Long Island Bigfoot Report #6

**This is a guest post by researcher, Karl Sup. For more of the prior installments about the Long Island Sasquatch, please see these links - 

Long Island Bigfoot 1
Long Island Bigfoot 2
Long Island Bigfoot 3
Long Island Bigfoot 4
Long Island Bigfoot 5

Installment below - 

Long Island Bigfoot #6 

Central Long Island, New York (City Withheld), November 2015-March 2016

After a travel break to this area in November and December, I returned to New York in January 2016 to find Long Island in the grips of winter and some record snowfall with some drifts and plow piles almost 20 feet high. 

The days were short, and work hours were long so I wasn’t able to get into the woods. 

I did spend this time doing additional research on the area. A history of "spooky" events have been recorded through the decades and centuries. Oral and written histories record encounters of hairy, red-eyed monsters; loud moans, cries and shrieks in the night here, and an infrequent, putrid stench that is encountered that is attributed to demons residing in these woods. These stories, or variations of them, date all the way back into the late 1600’s.

During these winter months, these areas are not frequented by people very much. The trails are either covered with deep snow, or snow melt and rains turning them into a quagmire of mud. 

I did spend some evenings up in the Setauket, NY area doing additional research, but also paying homage to some of the greatest unsung heroes of the Revolutionary War; George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring. 

The village green of Setauket is still very intact, along with the original 1729 Anglican and rebuilt 1812 Presbyterian churches and graveyards that bore intense witness to the infancy of America. Names like Abraham Woodhull, Anna ‘Nancy’ Strong, Caleb Brewster and Benjamin Tallmadge are honored throughout this sleepy village. Without risking their lives to gather intelligence, Washington would have never crossed the Delaware for a surprise attack to defeat the Hessians, and would have been blindsided by the defection of Benedict Arnold. 

Without the vital information collected by these spies, the war would likely have been lost. I had submitted a paper on the Culper Spy Ring long ago in high school, and walking the same paths that these sons and daughters of liberty traversed was like traveling back in time.

Wednesday, March 9th finally brought a mild and longer day, and I was able to get back into the woods to continue some research directly after work. 

I arrived just before sunset and headed into the preserve on the gravel and dirt trails. Not many people had been on the trail in the past days; 2 horses, a man and a woman. Their tracks finally veered off onto other trails, and I found myself leaving virgin tracks down the trail toward the area where I had encountered the putrid stench last fall. 

At the intersection of the trail was a purposeful marker consisting of an 8 foot long stick, placed against the tree. Where the base of the stick contacted the ground was a 15 inch long print by 5.5 inches wide in the forest litter.

I logged it in my journal, noted the GPS coordinates, and continued hiking down the trail.

About 200 feet away, I found a small but notable disturbance in the trail. A 3” diameter rock had been freshly dislodged from its resting place in the trail bed, and neighboring rocks had been firmly pressed down into the substrate. 

When I attempted to replicate depressing rocks into the trail bed at this location, I could barely sink them a quarter inch. These were pressed in a full inch.

Thirty feet further down the trail, I found two fresh, sizeable prints that were, once again, about 15-16 inches each that dwarfed my size 14 feet. I assumed it was likely to be the same individual that left the stick near the trail split. The typical Long Island glacial gravel was depressed into the substrate, however there were no distinguishable features in these prints.

The prints bisected the trail at a 45 degree angle from the woods onto the trail. I would estimate that they were not older than two days. The prints were appositionally staggered and nearly placed in a heel to toe arrangement. Closer examination of these two prints showed that tremendous weight bore down on the trail that caused the rocks to depress into the dirt and display multiple stress fractures of the packed trail composite along the edge of the imprint. My attempts to create a similar effect, even when jumping, could not recreate this morphology.

Now being encouraged and on high alert, I continued down the trail quietly past the quarry area and took the higher portion of the trail around the excavation, rather than hiking up the exposed, steep and loose incline of the gravel quarry sides. 

I walked down this trail past the area where the stench was observed and a rock thrown in my direction last fall. 

This time however, I didn’t encounter any unusual smells or evidence in that area so I double-backed up the hill to where this trail split. Further down the other direction of the trail split is where I had also found the 9-step track way in the forest litter on a steep downhill incline. 

I didn’t need to walk very far this time before I stopped dead in my very own tracks. There, in the substrate at the edge of the trail was another footprint; with toes!

There was additional evidence of disruption and digging in the forest litter nearby. It appeared that there was also a set of knuckle prints in the center of the footprint. The knuckle print was obviously fresh. 

In the enlargement of the knuckle print, it was my opinion that the #1 depression was the tip of the thumb; indicating a right hand made that print. Each knuckle impression was 1” in length. I was beyond excited! Here was the proof that could really put a physical definition to the months of research.

It was getting dark, I was a half mile from the rental car and I was still in my dress clothes. I was also lacking casting material. I took these initial photos, then headed back out of the woods to search of casting material.

At the nearby Michaels, I was told they were out of casting material, but a recommended trip to Walmart turned up only craft modeling clays. I was later told that in New York, Plaster of Paris was regulated as it could be a breathing hazard to young children. 

Dejected and walking through misty rain in the parking lot, I found an empty cardboard box. I reasoned that if I could cover the print(s) with the box and secure it from the elements, I could bring some casting material (Ultracal 30) on the next flight from Arizona.

I woke up early on that Thursday, packed my bags and stopped by the woods for a quick hike a deployment of the box over the footprint and knuckle print. I took some additional daytime photos of the prints before covering them. There was a forecasted snow fall for the coming weekend, and securing it would be an imperative. After I situated the ‘weather shield’ box into position, I carried over a large branch to weigh it down to insure wind would not displace it.

Once I analyzed the daytime photos of these prints, I noticed that the knuckled prints were NOT IDENTICAL to the prints I took photographs of the prior evening. Apparently between 7pm Wednesday and 8am Thursday, another knuckle print was impressed into the same area on the ground inside the footprint. 

After making this discovery, I made further analysis to determine what the attraction was to that specific location. Nearby, there was medium-sized oak tree. Based on the forest litter disturbance around that area, I believe acorns were being collected as a food source. Crouched and moving from one location to another required its knuckles to contact the ground to balance its body. As you can see in the photo, the small rock that was near the #3 knuckle tip the night before is one inch from the division between the #2 and #3 impressions.

Traveling for work and packing for squatching can sometimes be a challenge. Once on a trip to Minneapolis I had placed my night vision scope in my carry-on. TSA flagged the bag for further inspection to take a closer look at it. The agent asked what it was, and if I could turn it on. It was daytime at the airport when I powered it up for him, and I cautioned that he really didn’t want to look through it. He sternly cautioned me that I didn’t need to tell him how to perform his inspections and that I should stand back. He looked through the scope toward the floor, then rotated his body to look out the window. His body jolted as if he had been electrocuted and with lips pursed, shoved the night vision back into its case and back in my bag without saying another word to me.

This time, after a few TSA suspicious eyebrows were raised at my gallon Ziploc bag of Ultracal 30, I returned on a chilly March 22nd to discover the box and branch had been removed from the print. 

The box had been flung down into the quarry area and flattened. The branch had been thrown 15 feet away from the print site. I had brought my tape measure this time. Even though the print details were eroded, the depth of the edge of the print was a phenomenal 2 inches! The weight must have been tremendous. I could hardly dent the ground 0.5 inches.

The overall print was approximately 14 inches. The width across the ball of the foot was 5.5 inches (notice the deer print now near the heel of the print remnants). Some boring insects had been digging into the wall of the print as well. I was very disappointed that the print had degraded to this point, and decided not to attempt to cast what was left of it.

I left the quarry area and decided to hike down an unfrequented, forest littered trail to research further into the forest preserve. 

The trail wound through thick but bare vegetation where it intersected with another path that looked less-traveled as well. 

Near this intersection, there was an old free-standing tree break that was broken at 61” off the ground. There was no apparent tree fall in the area to explain the break. 

Another 160 feet away, there was another break in a thick vine that was growing at the base of a large oak tree. This break/twist was within 30 feet of the other trail, and easily visible from there. This vine was thick and approximately 2-1/4 inches in diameter. It had been taken from its natural vertical position, broken and twisted and laid on the ground. It pointed to the nearby trail, but I made the assumption that it was pointing well beyond the trail. I took a sip of water, noted the heading on my compass (NW) and headed off-trail through the thickets.

I bushwhacked about 500 feet into the woods and came across a remarkable area. There were multiple tree breaks in a semi-circle. These four trees were broken between 10 and 12 feet from the ground. The break on the two trees to the south pointed to the southwest. The two tree breaks to the north pointed to the northwest (see diagram below). 

Near the radius of the semi-circle of trees was an apparent bedding area that had been formed from tree/branch falls and carried to that location.

There were also numerous prints in the forest litter in the area within the inner circle. In the diagram, the dotted line represents my path into the area on the heading taken from the twisted vine. The bedding area was nestled in between trees near the center. 

Two enormous branches had been carried and placed into this position. I estimated the branches to weigh between 300-350 pounds each. I could not lift them. 



At the center where the tangled branches met, there were numerous dried out ferns, brush and leaves piled into the area shielded by the branches. There was also evidence that ferns had once been used on top of the canopy of the branches as well. 

About 50 feet away, just outside of the semi-circle was a trash pile. It was very similar to the trash piles that were found at the original investigation site (Site A). The overwhelming majority of items in the pile were plastic containers once again, and not food wrappers. I still strongly believe that they are used to refill and transport water from nearby sprinkler systems at houses and public areas.

I spent extra time measuring the trees and sketching out the overall layout of the area. I also rummaged around in the trash pile to see if there was anything in the pile as remarkable as the large, finger-bent aluminum Redimark found in 2015. There sadly wasn’t.

I left that area and headed south and met up with another trail. I hiked east along this trail for a few hundred feet until I came across an unusual ‘trash cairn’ that had obviously been constructed by hands, whether human or otherwise. The cairn was constructed like a layer cake on an old cut-down tree stump, with an old tire wedged onto the stump, a rusted out galvanized trash can upside down on it with a long fence post skewering the entire cairn and into the hollow of the rotting stump. The remains of it were interesting to note that it was near a path that led down toward a drainage viaduct that went under the nearby highway; connecting the southern woods to the northern section.

This was the last trip I was able to take into this area in March, but I was anxious to see what spring would bring!

Karl Sup is a software architect, developer and analyst, and an avid Bigfoot researcher working in the mountains of Arizona for many years. During this research and in other states including New York, Maryland, Iowa, Missouri, Georgia and Wisconsin, he has been fortunate enough to interact with and view multiple subjects over the years. Karl also has had decades of audio analysis and editing experience, and assisted in helping M.K. Davis clean up and enhance audio from VHS tapes he had been studying and discovered the presence of infrasound within those recordings.