Monsters and Myths

Back in 2005 a ferryboat driver named Bobby Clarke was floating along the Nelson River when something caught his eye on the opposite bank. It was a big black creature of some kind so he took an old camcorder that he kept on the boat and took some footage of the creature. He took a 2:49 video which many people agree on could very well be Bigfoot. Clarke went on to show the tape to friends and alot of the locals in the area and then went onto to sell rights to screen it to “A current Affair”.

Clarke was quoted as saying ” he had been nervous ever since seeing the creature. especially when he takes his ferry over to that side of the river where he spotted the creature”. A Current Affair would launch an expedition to Manitoba to try and locate the bigfoot or sasquatch or signs of its existance but no results were ever published or announced. A few weeks after after the clarke monster sighting was no longer a hot headline the entire magazine would be canceled by fox television.

Here is the Clarke bigfoot footage so you can take a look and decide for yourself !

HONOBIA — Researchers believe that a footprint they discovered over the weekend in the Kiamichi Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma is that of the elusive creature Bigfoot.

D.W. Lee, global director of the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center, said the print was discovered about five miles into the woods. They were able to make a cast of the print, which measured 15 3/4 inches long and 5 inches wide.

“The toes were clearly visible on the cast after it was lifted up,” Lee said.

In addition, Lee said they heard “vocalizations” in the woods that they recognize as the tell-tale mocking calls of Bigfoot. Whoop sounds, “attempted imitations” of whippoorwills and mimicking of dove and owl calls were heard, he said.

One crew member was hit by a rock during a night hike just moments after two large animals were spied through a night scope walking on two feet across a logging road.

“A lot of people, it doesn’t really dawn on them when rocks land near them” that Bigfoot could be responsible, Lee said.

Lee and his crew are evaluating hundreds of photographs and hours of video recordings taken over the weekend by about 30 researchers.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Scott Simmons said he has not been involved in any Bigfoot-seeking expeditions but that people are capable of collecting and analyzing data and have been doing so for years in fascination of the possibility of an unknown apelike species.

“I’m not going to tell someone they did not see or did see something.” he said.

Source: tulsaworld

HONOBIA — Some 25 to 30 researchers will be braving the southeastern Oklahoma woods this weekend in search of the reclusive Bigfoot.

The Kiamichi Mountains provide the apelike creature a habitat that’s rich with deer, berries, honeysuckle and plenty of woodsy cover, believers say.

“You could hide an army in there and never know it,” said D.W. Lee of Stilwell, global director of the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center.

In October in Honobia, the researchers saw “eye shine” from a creature standing about 8 feet tall, he said.

“They would get close enough that the campfire would shine in their eyes and it would show green,” Lee said.

Like ghost hunters, the Bigfoot researchers will be equipped with night-vision goggles and scopes, along with an array of audio and video equipment. They will record hours of footage from the trail for viewing after their trip.

Lee said the creatures typically throw rocks at them when they’re sitting around a campfire.

“If they wanted to hit you, they would,” he said. “It’s like they just want to see how you’ll react. Other times you may get in areas where you’re not welcome. If you’re close to the little ones — the young Bigfoot — they’re going to make sure you leave.”

The only time Lee said he became fearful in the woods was during a trip to the Chelsea area in northeastern Oklahoma.

“I saw three groups of Bigfoot going across a field in front of me,” he said.

About a year ago

in the Chelsea area, the researchers poured a cast of a footprint, 15 inches long and 5 inches wide, that they believe was made by a Bigfoot.

They’ve photographed other footprints along logging roads in the Kiamichi Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma.

Mountain-area natives and Sasquatch-track followers are familiar with what they say are the creature’s distinctive screams and whoops.

Lee said Bigfoot is intelligent and can mimic the sounds of other animals.

“We do hear a lot of owl calls, but you can tell it’s not an owl because it’s like an 800-pound owl hooting at you,” he said.

About five years ago, Lee’s group received a report from a man hunting deer in a tree stand in the Kiamichi Mountains. It seems that his pager went off, and after he turned it off, he heard something in the woods mimicking its beep-beep sounds.

“When he turned around, he saw Bigfoot standing there,” Lee said. “His words were that it was a ‘big something’ that he just didn’t want no part of.”

Perhaps Jane Goodall gives skeptics some pause.

In a 2002 interview with National Public Radio, the primatologist said she believes that the creature could exist. She said she based that assessment on descriptions given to her by American Indians, who reported two sightings and described sounds they’d heard.

Some people have dismissed Bigfoot sightings in Oklahoma as actually black bear sightings. But unlike bears, Lee said, a Bigfoot walks upright exclusively and — at 7 to 8 feet tall — is much taller than a black bear.

“We’re not just a bunch of country hicks,” said Lee, a network administrator.

Hundreds of people attend the Honobia Bigfoot Festival and Conference each year. This year it will be held Oct. 2-3 and sponsored by the Talihina Chamber of Commerce.

Source: tulsaworld

“Be careful of what you find,” Diane Stocking warned. “It may well be a rock.”

Stocking, one of three guest speakers Saturday at the 21st annual Bigfoot Conference/Expo, said that what may initially appear to be evidence of Bigfoot or Sasquatch activity must be scrutinized thoroughly before conclusions can be reached.

For example, an apparent footprint was located along a stream and a plaster cast made. Further investigation — by none other than Peter Byrne, one of the so-called “Four Horsemen of Sasquatchery” who led a three-year search for the Abominable Snowman (or Yeti) in Asia — revealed that the impression, though remarkably footprint-like in appearance, was actually made by a rock that had been dislodged from its resting place.

Stocking is president of Florida-based Stocking Hominid Research Inc. She possesses a degree in forestry, served several years as curator of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization and is well known in the Bigfoot research arena.

Twisted trees can also often be mistaken for Bigfoot activity, she said. But tornados, microbursts and ice storms can cause such damage too.

So-called “stick stacks” and “weaves” must also be carefully considered, she said. Some formations can occur naturally from falling branches. Others are man-made, possibly by hikers seeking temporary shelter.

Stocking said that one weave in Oregon does not appear to be either natural or man-made, as trees were pulled inward to form a teepee-like formation. The peak was no less than 15 feet from the ground when she examined the formation about 1 1/2 years after its initial discovery by another researcher. The original peak was higher, she said, as the formation had begun to collapse in on itself.

Tree markings can be the result of elk rubs, bear clawings, buck scrapes and porcupines.

Bears walk in such a manner that they place their hind paws into the print of their front paws. This can lead to elongated prints that appear human-like. Animal prints in snow can expand due to thawing.

Bears suffering from mange can, at a distance and standing upright on their hind feet, appear Bigfoot-like. Tree stumps in photographs have given rise to some reported Bigfoot sightings.

Stocker denounced claims that Bigfoot have a mid-tarsal break in their feet giving them flexibility beyond that of humans. She said that biped movement requires a rigid arch.

Though having no personal sightings, Stocking said she does believe that Bigfoot exists. The creature is intelligent and elusive, easily able to avoid detection if it so chooses. Encounters with humans may simply be accidental.

Billy Willard also addressed the audience of several hundred. He formed Sasquatch Watch of Virginia with his son Josh in 2005.

Among the team members is John, who shared his encounter  from 1982 during a hunting trip to North Carolina. His first time hunting, he was stationed in a deer stand. At about 9 a.m. he noticed an odor that sickened him. He had dry heaves, felt the hair on his head stand up as if by static shock, began to convulse and fell to the floor of the stand.

About five minutes later he sat up and began to hear noises. About 50 yards away was a figure he saw only from the waist up. The creature pulled tree branches through its mouth, stripped off the leaves. It peered from left top right periodically, turning its upper body as it did so.

“This wasn’t a person wearing a costume or playing a joke on me,” he said.

It would be more than two decades before John could bring himself to return to the forest.

Willard shared details of several incidences he and his team have investigated, including one in Salt Fork State Park in April near a public picnic area. A track, possibly that of a juvenile Bigfoot, was found and cast. Eyeshine (light reflected from eyes) was seen and members entered the woods. At one point a stick was thrown in Willard’s direction; he saw it travel end-over-end, not flatly, as if it fell from a tree.

Willard also experienced a similar feeling to that of John on an investigation. He became sick and disoriented and laid down on the ground for a few minutes before regaining his bearing.

“I’ve never had that feeling before,” he said, “and I’ve not had it since.”

One theory put forward to explain such experiences is that the creature emits “infrasound” in frequencies of less than 20 Hertz that can cause disorientation in some people. Infrasound is known to be used by some animals in the wild, including elephants and tigers, Willard said.

During a 2007 expedition to Paris, Texas, Willard and team member Tom L. were sleeping in a tent at the end of a campground. By his own admission Willard is a loud snorer. His partner later said that he heard footfalls to the tent, felt the poles being shaken, saw the silhouette of a creature and heard the creature mimic Willard’s snoring sounds.

The following morning Willard said he had what he thought initially was a dream in which something grabbed his leg through the fabric of the tent. Efforts to brush it off failed so he balled his hand into a fist and punched it and fell back asleep. After hearing of Tom L.’s experience he checked his leg and found a red mark where he believed he had been grabbed.

Doug Hajicek was scheduled to speak but was forced to cancel due to business-related obligations, said Keating. Hajicek is perhaps best known for his “Monster Quest” series airing on the History Channel. Keating was featured in one of those episodes dealing with Bigfoot in Ohio, known as the “grassman.”

Keating himself shared information regarding the first and most recent sightings to take place in Salt Fork State Park.

Shortly after the state park opened in 1972 a woman spotted a creature crossing the roadway not far from the cabins. It was the first of four separate sightings taking place over a two-week period. The last and perhaps most terrifying was that of a park ranger who peered out a ranger station window into the face of an alleged Bigfoot. Instinctively he lashed out, Keating said, shattering the glass pane with his hand. The injury required dozens of stitches to close.

On Feb. 9 a West Virginia couple driving through the park spotted a creature walking up a hill. They turned their automobile around and observed the creature “hugging” a tree. Keating said this may have been an attempt by the creature to conceal itself.

Four things are required for a sighting, Keating said: A creature to be observed, an observer, that observer willing to share his/her sighting and circulation within the community of the sighting. Though he is aware of more than two dozen alleged sightings in Salt Fork State Park, there are certainly others that go unreported, possibly from fear of ridicule.

The conference ended with a question and answer session with both speakers, Keating, John and Eric Altman of the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society.

Source: dailyjeff

A Bigfoot research group reported finding a handprint that “looked like a huge gorilla paw” during a recent expedition on Sand Mountain.

“It would’ve made two of my hands,” said Hawk Spearman, a founder of the Alabama chapter of the Elusive Primates of North America, or EPNA.

Spearman said the find was the first handprint he has discovered in more than a decade of research, although he has found footprints in the past.

“We were pleased with what we did find,” he said.

From Feb. 20-22, Spearman said the group explored a heavily wooded area about 15 miles from U.S. 431 and the Albertville and Boaz area. Spearman declined to release the exact location because he said the property owners did not want media attention.

Spearman said the group heard a number of vocalizations during the expedition.

“One guy said it was like sleeping in a zoo,” added Spearman. “There has been activity out there for quite a while.”

One of the vocalizations was particularly interesting.

“We heard something that sounded like a really mad cow vocal and then what sounded like a bear vocal,” Spearman said.

When the bear vocal drew closer, Spearman said, “All of a sudden we heard this vocal, like six deep, long, guttural growls. We know we upset what was there. We didn’t physically see anything.

“We did get vocalizations from that area in January as well, but we were unable to identify them. Lo and behold, we were watching Animal Planet and heard a similar vocal. An expert from Texas A&M University said it was an unknown primate with human texture vocalization.”

Spearman said a former game warden from Pennsylvania accompanied the group and noted signs of a bear or a big cat in the area.

EPNA’s next meeting is Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Oneonta Public Library, where the Alabama chapter has been meeting for the past year.

Spearman said a group called the American Primate Research Organization, or APRO, from Cullman is expected to attend. He said EPNA plans to merge with APRO in the next few weeks.

sandmountainreporter.com/story.lasso?ewcd=dcb39996f2dafae0

In 2000, residents of Sabine reported seeing a gray, ape-like creature in the area’s dense forests. The local newspaper dubbed the creature the “Sabine Thing”.

A similar beast called the “Caddo Critter” is said to have inhabited the bottoms around scenic Caddo Lake in the 1970’s. The Sulphur River along the Texas-Arkansas border has been a source of similar sightings for decades.

As strange as those stories may sound, they are not the only cases of mysterious ape-like animal sightings in Texas, not by a long shot. “Bigfoot” (a.k.a. “Sasquatch”) is a term associated with the US Pacific Northwest, but a handful of investigators are searching for the same (or very similar) animal right here in the Lone Star State.

Bobby Hamilton of Warren is founder of the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization (GCBRO), a group dedicated to solving these mysteries in Texas and elsewhere. “I know it sounds crazy, but there are Bigfoot creatures right here in Texas,” Hamilton said. “That’s a lot to swallow, but I’ve been researching these creatures in the field for quite some time now. They’re out there.”

Something Hamilton likes to make clear up front is that his organization believes these creatures are real flesh and blood animals, not part of some paranormal government conspiracy. “They’re flesh and blood animals. We don’t believe they are flying around in UFOs or are shapeshifters or anything like that. In fact, we don’t allow anyone into our group who talks about that kind of stuff. We believe these animals to be a primate, a very smart primate that we just haven’t yet proven exists.”

The GCBRO keeps a log of sightings by county in Texas and other states, and according to Hamilton, reports come in on a weekly basis. “Some of them are recent reports while others may be 30 years old,” he said. “But they all tell us something. If an area has a bunch of sightings over a long period of time we know that’s a good area to research.”

Researching an area consists of looking for sign like footprints and twisted limbs and listening for vocalizations. “We have recorded some noises we just can’t place with known animals. Some of these sounds are pretty amazing, even frightening,” Hamilton said.

The group has even found some hair samples. Primatologists who examined the samples said they were from “no known animal.” One came back as matching alleged Bigfoot hair gathered in the Pacific Northwest.

Beyond gathering physical evidence of the creatures’ existence, Hamilton said some in his group have had close encounters. “There are people within our group who have seen these creatures, myself included. Some joined the group because they saw one and others have seen them in the course of research.”

Craig Woolheater is a researcher for the Texas Bigfoot Research Center (TBRC), another group studying the Bigfoot phenomenon. “Several of our members have seen these creatures, and that’s a big part of the reason we’re so passionate about studying them. It’s one thing to read about them, but another to see them,” he said.

Woolheater’s sighting occurred while he and his wife were traveling through Louisiana one night in the early 1990’s. “This big, grayish, hairy creature was on the side of the road. It was dark, but we got a good look at it. The beast was kind of slumped over,” he said.

TBRC members believe the creatures are a subspecies of the ones in the Pacific Northwest. “The basic reports are the same-a large, hairy animal walking upright,” Woolheater said. “But there are some differences, like coloration, hair length and build. Until it’s proven they exist, all of that’s kind of a moot point. This is certainly cryptozoology’s biggest mystery.”

Loren Coleman, considered by many to be the world’s foremost cryptozoologist, notes that there have been several discoveries of large animals in recent years. “A new species of antelope was found in Vietnam a few years ago. Tales of the mountain gorilla used to be greeted with the same kind of disdain as modern day mystery primate sightings. One day we may find out these creatures are real too.”

Coleman, who along with Patrick Hughye wrote “A Field Guide to Bigfoot , Yeti and other Mystery Primates” , said there are plenty of historical references of apelike creatures in the South, both from European and Native American culture. “The Louisiana Choctaw Indian had an animal they called the nalusa fayala, which means ‘long, evil being,” he said.

The most famous Southern Bigfoot sightings came from just across the border on the Arkansas side of the Sulphur River near the tiny community of Fouke. The “Fouke Monster,” as the creature was called by locals, achieved celluloid immortality in the 1973 film, The Legend of Boggy Creek. Smokey Crabtree was a wildlife advisor for the film, and his family accounted for several of the sighting reenactments. He has authored two books, Smokey and the Fouke Monster and Too Close to the Mirror, and believes there are such creatures roaming the southern bottomlands. According to him, the filmmakers did not tell the whole story, or at least did not tell it accurately.

“A lot of people got the impression after watching the movie that the creature was mean and aggressive, but in my experience it wasn’t,” he said. “There were other inaccuracies, which is why I wrote Smokey and the Fouke Monster.”

Being a cryptozoology buff, I jumped on the opportunity to drive up to Fouke and visit with Crabtree. I interviewed him at his home and then went for a walk along the banks of Boggy Creek. I felt like a kid watching The Legend of Boggy Creek for the first time.

One thing I always wondered is why the creature in the film was never referred to as a “Bigfoot,” as most mysterious North American primates seem to get tagged.

“At the time Bigfoot was something that was known of in the Pacific Northwest and in a lot of ways the area of Fouke was sheltered from that part of the world,” Crabtree said. “We never heard of Bigfoot, but we knew something strange was going on around our little community.”

How did Crabtree, a lifelong hunter, fisherman and trapper, react when he first heard of the creature? “My son came home one day saying he saw this big, hairy creature in the woods behind where we lived,” he said. “I could tell he was dead serious too, and this bothered me. I had never known my son to lie, but I just couldn’t believe there might be something like that out in the woods I had hunted and trapped in my whole life.

“After awhile, older members of my family started coming to me and saying my son wasn’t lying. They had seen such a creature in the area in years past but swore to never tell. However, they felt they had to let me know my son was telling the truth.”

After that, even common incidents in the woods took on new significance for Crabtree. “I started looking back to things that happened to me out in the woods and in the bottoms in the past, and wondered if something strange had really occurred,” he said.

One thing most cryptozoologists agree on is that if such a creature existed in the Fouke area, there must have been more than one of them. The natural question, therefore, regards recent sightings.

“We get reports from time to time,” Crabtree said. “In fact, a few years ago I got a report from several different people who reported seeing a large hairy creature off of Highway 71. Three motorists saw this thing on the side of the road at the same time, and on the same night a lady who had no knowledge of the other sightings reported seeing the same thing in the same general area.”

Do a handful of these creatures roam the vast woodlands of the Lone Star State? Well, no one has proven it. Then again, no one has disproven it either.

Think about that the next time you are in the woods alone and that creepy feeling comes over you.

by Chester Moore

anomalist.com/reports/lonestar.html