Report Received From: The GCBRO Online Report Submission Form.
 
Report Posted To GCBRO Web Site On:   April 1, 2008

DATE:    August 20, 1978 
 

TIME:     N/A 
 

LOCATION:   Minnehaha, South Dakota 
 

TERRAIN:    Picnic area surrounded on three sides by woods 
 

OBSERVED:    I was with a group of about 6 friends.  We were having a picnic in a small roofed pavilion right next to the woods.  There was a very dense group of bushes about 10 feet away.  We were playing music and eating.  There were probably a dozen other people in different groups around us, playing frisbee and eating.  It was a beautiful day.  Suddenly a bunch of birds flew from the bushes in a huge rush.  It was so startling, we all stopped what we were doing.  Then we heard a couple loud "thumps" like footsteps that seemed to make the ground shake like we were on a wooden floor instead of the ground.  Immediately after the thump we heard a very deep loud growl, almost like a sigh, but deeper than anything human could ever make.  It sounded like it was only a few feet away.  Nobody even said anything.  We all simultaneously dropped everything and ran to the parking lot about 100 feet away.  And we weren't alone.  Almost everyone else ran, too.  After about five minutes, we laughed and decided to get our things - but it took nerve to go back to the pavilion, and we did it very quickly, all the time feeling like we were being watched.

This area is off a narrow gravel road lined by trees.  The road is also called "Spook Road" because there have been sightings of odd phenomena around there for generations.  A friend of mine (now deceased) was a park ranger during his college internship back in the late 70s.  He lived in the ranger house, and said he often heard strange sounds at night, and smelled terrible smells.  One night, he said he saw some figures walking across the meadow in the moonlight.  They looked like they were wearing pointy hats, and they were huge.  The small creek that runs through the park, connects to the Sioux River, which has very dense woodland all along it. 
 

Activities of Witness:   Throwing frisbee, picnicking, eating, drinking beer.
 

Description of Creature:  Didn't see it.  Whatever it was gave a very deep inhuman growl.  Kind of like a long breathy grunt.
 

Other Notes:    The area has a reputation for strange things happening. 
 

Other (Informational or Encounter History in the General Area) Notes:    There were many UFO sightings in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota in the late 70s for some reason.  I've lived in Houston 20 years and have recently moved back to SD, so I don't know what else has been going on. 
 

Additional Notes and or Follow up Comments:  I've been out to that place occasionally by myself since moving home.  I park in the parking lot, but can't make myself walk in the woods.  It always feels too creepy, and I always feel watched.  Also, about the same time in the late 70s, a girlfriend and I were walking in those woods and smelled something just awful - like a dead body with ammonia.  I've been near a two day old dead body and know what it smells like.