Does Sasquatch live near Lebanon County? “I want to go out and find out for myself. I don’t want some armchair researcher telling me it’s not real."

Daniel Walmer | Lebanon Daily News

Show Caption Hide Caption Hunting for Sasquatch in Schuylkill County A group of local men are looking for Sasquatches in a forest in Schuylkill County

Dave Levack remembers the 1985 news article that unlocked his young imagination.

A huge, bipedal animal with no neck, unusually long arms, and a pointy head had been spotted wandering through North Annville Township. Loud shrieks were heard the following week, and a series of 18-inch footprints were found.

Immediately, Levack and a friend began biking through the woods, pondering every clue that could point the way to Sasquatch.

“Back then, everything was a Bigfoot,” he remembers.

Read more: How I may have encountered Sasquatch

Levack requires a higher standard of proof now, and his most convincing encounters with the creature have actually come in the forests of Schuylkill County.

But he and other researchers remain convinced that a giant ape could be living a matter of miles from Cornwall and other Lebanon County towns – and they have decades of eyewitness testimony on their side.

The monster of Swatara Creek

The 15 men and boys searching a cavern along the Swatara Creek knew enough about the danger they faced to each carry a weapon.

After all, the creature they sought had was likely responsible for a pile of 23 chicken heads left at a nearby farm.

Two of the men claimed to see the creature that night near Bindnagle Church in North Londonderry Township, according to an October 15, 1910 Harrisburg Telegraph article. One fired at it but missed.

The next day, another group of 20 men visiting the cave saw the animal bathing in the Swatara Creek. They described it as light in color with a sandy head and weighing between 200 and 300 pounds.

Occasional sightings of bigfoot-type monsters in Lebanon County have continued throughout the years.

One man saw a 7-foot-tall brownish-black animal stand up after bending over a stream near Lebanon in 2001, according to the Keystone Bigfoot Project. It had a “very think build” and almost no neck.

In 2008, a young boy said he yelled at a 5-foot-tall creature, which then chased him, the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society reported.

More: Bigfoot: If it exists, here's where to find it

Is Bigfoot here?

“It’s such an intriguing idea that people want it to be true. I want it to be true,” said Sharon Hill, a Pennsylvania-based scientist, expert on cryptozoology and founder of the skeptic website Doubtful News.

The problem, though, is that proof of Bigfoot relies almost entirely on eye-witness testimony, which is inherently unreliable. The Bigfoot field is rife with hoaxes, she said. Other witnesses are sincere, but people have bad memories and misinterpret things in the dark and in the woods all the time.

The lack of hard evidence – such as hair, bodies, or fossils – leads Hill to conclude that such creatures don’t exist, she said.

She also pointed to the “silly” practice of searching for ghosts and Sasquatch at night, when people are more likely to interpret evidence in a paranormal way. Levack said they search at night because Bigfoots are believed to be nocturnal and typically hunt for prey around dusk.

Chad Arment, a cryptozoologist and former Lancaster County resident, is less certain Bigfoot doesn’t exist – but if it does, he thinks the creature is probably not in southeastern Pennsylvania, which has suffered too much habitat loss for a large woodland ape. If eyewitness reports are real, they probably stem from situations in which the animals are passing through.

Levack responded that people often underestimate the extent of thick woods in the region, such as the South Mountain area south of Cornwall.

It was in Cornwall that Robert Zimmerman’s Bigfoot experience landed him in legal hot water.

A scream in Cornwall

In 2012, Zimmerman and a friend heard a scream.

While the animal was trying to imitate an owl, “it sounded like Jennifer Love Hewitt being stabbed in a horror movie,” he said. They hopped in to a truck with intentions of following the scream into the woods.

Unfortunately for Zimmerman, the chase ended when the truck got stuck in the mud, landing him and his friend in legal trouble for trespassing on property owned by a Montgomery County developer.

It was a small price to pay for Zimmerman to pursue his passion. His first Bigfoot encounter was on the Appalachian Trail near Pottsville in 1999, when he and a friend were watching the sun set and noticed what appeared to be another person scratching his cheek. The shadow was about six feet tall.

“And then he stands up,” Zimmerman said. “We thought he was standing up.”

Zimmerman sprinted to the area in time to see an 8-foot-tall, dark-brown creature about 45 yards away.

“At that point, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said.

“It changes a lot of people’s lives”

Real or not, Bigfoot hunting has become a craze in recent years, fueled by television shows like “Finding Bigfoot” on Animal Planet. Levack estimated there are about 20 groups in Pennsylvania alone looking for the legendary creature.

It’s become a classic battleground between those who are willing to believe in the unknown and those who aren’t.

“I want to go out and find out for myself. I don’t want some armchair researcher telling me it’s not real,” Levack said.

For Levack, looking for Bigfoot is partly just an opportunity to spend time outside with his son, enjoying nature – but he admits it can be a dangerous preoccupation. Some people who see what they believe to be a Sasquatch devote the rest of their lives to an endless quest to prove to themselves and others that what they saw is real.

“It changes a lot of people’s lives when they see this. They get divorced, they go into depression,” Levack said. “My wife thinks I’m nuts.”

Meanwhile, Hill said that being a Bigfoot skeptic can provoke hostile and even dangerous reactions. She received so many threats after she wrote a skeptical post on her blog in response to Zimmerman’s Bigfoot search in Cornwall in 2012 that she took the post down.

Don’t count Levack among the angry Bigfoot hunters who want to produce a body. If Bigfoot does exist, he hopes it continues to avoid capture because he doesn’t want to see it locked in a zoo.

“I hope they’re real, and I hope they stay hidden,” he said.

Levack takes videos of many of his best experiences, including the one below. More videos can be viewed at his YouTube channel.

Five facts about Bigfoot in Pennsylvania