Monsters and Myths

The creature known as Bigfoot, Sasquatch — or Se’sxac among the Coast Salish — is now covering a whole new territory; the Internet.

A Texas man, a self-styled Bigfoot researcher, has posted a video he claims to have taken near Tofino in July 2006.

Claims of the creature on Vancouver Island go back many years, and a Comox Valley man who has researched Bigfoot, John Bindernagel, claims to have found footprints in Strathcona Park near Mount Washington.

Bindernagel, a biologist, wrote North America’s Great Ape: The Sasquatch.

He is concerned that the ability to post videos by anyone claiming it to be a Sasquatch will damage efforts to do genuine scientific research into the phenomenon.

“For me the Internet is a mixed bag, it’s easier to report a sighting, but it’s not vetted very well.”

In 2005 Bindernagel told the Daily News that since 1850 there have been about 100 sightings on the Island. In the same time there have been about 400 sightings in B.C., a number he thinks is low due to fear of being mocked.

Though evidence has yet to surface proving Bindernagel’s claim the Sasquatch is real, he thinks that a scientific approach could prove its existence.

He is now working on a second book about the phenomenon to argue why scientists should give it serious consideration.

He said fuzzy films on the Internet do not help him making that argument.

“The evidence doesn’t get scrutinized objectively,” said Bindernagel. “We can’t bring the evidence to our colleagues because it’s perceived as tabloid.”

One Nanaimo man familiar with most native animals on the Island is Ron Heusen, a senior conservation officer.

He’s never seen anything but bear, elk, deer and similar wildlife.

“The Ministry of Environment through the provincial Wildlife Act does not regulate Bigfoot - it’s not in the Wildlife Act,” Heusen joked.

Though Heusen’s never had a call about such a creature, he said it would be easy to mistake a bear or other animal for a Sasquatch.

“It would be easy to make an honest mistake.”

Source: canada.com

Columbia Police Department is investigating a slew of Bigfoot sightings near the Pearl River, according to The Columbian-Progress.

The police chief indicated he believes it’s a hoax, but it makes you wonder, “What if it’s not?”

The next time I’m sitting in the deer stand and it’s dark and murky, I will probably spot one.

And then like the hundreds of other witnesses to the cultural phenomenon will have no tangible proof, and then everyone will think I’m crazy.

I first learned of Bigfoot while watching TV in my camp amid the swamps. It’s way out there - 30 minutes from the nearest Piggly Wiggly and just one bar with Verizon Wireless. And what pops on the TV, a Bigfoot special. Scared me to death.

I almost forgot about sasquatch (well, minus those beef jerky commercials) until some friends from Columbia were talking about it last week.

And as God as my witness, one of friends went out searching for it last week.

Let me tell you about Laura. I just met her two weeks ago, a friend of a friend. She lives in the outskirts of Columbia, and every evening, she sits on her porch with a cigarette, listening to the cackle of her police scanner.

I knew instantly she was my kind of person.

She didn’t find Bigfoot, but she did discover a track. No lies.

I wanted to make Mississippi famous, something other than Frank Melton stories.

I called CNN; no bites. I called Fox News; they said they couldn’t cover it because it could mock their viewers.

So, I decided I would write about it.

You may think I am kidding about the whole thing. No, it’s on the Progress’ Web site now. And even better, the police chief said “an out-of-state organization had visited the area with specialized equipment for primate study and had found no evidence of anything unusual.”

I know what you’re thinking; I looked into the matter.

All Fritscher family members are accounted for, and none have passed through the Columbia area. I have some beastly aunts and uncles - quite possibly science’s link between us humans and the homanids.

During my research of Bigfoot, I stumbled upon some nifty facts (all from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization):

FELTON, Calif.,- Deep in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains exists a place where a legend  lives.

In parts of the world it is known as the Yeti, in others it’s Sasquatch, but just about everyone at some point or another has heard of Big Foot.

The question is, does Big Foot really exist in the Santa Cruz Mountains?

Perhaps one location that you can find the answers ist the Big Foot Discovery Project Museum located in Felton. Operator Michael Rug has devoted the past 50 years in researching the elusive creature. After having experienced a sighting as a child he says they can and do exist.

“We’ve had about four dozen reports come in, and I’m quite confident that some of those are bogus. Some people are seeing black bears and mistaking them for big foot, some people are not seeing anything at all, it’s there imagination getting carried away, and we’ve even had a few hoaxes pop up. To me that means we have a genuine subset of the big foot phenomenon right here in Santa Cruz,” says Rug.

When asked what he thinks of people who do not believe there is anything strange living the Santa Cruz Mountains, he says: “I say to people, try to put yourself in my shoes. You see something, it registers in your brain with your two eyes, and it says there is a large bi-pedal primate walking through the woods.”

Source: kcba

For many in Hoopa, Bigfoot is a reality of the inland valley — one that several residents have experienced through first-hand encounters.

Those encounters — profiled in David Paulides’ “The Hoopa Project: Bigfoot Encounters in California” — point to evidence bolstering the existence of the large human-like creature.

The book, a collaborative effort of the North American Bigfoot Search, is based on a numerous interviews conducted in 2004. But, the catalyst goes a bit further back.

In a telephone interview from his Los Gatos home this week, Paulides said the organization began when a group of business acquaintances were sitting around a table one day and began talking about strange occurrences in the woods.

”That was the catalyst for us to talk,” he said.

The search and the organization evolved slowly among the tight-knit group, the author said. With a combination of time, resources and well-honed investigative skills, the colleagues began by noting all of the Bigfoot sightings on a map of the Pacific Northwest — a realization that led to the publication of a map showing those sites and noted that a predominant number of sightings had been reported from Northern California.

Those sightings, however, weren’t enough to immediately sway the author, a veteran of 20 years as an officer and investigator with the Los Gatos Police Department.

”I was open to the idea,” Paulides said, “but I was pessimistic.”

Even after the numerous interviews, Paulides said he couldn’t swear to a 100 percent belief in Bigfoot’s existence, but the scale weighs heavily in that direction. Paulides pointed to the time it took longtime resident Al Hodgson — who has been looking into the existence of Bigfoot for some 60 years. Three years ago, Paulides said, a member of Hodgson’s church, a woman he knew could tell nothing but the truth, confessed that she had seen Bigfoot. It was that confidence that swayed Hodgson.

That’s not to say that Paulides doubts the words of those he interviewed.

”I believe everybody in the Hoopa project that was interviewed was telling the truth,” he said.

Each of those included in the book signed an affidavit attesting the truth of their statements.

Even those who held no cotton to the very tall biped’s existence.

Michael Mularkey, then manager of the Ray’s Food Place in Hoopa, recounted an early-morning sighting during the commute to work from his Willow Creek home.

”Michael was approximately 15 minutes into the drive when he entered Hoopa and an area of the highway that parallels Shoemaker Road,” Paulides wrote. “He had his headlights on and was traveling approximately 40-50 mph when he saw a huge creature standing on the roadway near the computer shop. He immediately slowed when he saw the hairy beast standing on two feet. Michael said the creature was covered in reddish-orange hair or fur, except under its arms, and was standing on two feet. He stated that the creature did not have a snout like a bear, but had a flat face like a human or ape. He said he saw the creature take two giant strides, 6-8 feet each time, as it walked across the roadway and attempted to partially hide behind a large tree on the eastern side of the road. Michael said that he continued to slow his vehicle to get a good view of the creature. He said that it could not get completely behind the tree, and appeared to be looking at him as he continued driving. Michael said that as the creature was looking at him, he could see that its eyes seemed to be almost glowing yellow. He continued his journey to Ray’s and told a few friends about what had happened later in the morning.”

Thus a doubter was converted.

”Michael said he was the ultimate skeptic about Bigfoot being a living mammal,” Paulides wrote, “but no more. He stated, ‘I know what I saw and it was not a bear, it was Bigfoot. Those eyes were unreal, I’ll never forget its eyes or its size’.”

Paulides’ book is full of illustrations of Bigfoot, drafted from discussions between those who reported seeing the creature and longtime forensic artist Harvey Pratt, who Paulides hired to visually chronicle the Bigfoot encounters.

Nearly all of those drawings share many similarities, although Paulides said none of the sketches were shared among those who were interviewed.

”Nobody saw anyone else’s sketch,” he said, noting that all were kept concealed until the book’s publication. The consistency is that all but one show a lack of facial hair.

”We never thought it would be like this,” he said, “We thought it would be more ape-like, more gorilla. That’s completely not the case.”

”The Hoopa Project: Bigfoot Encounters in California,” is available at the Bigfoot Museum in Willow Creek and the Bigfoot Bookshop in Salyer, as well as online through Amazon.com.

Source: times-standard

Rich La Monica was behind the wheel of a box truck on a late winter day when he saw a large figure moving through the briars beneath the leafless trees.

“It wasn’t human. It was just too big,” La Monica said. “It definitely looked like what you’d expect to see of a Bigfoot.”

Fearing people would think he was nuts, he kept quiet about what he saw for four years, until he found a community of believers in 1992.

“Then I knew there were actually hundreds of people who had seen them,” he said.

This weekend, hundreds of believers from around the nation will descend on Salt Fork State Park for the 21st annual Bigfoot Conference.

The free event in the ballroom of the park’s lodge will feature exhibits and a tour of nearby locations of Bigfoot sightings. There also will be several speakers, including Doug Hajicek, producer of the History Channel’s “MonsterQuest.”

The show aired an episode last summer that included interviews with La Monica and Don Keating, director of the Eastern Ohio Bigfoot Investigation Center and conference host. The episode was called “Ohio Grassman.”

Grassman as a local name for the Bigfoot stems from the 1940s and 1950s, before “bigfoot” became a household name, said Keating, who was one of the authorities interviewed for the program.

In the 1940s and 1950s, children would tell their parents they saw a large man walking through the grass, hence the name “Grassman,” Keating said.

Sightings date back to at least 1869, when people reported seeing what they called “Wildmen,” super-humanly large, hairy creatures. Since then more than 300 sightings have been reported, said Keating, who said he has had two encounters.

He and a network of colleagues investigate reports of sightings, including ones in rural parts of Ashtabula, Medina, Portage and Summit counties.

Keating excludes reports that are clearly false.

“There’s a lot of people out there who try to make Bigfoot investigators look like total idiots,” Keating said. “You cannot be gullible.”

But he knows gullible, foolish or even crazy is what skeptics would say he and other believers are.

Believers point out that for a long time people believed that the world was flat, that there were no planets around stars other than the sun, that no creature could live near the thermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. They say that new creatures are discovered all the time and that no Westerner had seen a panda until late in the 1800s.

Even those who accept that science evolves often remain certain that there is no such thing as Bigfoot.

La Monica says, “If they ever have the experience, I’m sure they’ll understand why I believe.”

Source: cleveland.com

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

Does a hulking, 7-foot-tall, ape-like creature roam the rugged mountains and forests of Northern New York and Vermont?

It may seem far-fetched, but accounts can be traced back to Indian lore and even the logs of Samuel de Champlain.

While the lake creature Champ remains the region’s best known ‘monster,’ in recent years, two nationally televised documentaries — on the History and Discovery Channels — have featured entire segments on Bigfoot sightings in upstate New York and Vermont.

The most recent, “Monster Quest,” in 2008, chronicled numerous sightings of a large, hairy, ape-like creature on both sides of Lake Champlain.

‘CANNIBALISTIC MAN’
In the Pacific Northwest, there’s Bigfoot or the legendary Sasquatch; in the Himalayas, there’s the yeti or abominable snowman.

The Algonquin on the western shores of Lake Champlain told of seeing the windigo or “giant cannibalistic man” who, according to legend, roamed the countryside. One modern-day Native American account of the windigo describes it as “a giant thing, swift “¦ and covered with hair, and has eyes like two pools of blood. And there’s this smell, like rotting meat.” This description is similar to Bigfoot reports today.

The Iroquois have a similar oral history of flesh-eating stone giants who possessed powerful physiques.

Across the border in Quebec, the Algonquin-speaking Attikamekw called these creatures Kokotshe.

In his ship’s log chronicling his voyage of discovery on the St. Lawrence River 1604, Champlain wrote how numerous Indian tribes in the region had told eerie stories of a giant, hairy man-beast that was known to the natives as “the Gougou.” Champlain wrote that so many of the tribes recounted such stories that he believed there must be some truth to the tales.

“And what makes me believe what they say, is the fact that all the savages in general fear it, and tell such strange stories of it.”

In northern Vermont, Abenaki traditions tell of a huge, hairy, man-like creature known as the Forest Wanderer who would leave giant, human-like footprints behind. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, many early Vermont settlers in Essex and Orleans counties told of encountering a mysterious bear that moved swiftly through the woods on two legs, always managing to elude capture.

Vermont historian Marion Daley describes this creature in her book, “History of Lemington,” noting its ability to move about in a swift, ghost-like manner bordering on the supernatural.

A CLEVER RUSE?
More than 100 sightings in upstate New York state have been recorded.

In August of 1869, a “wild-man” scare took place at Sucker Brook near Ogdensburg. The creature was never found. In 1883, the Plattsburgh Sentinel reported on the “great scare at Port Henry” involving a “wild man who scares women and frightens the children.” Some witnesses said it appeared to be wearing “an overcoat.” Could this have been fur or hair that was mistaken for clothing by those trying to make sense of what they were seeing? Once again, the creature eluded search parties.

Another cluster of sightings occurred during autumn of 1921, when residents living near Malone organized hunting parties to track down a “wild man.” Most of the reports were centered near the hamlet of Skerry, 12 miles to the southwest. A reporter for the Dunkirk Evening Observer described the tension in the area: “Women sleep ill o’ nights, children are kept from school, or guarded by adults on their way there and back, lonely females cower behind locked doors and men wag their heads in gossip as they ponder over the puzzle of the wild man”¦”

Skeptical authorities in Franklin County considered the story unlikely, instead opting to believe that it was “a clever ruse effected by bootleggers to take advantage of the absence of officers,” so they could more easily smuggle liquor across the Canadian border with ease.

‘SCARY AS HELL’
In the summer of 1969, an ape-like creature was spotted near a cabin at the Pumphouse campsite at Long Lake. The encounter took place at about 11 p.m., as a small oil lantern illuminated the inside of the cabin. One of the men reported afterwards that his wife told him she could see a raccoon staring at them through the window at the back of the cabin. Rolling over in bed, he glanced up and saw a large cone-shaped head and a dark face that appeared to be pushed in. Brownish fur encapsulated the face.

The next morning at a nearby stream, the couple found what appeared to be a heel print 8 inches wide.

Another sighting took place near Saranac Lake on a tranquil summer’s evening in August of 1996. Two men fishing in a boat on Pine Lake near dusk spotted what they took to be a black bear. Suddenly the “bear” stood up and walked off, leaving the men shaken. One of the witnesses said it stood 7 feet tall and had dark-brown hair.

“Its face was hairy yet fleshy around the upper cheeks. Its eyes were dark in color but clearly visible and had a brightness about them.”

The creature stared at the pair for 10 seconds before tilting its head then darting into the woods with the agility of a cat.

Said one of the men: “The whole experience was very, very upsetting. Although I can honestly say it did not attempt to threaten us “¦ it was scary as hell. That night I did not sleep one wink.”

Source: pressrepublican

The Mogollon Monster is Arizona’s version of Bigfoot. It supposedly lives, as you may have guessed, along the Mogollon Rim, although it has allegedly been spotted around Prescott and in the Grand Canyon. It seems to be a shy thing, but every now and then, it tears up a campsite or takes the campers’ food.

Don Davis, a cryptozoology investigator who died in 2002, claimed that he encountered the monster at a Boy Scout camp near Payson in the 1940s. He reported:

“The creature was huge. Its eyes were deep set and hard to see, but they seemed expressionless. His face seemed pretty much devoid of hair, but there seemed to be hair along the sides of his face. His chest, shoulders and arms were massive, especially the upper arms; easily upwards of 6 inches in diameter, perhaps much, much more. I could see he was pretty hairy, but didn’t observe really how thick the body hair was. The face/head was very square; square sides and squared-up chin, like a box.”

At mogollon monster.com, you can see pictures of Mogollon Monster poop and caves, watch some videos, find links to other MM sites and read an account from a woman who said she saw the creature last Christmas near Springerville. She described it as hairy, black and about 8 feet tall.

Source: arizona republic