Number of Witnesses: myself and my friend
Length of Observation: only a couple minutes
Animal Description: Did not actually see the animal
Can Witness Provide a Sketch of Animal Seen?: No
Any Odor? If so, Description: No odor
Vocalizations Heard?: no
Wood Knocks Heard?: Yes
Recordings Made?: Yes
It was friday of Memorial day weekend 2011. A friend and I had nothing to do so I suggested we head out to the pine barrens to go “bigfooting” We had never done this before but I had recently become interested in the topic so we decided to give it a try. So we drove to Batsto historic village in NJ. We parked around 730ish and then hiked out along the Batona trail. After about 2 miles it was getting dark so we decided to stop and set up shop just off the trail. The Batona trail parallels the Batsto river for several miles in that particular area of Wharton State Forest, so we were close to the river. Anyway, we sat in silence for about 30-45 min to let darkness completely settle in. Then at 9pm we started doing wood knocks. We did one or two knocks every 15-20 minutes. Around 945-10 we did our 4th set of knocks. Then exactly 1 minute later there was 2 quick and loud clacks off a tree about 40-50 yrds away.
We waited anxiously for about 45 seconds and then I “whooped” in its direction. Then maybe 15
seconds later it slowed ripped a large off a tree and threw it to the ground. At that point we were pretty scared so we turned on our flashlights but unfortunately there was a large wall of under brush and small tree/bushes right in front of us so we could not see in its direction….and we didn’t have the balls to walk around the brush to get a better look so we got out of there. I guess I should also note that aside from a few chirps from birds here and there it was completely silent. We never heard the animal approach or leave….it was just the isolated knocks and branch break which we recorded. We have been out there almost every weekend since and have not any similar experiences.