A couple have shared an eerie photo from their trip to a notorious Bigfoot hot spot in West Virginia.
Purdue student Duffy Springfield was hiking with her boyfriend in Panther State Forest in West Virginia in March when they stopped to take various panoramic pictures of the trail and surrounding vista.
Springfield then later developed the camera film so she could use the photos to make a scrapbook.
But when they later looked closely at one picture, Springfield noticed what looked like a human hand wrapped around a 4ft pillar in the lower righthand side.
‘I took this pic at the top of the mountain,’ she wrote on Reddit. ‘Behind the pillar should have been nothing, a drop off to the woods below. Are we bugging? That really looks like a hand.’
What makes the photo even stranger is that park rangers told the couple they had been the only people in the park as it was off-season.
‘My boyfriend and I aren’t really sure what to think,’ the Purdue student said.
But the pair were particularly excited since the area is known for sightings of cryptids, such as Bigfoot.
A couple have shared an eerie photo from their trip to a notorious Bigfoot hot spot in West Virginia
When they later looked properly at the photograph, they noticed what looked like a human hand wrapped around a 4ft pillar in the lower righthand side
‘We were pretty excited when we saw it because of all the cryptids said to lurk in the West Virginian mountains,’ she told Newsweek.
‘Even if it’s not actually a hand, it’s a fun story to have.’
In the comments section, Springfield also provided another angle of the structure in a picture taken by her boyfriend just days prior. In the earlier photo, the hand-like object is nowhere to be seen.
Reddit users were just as spooked as the couple and quick to comment online.
‘Welp, I don’t know what I expected when clicking on this thumbnail – but I am indeed oddly terrified,’ a user commented.
Another agreed it did resemble a human hand, writing: ‘Sure f**kin looks like one.’
‘Look at the shadow. That 100 percent looks like a crouching person hiding behind the pillar,’ a third wrote.
After one Redditor told her not to go back in the park after dark again, Springfield replied: ‘Trust me, even if we could have, there was no way we could have navigated our way up there.’
Springfield also provided another angle of the structure in a picture taken by her boyfriend just days prior to show that the hand-like object is nowhere to be seen
In response to commenters’ various Bigfoot theories, she said: ‘I mean we were basically in the Appalachians so it could be Bigfoot!’
West Virginia even has a Bigfoot Museum and hosts a Bigfoot Festival.
This year’s festival saw 20,000 visitors come to the town of 840 people to celebrate the mysterious creature, according to NPR.
