MYSTERY WIRE — Suggestions of a dark secret, genetic experiments and a government coverup grow from a 1981 incident in Maryland.

It all started very simply — a day out fishing.

What mill worker Lon Strickler says he saw on that day in May 1981 near Sykesville is stunning, but maybe not even as disturbing as what he thinks might explain everything that followed.

Strickler’s story lives on “Monsters and Mysteries in America.”

He saw a dog barking at clump of brush across the river, and soon the brush moved to reveal something he couldn’t identify. Not human, but not an ape — he made the leap to call it Bigfoot.

The 1970s were filled with Bigfoot stories, but most of those happened far from Maryland.

Strickler called police. What followed is detailed in the video above, as well as on the Phantoms & Monster’s website:

“A state policeman told me to get back in my car and leave. And I explained to him, ‘Well, I made the call.’ He said, ‘You’ve got to leave,” Strickler recalls.

“I was told that there had been some evidence found. but I was told I had to leave, so that’s what I did. I went, I left and went home.”

As the years have passed he thinks about the swarm of state police that responded. He tells Phantoms & Monsters that he spoke to a former military serviceman who had been inside a building in the area that was once used as a prison laundry. Heavy security around the site seemed normal.

But inside, the man had wandered into an area that was restricted, and was quickly taken out. But not before he saw something that suggested large creatures were caged inside.

Strickler believes, based on the speed and size of the response to the report, that officials were tracking it and they were ready to respond. It was a manhunt that appeared to involve federal authorities.

And the complete lack of records regarding the incident stokes his speculation. Was the strange building part of a genetic experiment facility?

FOR MORE, SEE: Sykesville Monster (Criptid Wiki)