Walking dog along northeast gas pipeline from west sturbridge toward brimfield around early evening dusk timeframe. We were on way back from having trekked 1.5 hrs west. We were now going east towards where we parked our car at the end of trail on Holland Rd where the Quinebaug River and Holland Rd intersect. This particular trail is actually part of trail system used for inspection of the buried gas pipeline that runs from western NY to Boston MA and down to Providence RI. We usually see a lot of dear and the occasional bear on this trail system. On our way back my dog was acting skittish and kept stopping and pointing to our rear as if sniffing for something. She even wimpered a few times. I have some across a bear with here and I figured thats what she was detecting. Now bears will normally move out of the area quickly and tgis wasnt the case. For around 40 mins I felt like we were being stalked because of the dogs behavior. So I figured it was coyote, fisher cat or maybe mountain lion. There have been mountain lions sightings in longmeadow MA so I figured this could be a reason. So we started to move faster as I have had to deal with mountains lions when I lived in Colorado and I didnt want to have face off with one alone on the trail in MA. As we moved faster I heard some snapping of twigs and some branches. Which I know a mtn lion would never do. So I thought we might being stalked by another person. In which case I knew we probably couldnt lose them. So me and my dog took off very quickly so that we created the next hill and turn in the trail ahead of whatever was on us. Once I was sure we were clear of their vision I did “box back” military infantry maneuver where we exited the trail went as fast and far as we could perpendicular and then backtracked another 200 yards parallel to trail then moved perpendicular to the trail just before the hilltop where we started running.

It was very dark now and i wanted to just lose whatever was on tail either by letting it pass by us. We waited for what seemed like and hour but was probably only 15 minutes. We could see the trail off in the distance . As we waited I was convinced we had imagined the whole thing. But then my dog started to shake look out into the trail and wimper ever so softly to me. Then as I peered into the growing darkness I saw it: tall as a maine moose, wide as a bear and dark as night with a semi human form. It was slowly moving back along the trail on the ooposite sides treeline. it was Just a few yards in off the trail it was so big that its shear size and its movement sperated it from stationary tree line. It obviously was following us and was now confused as tow where we had gone. But just at the moment it came to where we coukd see it best approximately 150 yards through the treeline it stopped stiff as tree and looked towards the direction we were. it seemd to be sniffing. My dog was freaked and I could hardly keep my hands on her to keeep her quiet. Then thank mother nature it starstarted to rain like crazy Coming down harder and harder. cold and hard rain, visibilty dropped to under 200 feet. I didnt stick around long we moved slowly at first but when I thought we had enoug distance we ran like bill rogers back to the car. Took us 90 mins going through the woods in the rain to get to Holland RD we crissed th river once and had come out 1/4 south of where we were parked. That was it we left as soon as we got to the car. I havent been back since that time.