Monsters and Myths

The search for the Yeti or Bigfoot of Shoria Mountain in Russia is set to continue as the snows melt and the weather warms in Siberia. The expedition will commence in June 2009 and will be headed by Valery Kimiev and Professor Nikolai Skalon, the head of the department of Zoology at the Kemerovo State University. Local’s are still alleging they have seen the bigfoot type creature in the area surrounding the Azass Caves on many occasions. One local will be joining the expedition, Hunter Michael Kiskarov who claims to have seen a Yeti more than once.

The local head of government  Vladimir Tashtagol has received 14 written reports by residents of remote villages around the area of the Azass caves and the nearby Mrassu river claiming to have seen these creatures in recent years. The Cryptids are described as being two meters tall, with reddish black hair that resembles that of a brown bear.

The Azass cave is several kilometres deep and it is believed the Yeti or Yeti’s dwell deep in its interior. Some believe that the creature is a lone neanderthal survivor or the sightings have been of one of a number the species, part of a small colony that represents the world’s last Neanderthals.

Source: allnewsweb

BENTON COUNTY- In October 2003, the small town of Decatur on the western side of Benton County found itself with a new resident.

Normally, a new neighbor would not cause any kind of stir. After all, people pack up and move every day, but this time things were different.

Although a little shy, the new neighbor soon brought news crews and myth debunkers from all around into the tiny town as the local gossip began to circulate about just what the new guy looked like.

It did not take everyone long to realize that the new neighbor who had moved into the woods around Crystal Lake was, indeed, Bigfoot.

“We had some pretty interesting calls on it,” Decatur Chief of Police Terry Luker said. “I had one lady call me and I tried to explain to her that it was not a Bigfoot and that it was too small to be a Bigfoot.

“The lady stopped me and she said, ‘Well, you know, they have babies, too.”’ ery day she hears someone in the restaurant telling their own Bigfoot story.

“He stays right out there,” Mickey Metz of Gentry said as he pointed into the woods across Crystal Lake. “Some people still say they can hear him way out over there, but we never see him and I do not stay out after dark.”

Paul Austin of Decatur says he remembers the excitement the town went through when Bigfoot was first seen in 2003, but after about a week he did not hear any more about the new neighbor.

“I am not a believer,” Austin added.

Kim Strobel of Gravette, however, is a believer and with good reason.

“I believe in him. I have heard him,” Strobel said.

While working on a wild-game reserve in Winston, Ore., Strobel and a group of his coworkers heard Bigfoot’s howl. When Bigfoot entered the reserve, all of the animals - the lions, the tigers, the monkeys - began howling and hissing and getting extremely nervous in their cages, and then Strobel

The official stance on Decatur’s Bigfoot sightings in 2003 is that the monkey-like creature people were getting fleeting glances of around town was actually a baboon that had escaped from the local wilderness safari in nearby Gentry.

The first spotting of Bigfoot was on Hill Street, and it was not long before the police department was getting calls from citizens who had seen Bigfoot on the west side of Decatur, Luker said.

“It was a lot of fun. I have not heard of any sightings lately,” Luker said.

“He is still around. He still comes in for coffee in the morning,” Denise Trammell, owner of the Gallery Café in downtown Decatur, said.

“He is a little shy, so sometimes he has to come in before we actually open,” Trammell said, noting the café has a deal with Bigfoot to not take photographs of the being that is surrounded with mystery.

“He has a family now. He is a pretty nice guy,” Trammell said, noting that evheard what he believes was Bigfoot letting out a sound that he is not likely to ever forget, he said.

“It was a quiet night. You could hear the grasshoppers chirping and then you could hear just a strange howl and all of the lions started roaring and the monkeys started going crazy,” Strobel said. “The next day we went out looking for him, and never could find anything. But being around animals all my life, I can tell you that sound was like nothing else.”

The mystery of whether or not Bigfoot really exists lives on in Strobel’s mind.

“I have been in quite a few places and you always hear about these stories, but none of us know what all God has created,” Strobel said. “I can not say it was (Bigfoot). I can not say it was not. Two-thirds of the rumors out there are usually true, though.”

Source: nwanews

Two backpackers on a year long trip around Australia got the fright of their life last week while they were out trekking in bushland in the vicinity of the township of Leura, not far from the well known Katoomba landmark, ‘The Three Sisters’.

It was early evening and by the two ladies admission a bit late to be by themselves in the bush. Ingrid Schön 23, of Germany and Adi Hassan, 22 of France decided to head back into town when they heard the breaking of branches and loud footsteps heading towards them. Ingrid shone a torch onto the track in front of them.

At this point they both claim to have seen what they now describe as Bigfoot charge away into the distance.

‘Admittedly we did not get a close look but we think what we saw looked like the American Bigfoot, basically covered in fur and about two meters tall. It definitely had no clothes on and was not human.’ Ingrid told All News Web reporter Jadyn Cassidy. ‘We were petrified and almost lost our way back in our nervous state’ Ingrid commented.

The Blue Mountains is believed to be the home of a creature known as the Yowie, basically Australia’s version of Bigfoot or the Yeti. There have been many recent sightings.  Prior to the arrival of Europeans local Aboriginal tribes were certain of its existence. Aboriginal communities still living in the Blue Mountains along with some other locals continue to believe the Yowie might be out there in the vast expanses of Australia’s Great Dividing Range.

Is Bigfoot walking around your backyard? A recent visitor to the Monument area is sharing what she captured on video, and saw with her own eyes.

A choppy, 15-second video clip depicts a typical day on Palmer Ridge, until things get interesting along the treeline.

A shadowy figure saunters into the frame, long arms swinging by his side.

Reportedly, it’s Bigfoot making a brief appearance near Monument.

“Never did believe it until I saw it for myself,” said Denise Plante. She spotted the big guy during a recent barbecue.

“We heard a noise, and thought maybe we should take a closer look,” Plante said.

11 News showed the video that’s been posted online to residents in the area.

“I saw something move,” said Kathy. “I seriously doubt it’s bigfoot.”

It’s a hard sell for some.

“I don’t think it’s him. I’ve seen him. He’s a little shorter,” said Jim, an El Paso County resident.

Others could at least be swayed.

“That was him! I saw his long hair!” said Jim’s son Finn.

Despite compelling video, and a telltale footprint, the whole thing boils down to two words.

“April Fool’s!” Plante said.

Plante thought up the gag for her gig as a morning talk host on Denver’s KOSI 101, choosing a southern Colorado setting by doing some homework.

“A lot of people have witnessed bigfoot at Pikes Peak, they claim,” she said.

That part of the bigfoot story is true. Bigfoot researchers conducted expeditions in Colorado as recently as last August. But do believers think it’s possible he spends time further downhill?

“I think it’s cool!” said Cassie, who lives near Monument.

The whole truth may still be out there.

“We’ve been here a long time and I haven’t met him yet,” said Cassie’s mom. “But I’d like to.”

kktv.com/home/headlines/42306692.html

WEST BRANCH - An illusion of the light, a figment of the shadows, a trick played on a travel-weary eye?

Hard telling.

A quick glimpse was all that Phil Shaw and his wife ever received, but he was certain of this much: The creature that crossed the forest clearing stood upright, was much larger than a man and moved in a way that was definitely non-human.

“There was an opening in the trees and this guy was just going across there,” says Shaw. “She and I looked at each other and at the same time we said, ‘Did you see what I saw?’

“We didn’t see any hair or clothes, like you would on a human. And he had a funny gait, which is often the case in a Bigfoot sighting; people say their movements are not quite human.”

That was three years ago during a family vacation to the Canadian Maritime Provinces.

Returning home to Ogemaw County, Carol Shaw put the beastly episode out of her mind, claiming one of those first three possibilities probably holds the truth.

But not Phil Shaw.

Three years worth of studies and interviews have only strengthened his belief that Bigfoot is lurking out there.

“I’m just intrigued by the possibility that Bigfoot is real, I guess,” Shaw says, noting there are more than 100 recorded sightings in Michigan. “I’m convinced there is something to this. There is far more evidence to prove there is a Bigfoot than there is evidence to suggest that there is not.”

Shaw is not shy when it comes to discussing Bigfoot. He’ll deliver a presentation to any group that invites him. Still, he is well aware that most folks don’t take the idea of a 700-pound, ape-like creature running through the local forest too seriously.

“I think people are spooked by it,” he says. “I don’t know why - I’m not talking religion, I’m not talking politics, I’m not talking sex. Why should they be spooked? You can tell they are embarrassed because they try to change the subject.”

He admits that the Bigfoot phenomenon attracts more than its share of charlatans and frauds, such as the rubber-ape suit frozen in ice that was presented to the world last fall during a nationally televised press conference. Perpetrators of those frauds cast an air of suspicion over those seeking honest answers and legitimate discussion about Bigfoot’s possibility, Shaw said.

Yet enough legitimate evidence, published books and articles and first-hand accounts exist that Shaw can’t dismiss the idea of an unknown giant ape living in relative isolation among us.

“There are a limited number of motion pictures and films. We have photographs. We have footprints and hand castings - there are thousands of those,” Shaw says. Add to that body impressions, scat and hair samples, beds and structures and, the way Shaw sees it, the evidence points to the existence of Bigfoot.

What’s more, the group of believers is growing ever larger and includes anthropologists, biologists and wildlife experts.

Nationally, there are more than 5,000 claimed sightings and similar creatures are a world-wide phenomenon stretching back centuries. Counting the notorious Sasquatch of the Pacific Northwest, Florida’s skunk ape, Ohio’s grassmen, the Himalayan yeti and others, Bigfoot is part of a very large family, too.

Still, those who claim to see Bigfoot are often met with derision. Shaw, retired from the federal Farmers Home Administration, says the only reason he dares to speak out is “because I don’t have a boss that can fire me.”

“You can’t blame people for not saying anything,” Shaw said. “A lot of these sightings go back 10, 15, 20 years. They say, ‘I mentioned it to my family and they ridiculed me so much I never mentioned it again.’ And for every one that comes forward, there are 10 or 15 sightings that are never told.”

By Shaw’s argument, the creatures prevent detection by residing remotely, often in swamps and mountain ranges. And he feels they are closer to apes than man - bipedal with lots of hair, good night vision, mainly herbivore. Close encounters indicate they smell bad, a completely understandable result of their swamp environment, Shaw says.

Those who have heard vocalizations, including locals, call them haunting.

The sound they make is long and low, but it can be quite loud,” Shaw said.

“If they’re intelligent at all, and I think they are, they could remain undetected,” Shaw says. “They’re very shy, like a bear, and it’s lucky they are. If they offended one of us, we’d get up a posse and go out and kill them.”

Shaw has been part of a posse before, though he wasn’t looking to bag a Bigfoot. But the Bigfoot Field Research Organization, a scientific research group, does hold organized expeditions across the country. Shaw participated in one that took a group of Bigfoot believers through the Upper Peninsula woods on an unsuccessful search for the creature.

Sooner or later someone will meet with success, Shaw says, and deliver hard evidence - an irrefutable photograph, a video or DNA evidence. In the meantime, the Internet has expanded the capacity for scientists, backyard researchers and Bigfoot believers to communicate and share ideas.

It also has become a way for first-time observers, many of whom previously either did not believe or gave the legend no thought, to share their stories.

Until, like Shaw, they saw a Bigfoot for themselves.

“People should be more open minded; that’s my conclusion,” Shaw said. “If anyone is out in the woods, take a camera. You might only have a minute or two, but that might be enough time to get a photo.”

mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2009/02/despite_skeptics_west_branch_b.html