Kentucky Knocks and Pennsylvania’s Small Bigfoot: Two Late-Summer Reports

Two Bigfoot stories from late summer have kept circulating this fall: a Kentucky group that says something answered their whistle and then turned to look at them, and two farm-country witnesses in southwestern Pennsylvania who described figures far smaller than the usual Bigfoot. All three accounts are witness claims with no photos, video or physical evidence. This report goes back to the original records to see what they actually say.

Kentucky: a whistle, a reply and a spotlight

The Kentucky account is Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) Report 82512, rated Class B, for an encounter around 10 p.m. on August 23, 2026, on a gravel road called River Road off Howardstown Road in Larue County, about 50 miles south of Louisville. Witness Clayton Sims submitted it on August 25, and wrote that three people were present.

Sims wrote that the group stopped at a lookout and heard what sounded like a distant knock. After about 20 seconds of silence, a friend suggested whistling or howling, and Sims gave a long whistle. He said the reply sounded like sticks or saplings being broken. The group drove off, turned around and came back, and this time Sims shone a spotlight into the woods. He wrote that he saw a black, hairy figure about 40 yards away, so dark he could not see it until it moved, roughly seven to eight feet tall. It was facing away, but he said it slightly turned “as if it was checking to see if we was still there.” He also described a cone-shaped head and yellowish-green eyeshine.

Agreeing to a video interview, he has more to risk (ridicule from his buddies), than the reward (attention).

BFRO investigator Charlie Raymond, in his follow-up on Report 82512

Raymond, who founded the Kentucky Bigfoot Research Organization, interviewed Sims by video and wrote that he found the witness credible and that the story stayed consistent across the online submission, text messages, a phone call and the interview. He called the creature’s reported description and behavior, returning knocks and trying to hide from the light, “typical.”

The follow-up also differs from the written report in places. Raymond’s notes put the sighting at roughly 9 to 10 p.m. under a clear sky and full moon, with the figure 50 to 60 yards away rather than 40, lit by a hunting light, and lasting about five seconds. The site ParaRational, in its own write-up, noted the changed distance and pointed out that animals or people can make knocking and cracking sounds in the woods, and that many woodland animals show eyeshine at night. OutKick’s Sean Joseph, who covered the report on October 5, wrote that he is “naturally skeptical of most things Bigfoot-related” and leaves the credibility of such reports to experts such as Raymond.

Pennsylvania: figures about the size of a child

The Pennsylvania reports come from researcher Stan Gordon, who wrote them up on August 23 as two daylight, close-range encounters in southwestern Pennsylvania. He said in both cases the creatures were short compared with the Bigfoot most often reported, and that he interviewed both witnesses within an hour of their encounters.

In the first, at 6:45 p.m. on August 18 in Indiana County, a woman doing a chore on her farm heard something being thrown around in the tree line. About 60 feet away, she said, she saw a crouched figure behind the trees and then a second one, which jumped up and ran around “as though playing.” She described them as about three and a half feet tall, with straggly light-brown hair, no apparent neck, and arms like a young child’s, and said she heard a sound like a baby cooing. When she sneezed, she said, they looked straight at her and she ran inside. She did not have her phone. Gordon added that the family’s dog had since been afraid to go outside, that she was woken by a similar cooing, and that her husband, walking the dog around 4:30 p.m., heard a loud wood knock by the cornfield and three more from the ridge. He did not see anything.

The next evening, August 19, at about 8:05 p.m. in Westmoreland County, a woman driving slowly on a rural road said she saw a hair-covered creature about 30 feet away running up a hillside. She put it at about five feet tall, with charcoal-gray hair, a dome-shaped head with no apparent neck, long swinging arms and a slightly flat nose with flared nostrils. Visibility was good, her windows were up and the air conditioning was on, and she heard and smelled nothing. Gordon wrote that the creature seemed to lose its balance, then turned a full 180 degrees in a way that looked “almost like a mechanical movement.” She saw only one leg clearly.

Gordon noted that sightings have been reported for years in the general area. OutKick, which summarized the reports on August 26, wrote that nothing connects these two accounts to earlier ones, and that, like many sightings, they came without supporting physical evidence.

What the reports leave open

I found no public comment on these reports from Kentucky’s Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources or the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and none of the coverage I read quotes a wildlife biologist. Gordon does not offer an ordinary explanation for either Pennsylvania encounter, and Raymond does not offer one for the Kentucky report. The two Pennsylvania accounts also do not describe the same creature as Kentucky’s seven-to-eight-foot figure, which is a reminder that the reports under the Bigfoot label cover very different descriptions.

The open questions are the usual ones for a night or twilight encounter: distance and size estimates shift between tellings, as they did in Kentucky, and knocks and cracking branches are common in woods. For how Bigfoot claims are weighed when there is evidence, see our explainer on how scientists test Bigfoot evidence. For other 2026 reports from the East, see our northeast summer roundup, the Bigfoot guide, and our Kentucky and Pennsylvania pages.