A Driver Brakes for ‘This Thing’ Near Pachaug State Forest

What happened

A Rhode Island man was driving home to Westerly in the small hours of Sunday 5 July 2026, after visiting a friend who had rented a cabin on Beach Pond in Voluntown, Connecticut. He wrote that he was doing “between 15mph – 20mph” with one eye on his phone’s map when “something jump[ed] into the road from my right heading to the woods on my left.”

He braked hard. In his account to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), he describes “a bipedal,8-8½ foot tall creature swiftly crossing the road” in three strides, covered in long brown hair and with arms hanging to about knee height. He saw only its side profile, and it never turned toward him. “This was not a bear,” he wrote. “This was a cryptid.”

The BFRO filed it as report 81329, a Class A sighting, which is the group’s own label for a clear visual report.

The footage

There is no footage of the figure. The only video is an interview with the witness. The BFRO report links to a YouTube video uploaded by Matt Moneymaker’s BFROVIDEOS channel on 3 August 2026, running 2 minutes 45 seconds. According to Moneymaker’s note, it was recorded by Connecticut investigator Mike Young on Wednesday 8 July 2026. It shows a witness telling his story, which is testimony, not evidence of an animal. The video’s metadata (uploader, date, length) was checked. No timestamps are given here because the content wasn’t reviewed frame by frame.

Timeline

• 1928: Connecticut buys 1,011 acres from the Briggs Manufacturing Co. in Voluntown, founding Pachaug State Forest (CT DEEP).
• 1937: The forest reaches 12,000 acres, and the Resettlement Administration adds about 9,000 more.
• 1973: Pachaug-Great Meadow Swamp is named a National Natural Landmark.
• 4–5 July 2026: Rain falls around Beach Pond into the early hours, according to the BFRO notes.
• 5 July 2026, 1:44 am: The sighting takes place. The witness submits his BFRO report the same day.
• 7 July 2026: Mike Young interviews the witness at the location (“two days later”).
• 8 July 2026: The interview video is recorded.
• 14 July 2026: Puget Press reports the sighting.
• 15 July 2026: Coast to Coast AM covers it. Patch (Connecticut and Rhode Island editions) and Boston 25 News follow.
• 3 August 2026: The interview is uploaded to YouTube.

What witnesses reported

There is one witness. He describes coarse, “greasy looking” hair, shoulders “4+feet” wide, a head that “seemed to cone up slightly,” and a gait that “walked more like a human than any other animal.” He says it took him “a minimum of 60-90 seconds” to get the car moving again. He also says he was watching a loading map on his phone at the moment the figure appeared.

What the research found

The BFRO report is the primary record. It names the nearest road, gives the time to the minute and includes two investigators’ notes. Mike Young wrote: “I interviewed the witness two days later at the location. His description was accurate and honest.” Matt Moneymaker, who spoke to the witness by phone but did not visit, wrote: “The witness is credible. He’s not lying about what he saw.”