KINGS MOUNTAIN, N.C. — A man in North Carolina says he recently encountered a being that resembled a “Neanderthal”.

Bernard Tillman on Thursday told Cryptozoology News that he was with his dog in the Kings Mountain area in November 2015 when he came across the creature.

“I was taking our dog for his daily ride,” said the 66-year-old retired man. “It was 6 p.m., we were approaching a small creek on the down grade of the road and I was looking at the 4-feet saplings where they had cut all the trees down.”

Tillman believes the unidentified being did not see him and his dog coming.

“There he stood, we must have surprised because he was just standing real still, the sun was setting between me and him,” he explained about the claimed 30-second encounter.

The North Carolina resident describe the creature as a 10-feet-tall humanoid walking on two legs.

“He was huge. He was massive in the back and chest. His hair looked black. From the side profile, his neck, his head, his nose and his lower jaw… he looked just like a Neanderthal.”

Tillman was not able to photograph the purported being.

Neandertals were a species of humans believed to have gone extinct about 40,000 years ago. Some people, such as a state trooper from Washington who claimed to feed ape-like animals many refer to as Bigfoot, believe the cryptid could be some sort of “primitive human species”.