Janis said. “It is unlikely just our group would have been able to find her without the calls from the public.”
Red wolf experts from the Tacoma, Wash. zoo and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, flown in to help find Scarlett, will leave town today, Janis said.
Copyright (c) 1994 The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)