Pennsylvania named the third best place to find Bigfoot

The closest some of us ever came to seeing Bigfoot was when Steve Austin met Sasquatch in the hit 1970s TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man."

But Rob Viars, who lives near Wilkes Barre, says he was 9 years old when he and other members of his family saw something outside their home that was unlike anything they had ever seen before or since.

"We all ran to the window and we looked, and the deer had come out of the woods with a creature walking on two legs, really tall, and hairy chasing it across the canal," said Viars.

And Viars is not alone.

According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, Pennsylvania ranks third among states with the most reported Bigfoot sightings.

In fact, Eric Altman from the Pennsylvania Cryptozoology Society, says documented sightings date back to the early 1800s in the Keystone State when Bigfoot was referred to as "Wildman."

Altman says, "The first documented newspaper report of a Wildman sighting came in 1838 up in Bridgewater Township in the northeastern part of the state near the Poconos."

Eyewitness News asked some people in Bucks County what they think of all these alleged Bigfoot sightings.

Not surprisingly, the folks we spoke with were skeptical.

Sharon Sloan of Newtown says, "We have seen bears and wild turkey and lots of deer, but we have never seen Bigfoot."

But Viars says the reason others can laugh is because they were not there when it happened.

He says, "I'm not crazy. I served in the military, I worked in law enforcement, so it's not that I'm crazy. But I know what I saw."

The only other states with more reported sightings, are Washington with 2,032 and California coming in second with 1,697. There have been 1,340 sightings in Pennsylvania.