Bigfoot makes appearance in Levittown

by J.D. Mullane

Stuart Caesar likes to hunt in the wilderness of upstate Pennsylvania.

And over the years, he's heard Native American legends of Bigfoot, the creature that roams the woods rustling sheep and deer, and sometime letting loose terrifying screams.

These sightings occur in remote places like Towanda and Wyalusing and Tioga.

But Caesar believes he has evidence that Bigfoot is stalking Levittown.

He snapped pictures to show doubters.

He says he's a Bigfoot skeptic. Still, he won't dismiss the creature's existence completely, mainly because of his eerie experiences while hunting.

In the hinterlands of Wyalusing and Towanda, he says he's seen and heard things that can't easily be explained.

He and fellow hunters have had rocks hurled at them by unseen hands (or paws).

He's heard screams in the night, too.

"Deer and elk make a bellowing noise. I know what that sounds like. But this is a scream. It's definitely not an animal. If it is human, what is someone doing in the middle of a mountain, screaming?

"I'll see stick stackings against trees. I'll see branches broken off eight or nine feet in the air, cleanly snapped. I've always wondered what is causing this. These are very isolated areas. You're on top of a mountain. You're in 'Deliverance' country."

Bigfoot, the shy, hairy giant of the woods, known to some as Sasquatch, has fascinated Caesar, 42, since he was a kid.

But by the mid-1980s, after never seeing one himself, or seeing evidence that would allay doubt, he decided Bigfoot was fake.

"If it was real, we would have it by now," he said.

However, a few years ago he heard about the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society, which is based in Jeannette, southeast of Pittsburgh.

He was surprised to hear that the creature had been spotted frequently throughout western Pennsylvania in recent years.

"When I was kid, that was unheard of. You never heard of Bigfoot in Pennsylvania," Caesar said.

As a hunter, it makes sense, though, he said.

Animals that were rarely spotted in Pennsylvania a few years ago, like cougars and mountain lions, are seen more frequently now.

"It's a change in weather patterns that's causing these animals to search for food. I figure it's the same with Bigfoot."

He doesn't expect to convince hard-core non-believers. However, he points out that Indian tribes native to Pennsylvania have remarkably similar legends about a great mysterious beast that lurks in the state's vast and largely unpopulated forests.

"Indians believed in Bigfoot. They considered him a spirit of the forest. They considered him to be a spiritual creature, and many Indian tribes still hold true to the story. They would leave him food and he would give them firewood in return, stacking it against trees," he said.

According to legend, Bigfoot is intelligent, on a parallel with humans. But what accounts for Bigfoot's terminal shyness?

"If it is intelligent, this makes perfect sense," Caesar said. "Eight, 9 feet tall, covered with hair. Man's reaction even to humans with different skin colors causes people to act with fear and suspicion.

"Now imagine an intelligent creature, which is larger than us and stronger than us, and lives in the woods and off nature. The obvious reaction from the general public would not be good.

"Confirmation of this creature's existence would cause a lot of Beavis and Butthead types to search for it and kill it. People tend to react in panic to things they don't understand," he said.

Which brings us to Caesar's photos, which he snapped in December behind a shuttered Halloween supply store on New Falls Road near Levittown's Magnolia Hill section.

Caesar said his girlfriend discovered large Bigfoot-like tracks while showing her daughter a sledding hill she played on as a kid.

Caesar got his camera and followed the tracks through a fence topped with barbed wire and down to a small creek, where they vanished.

"There were toe markings ... the tracks were smooth, indicating a heel and ball of a foot," he said.

The footprints were 16 inches wide.

And why would Bigfoot come to Levittown?

"Why would a deer be in Levittown? Why would a bear be in Levittown?" he asked. "If you live in a location where deer and bear can appear, it's food migration."

I like legends, and mysteries, especially when well told.

But if you ask me, after examining some of the photos, it looks like Bigfoot was wearing L.L. Bean snow boots as he rooted for grub.

From: Bucks County Courier Times, 2 March 2004.