The Rome Township "Night Siege": a farm family besieged by a red-eyed creature, Ashtabula County, Ohio (1981)

Rome Township is a rural corner of Ashtabula County, in northeast Ohio. In the summer of 1981, a family on Johnson Road began reporting something in the dark. They asked that their surname be withheld. The father appears in the record only as Robert. On 1 July the Orwell Valley News put it plainly: "A Rome family has reported a large mystery animal roaming around its home and terrorizing horses and other farm livestock."

June 25, 1981. Robert and two of his sons saw a black form on all fours with glowing red eyes going after the family's ducks. Robert shot at it. "It ran down a field, screaming."

The next night it was back. About 30 feet away. The family chased it and lost it at the wood line. They put its height at nine and a half feet. That night the family truck died for no apparent reason, though the headlights stayed on.

Gorilla-like. Black, with long shaggy hair and small white patches the size of half-dollars on the chest. Arms that hung below the waist. A very large, flat nose and 1½ inch fangs. And the eyes: "large red glowing eyes, about the size of baseballs and self luminous." More than one witness noticed an awful smell. Every time they shined a light on it, it returned to the woods.

Several pairs of glowing eyes. Black forms near the windows and at the tree line. One of them waved a blue light back and forth. Robert started shooting and emptied two boxes of 12 gauge shells. The next day the Ashtabula County Sheriff's Department was called twice. Deputies found no animal, but saw ground indentations and large footprints near the home. Four ducks and some chickens were missing. The Game Warden said nothing could be done unless a clear print could be obtained.

Dennis Pilichis of Roaming Shores made plaster casts. The prints were three-toed, 7 by 8 inches, sunk 1½ to 2 inches into hard ground, the middle toe deeper than the others. About 40 impressions were found on the property. Soon after, at least three area residents reported a nine-foot tall animal walking on its hind legs.

Pilichis, Willard McIntyre of the MARCEN group and James Carnes of Mecca kept watch overnight on 6 and 7 July. A glowing form stepped out of the woods on the other side of a field. Fired on, it turned sideways with a strange sort of motion and walked out of the beam of light. Afterwards the grass lay smashed down, as if something had dragged itself away into the woods. Night Siege also describes box-like lights shifting from blue to yellow to black. Incidents continued until 21 August.

Neighbours on Johnson Road suggested a bear. Ron Schaffner of the Ohio UFO Investigators League later said McIntyre had told him Pilichis "believed everything he was told and would be easy to hoax," and that McIntyre was related to one of the witnesses. Andy Matzke of Small Town Monsters is described as arguing the episode was a hoax. Others dispute that reading. No confession or formal debunking has surfaced, and no official conclusion was recorded.

In 1982 Pilichis self-published Night Siege: The Northern Ohio UFO-Creature Invasion, which claims more than 15 witnesses. Don Keating later said it wasn't a real big seller. Yet the Rome family's Bigfoot keeps returning, in podcasts and in the Small Town Monsters series Mysteries and Monsters. The prints were cast. The shells were spent. What stepped out of those woods is still argued over.