Saturday, July 11, 2009

My Sighting Reports




Henry Benton May IV (b. March 26, 1970, in Jacksonville, Florida) is a Sasquatch Researcher and Internet Radio Show Co-host. He has had 2 sightings of Sasquatch-type creatures, and believes in a strict no-kill policy when it comes to the creatures.
Early Life
Henry was born to parents Henry Benton May III and Deborah Burns May on March 26, 1970, at NAS Jacksonville Naval Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. He and his family moved to the Memphis, Tennessee area in 1971, and he went to various schools there in the area.
Introduction to a legend
In the Spring of 1976, Henry watched an episode of the popular TV series The Six Million Dollar Man starring Lee Majors as Steve Austin. He normally watched the show every week and really loved it, but this episode was different, for it introduced Henry to a legend-the Sasquatch. The "Bionic Bigfoot" was played by professional wrestler Andre the Giant and made quite an impression on Henry, then 6. He also saw his father with a book titled Bigfoot: The Mysterious Monster which also piqued his interest. Later that year, he saw the classic Leonard Nimoy series In Search Of... investigate Sasquatch on one episode.That clinched it for Henry, and he became deeply interested in the subject from then on. Seeing the documentary based on his father's book on TV a year later at his grandmother's house only reinforced his interest. That was also where he saw the Patterson Movie.
Initial interest and investigation
Henry searched the wooded areas around his apartment complex in Bartlett, Tennessee for any sign of the legendary creature, but found nothing. He and his family lived in Millington after that, before moving to Bensalem, Pennsylvania in the Summer of 1979 due to his father being in the Navy. He began checking out books from the school library on Sasquatch, but cannot remember exactly which book he had read first. In the late-Spring of 1980, he found a book that really piqued his interest, from an author who would influence the way Henry did things in the Sasquatch field. The author was John Green; the book was the classic Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us. By this time, Henry and his family had moved from Bensalem to Warminster, PA, a northern suburb of Philadelphia. He investigated the wooded areas in and around the subdivision he and his family lived in for signs of Sasquatch, but again came up short. This would change after a move back down South.
Move to Georgia and first possible encounters
After moving to Woodstock, Georgia in the Summer of 1982, to an area close to the edge of the foothills of the North Georgia Mountains (also the Southern end of the Appalachians), Henry began once again his research into Sasquatch. The area he lived in was heavily wooded and mountainous, and there is a history in Cherokee County of sightings, though he did not know that at the time. After hearing strange screams one night in March 1983, he knew he had struck paydirt. He attributed the strange vocalization to Sasquatch, and investigated every day after school and on weekends. In May of '83, he was told by a neighborhood teen that there were Sasquatch creatures near his home at the base of an enormous hill at the northern end of the subdivision. He went to this young man's house and followed him up the hill to a fence. They looked down into a pasture and saw something which appeared to be bipedal foraging for something behind a truck. After about five minutes, the thing stood up with its back to the two young men, as if it sensed a presence in the area. Henry went home believing he'd seen his quarry, but was told the next morning that it was a hoax, a person in a gorilla suit. Henry concedes now that this may have been the case, but kept searching all through that Summer and Fall, taking a break in the Winter. He read in the late-Summer of '83 The Bigfoot Casebook by Janet and Colin Bord and was fascinated, especially by the cases from Georgia and Mississippi, where his grandparents lived.
Final Georgia sighting and move to the Magnolia State
In late-January 1984, Henry had an idea: he went out to his elevated patio at around 9:30 P.M. EST and started vocalizing a whistling call. He didn't expect a response, but did it anyway just to test a theory. To his surprise, five minutes later, he received a response. He continued a back-and-forth whistling rapport for five more minutes until he saw a shadowy figure swaying back and forth at the bottom of the hill his house sat atop of. The figure came into the light, and it was a large Sasquatch, standing about 7 1/2-8 feet tall, with a strangely humanlike and gorillalike face. Large black eyes, a slit for a mouth and a flat nose with large nostrils. He watched it for a couple of minutes, then went inside, having had his definitive encounter, but not his last. He, his mother and sister moved to Boyle, Mississippi a week later after his parents divorced. For three years, Henry saw and heard nothing, and did not expect to. In late-December 1987, he was outside at around midnight when he saw what appeared to be a large individual walking from left to right about 50 feet from him, which appeared at first to be a large man wearing an overcoat, but looked bulkier than that, and the weather was unseasonably warm that night. Whether it was a Sasquatch or not Henry cannot say. 18 months later, Henry saw an individual walking across a rice field close to his home which appeared to be a large brown and hair-covered creature, but might have been a farmer or something dressed in brown. Three years later, he found some tracks in that same field, 3 days after his sister swears she saw a large Sasquatch near their home. The tracks were 5-toed, the size of a 10-year-old child's, but they were in a straight line, almost like a tightrope, not scattered about. These he believed were Sasquatch tracks, possibly a young one. He continued his research, watching every documentary he could, reading every book he could. In February '96, he found two tracks with three toes and on hard-packed ice and snow. He and his family also heard a strange vocalization late one night. Then, two years later, His second encounter came. He was driving north from Greenville, Mississippi, on January 13th, at around 1:15 A.M., when he saw, about 3 miles south of Shaw, an individual cross the road from left to right. When he reached the point to where it crossed the road, he saw a large-dirty-white creature with short hair standing in a ditch. He saw a massive bicep on the right arm as well as rippling muscles in the back, but it never looked at him, so he never saw the face. The sighting lasted a total of 15 seconds.

Continuing Research
For 5 years, Henry did more research, including on the Internet, until he found the Bigfoot Forums in late-2003 and began posting there. He met several individuals as a result, and through his contacts, was able to meet Sean Forker and establish the American Bigfoot Society in early-2006. In late-2006, he and Sean began the Internet radio program
The Sasquatch Experience. He owns over 80 books on Sasquatch and strange phenomena, as well as about 80 DVD's on related subjects. He has several Audio files and CD's. He also has several autographs of individuals in the field, as well as two footprint casts, one bought off ebay and the other given to him by his good friend M.K. Davis.

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