Bigfoot search in West Virginia turns up ’suspicious’ footprints

A search for the Sasquatch, better known in North America as ‘Bigfoot,’ was held in the Dolly Sods wilds of West Virginia recently.Read on

More Than One in Three Americans Would Like to See Bigfoot Proven as Real, According to National Poll

- Just in time for Halloween, Animal Planet and Zogby Explore What Americans Believe About Ghosts, Goblins and Other Creatures of the Night — Animal Planet’s Series LOST TAPES and THE HAUNTED Bring These “Monsters” To Life -SILVER SPRING, Md., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ — With vampires, zombies and other legendary creatures flooding pop culture, it’s clear that Americans have a fascination with all things superhuman, supernatural and superbeast. But does fascination translate into full-blooded belief of these creatures, or do the TV shows, movies and books merely provide escapist entertainment for the masses? Animal Planet and Zogby polled 2,713 adults nationally to find out if they truly believe the stories, or if they think these creatures are as fictional as the childhood monsters under our beds.

Interesting results from the poll include:

 

·         More than one third of those surveyed (39%) said they have seen a ghost or know someone who has. Fifty-four percent have never seen a ghost before, while eight percent were unsure.

·         When asked what legendary creature they would like to see proven as real, thirty-six percent of people said they would like Bigfoot to be real, while 21% said ghosts. Twenty-seven percent said various other creatures, including vampires and werewolves.

·         About one in five respondents (21%) said they have been visited by a dead friend or relative, while 72% said they haven’t been and 8% were unsure.

·         When respondents were asked what creature they would least like to meet in a dark alley, werewolf topped the list with 20%. Thirteen percent said vampire, and 12% said zombie.

·         A surprising 35% percent of people said they believe in aliens, while 40% said they don’t, and 25% were unsure.

Overall, about one third of the population seems open to the notion that ghosts, cryptid creatures like Bigfoot, and aliens do exist. To satisfy this craving for supernatural entertainment, Animal Planet has two series, in premieres this fall, which tackle the unknown.

 

Every Tuesday at 10 PM (ET/PT), discover the stories behind the creatures that science refuses to recognize with LOST TAPES. Bigfoot, werewolves, vampires, the Jersey devil. . . while their existence has never been proven, alleged sightings and encounters suggest that there are species that have managed to elude the reach of mankind. You’ve heard the legends, but LOST TAPES is where myth meets reality.

 

Then, premiering November 22, at 10 PM (ET/PT), Animal Planet breaks into a new genre by introducing an original 10-part series, THE HAUNTED, which takes an intimate look at stories of people whose animals act as mediaries to the afterworld. Often the subjects of the most intense paranormal hauntings, animals are commonly believed to be more sensitive to spirits than people. Think of them as canaries in the paranormal coalmines. But when spirits afflict pets, the animals aren’t the only victims. Owners also fall prey to paranormal activity and will often stop at nothing to rid their homes and pets of paranormal spirits.

 

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: In honor of Halloween, there will be two special airings of the LOST TAPES: Vampire and LOST TAPES: Werewolf episodes. Viewers can tune-in on Sunday, October 25, and Thursday, October 29, from 7-8 PM (ET/PT) to catch both episodes.

 

LOST TAPES is produced for Animal Planet by Go Go Luckey. Gary Auerbach and Tina Gazzerro are the executive producers for Go Go Luckey, and Kevin Mohs is the executive producer for Animal Planet. Marc Etkind is the development executive for Animal Planet.

 

 

THE HAUNTED is produced for Animal Planet by Picture Shack productions. George Plamondon and Betsy Schechter are the executive producers for Picture Shack, and Dawn Sinsel is the executive producer for Animal Planet.

 

Animal Planet Media (APM), a multi-media business unit of Discovery Communications, is the world’s only entertainment brand that immerses viewers in the full range of life in the animal kingdom with rich, deep content via multiple platforms and offers animal lovers and pet owners access to a centralized online, television and mobile community for immersive, engaging, high-quality entertainment, information and enrichment. APM consists of the Animal Planet television network, available in more than 96 million homes in the US; online assets www.animalplanet.com, the ultimate online destination for all things animal; the 24/7 broadband channel, Animal Planet Beyond; Petfinder.com, the #1 pet-related Web property globally that facilitates pet adoption; and other media platforms including a robust Video-on-Demand (VOD) service; mobile content; and merchandising extensions.

 

SOURCE Animal Planet Media 

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Primatologist: If Bigfoot exists, it’s not an ape

By Mike Leggett

 

 

 

 

Sunday, October 04, 2009

 

TYLER — If Bigfoot exists in North America, the mythical beast is no mere ancient representative of an ape family that migrated across the Bering land mass with mastodons and ancient man, a primatologist says.

 

Bigfoot — or Sasquatch or Skunk Ape or Fouke Monster or whatever name you prefer — would have to be a completely new and specific species, Esteban Sarmiento told attendees at the ninth annual Texas Bigfoot Conference on Sept. 26. “If it’s real, this animal is exceedingly human-like,” Sarmiento said. “It would be our closest relative on earth.”

 

Sarmiento, though, wouldn’t exactly address the question of whether Bigfoot exists or whether he believes the tales about wild, hairy beasts that have drifted out of dark, wooded river bottoms and foggy rain forests for decades. What Sarmiento did say, though, is that, based on his studies of great apes in Africa, Sumatra and Borneo, whatever Bigfoot is, he’s not an ape.

 

Sarmiento spoke during the conference about the so-called Patterson-Gimlin film shot in 1967. A touchstone in Bigfoot lore and the believers’ burning bush, the film purports to show a female Bigfoot with pendulous breasts, striding across a rocky area in northern California.

 

The film has been debated by believers, denounced and debunked by critics, shown on television and dissected and disseminated on YouTube.

 

Roger Patterson was a would-be filmmaker who had been trying to get funding for a movie about Bigfoot. In early 1967, he rented a quality 16mm camera and convinced Robert Gimlin to travel with him into the wilderness to look for the creature . Amazingly, they found a hairy specimen walking away from them and into heavy timber in the distance. The creature shown in the film is covered in dark hair and walks with a human gait, even turning its head to look back at the camera before it disappears.

 

Gimlin, who’s still alive and attended the conference, swears the film is real. Patterson maintained its authenticity until his death, which happened in 1972. However, a man named Bob Heironimus has claimed he was paid $1,000 to don the suit and walk in front of the camera and out of sight.

 

Bigfoot and Sasquatch sightings have been common in the Pacific Northwest for decades. They’ve also been prevalent in East Texas and the surrounding big timber regions of Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

 

Believers think the common traits of a 7- to 9-foot tall, hairy, wild-eyed but super intelligent beast that normally avoids humans but often is spotted walking along roadways or standing close to remote cabins are related to the same species.

 

Bigfoot is rare enough, they say, that he must move around to find mates and new territory, and that’s why reports have filtered in for at least 150 years.

 

There have been some obscure and out-of-focus photos taken over the years, and there have been Bigfoot hoaxes and claims of capture and kills, even by respected members of the Bigfoot community. But no one ever has managed a quality photo that comes even close to Patterson’s film.

 

Bigfoot believers — the serious ones are called researchers to separate themselves from simple believers who seem to have devout faith as well in Atlantis, UFOs, chupacabras and aliens among us — have claimed the film shows a possible descendant of Gigantopithecus blacki, a great ape that migrated across the land bridge to live in North America. Sarmiento isn’t buying that.

 

“A great ape (chimp, gorilla or orangutuan) can’t do this. I guarantee there’s no great ape that can do this,” Sarmiento says, pointing to the frame in the film when the creature turns in full stride to look over its shoulder at the camera. “A gorilla couldn’t do this. It can’t turn it’s head. An ape would have to stop and turn around to look at the camera.” Apes can walk on two legs, he said, but not with the stride and gait the Patterson Bigfoot uses. That’s a human trait.

 

“And the breast is covered in hair. Gorillas don’t have hair on their breasts. Apes only have breasts if they’re nursing, but there’s no baby in the film,” Sarmiento said. “Females usually have a baby around, and I don’t think it would leave and not take the baby.” Sarmiento added that the bottom of the Bigfoot’s foot in the film isn’t an ape’s foot with an opposable toe and even noted that it looks somewhat like a padded house shoe.

 

So what is it? What does the film show? “If I can’t show it either way, why would I make the call,” Saremiento said. “If it’s real it has to be a whole new species. Is it a man in a monkey suit? I don’t know. If I said that and it turned out not to be, then I’d look stupid.”

Source : http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/outdoors/2009/10/04/1004bigfootside.html

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CNN Report : Bigfoot in Kentucky ?

A Bigfoot in Poland ? Is The DNA Bigfoot’s ?

Many of my readers ask me often for Bigfoot/Yeti news . Often the only news I find is of expeditions searching for Bigfoot and most times the news is not that interesting. Here are a couple of good reports and photos that were just brought to my attention. Hope the Bigfoot fans as well as others enjoy them.

Best wishes,

Donald Ryles PhD

 

 

It’s one thing to go on a nice walking holiday through beautiful Poland but it is another thing altogether to have that interrupted by some big hairy beast that no-one seems to be able to identify.

 

Such is the case for Piotr Kowalski, 27, from Warsaw who was enjoying his time in the Tatra mountains when one day he was peacefully filming an innocent mountain goat only to have is attention caught by some huge hairy creature emerging from behind some rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I saw this huge ape-like form hiding behind the rocks. When I saw it it was like being struck by a thunderbolt,” he told the daily Superexpress.

 

“Coming from Warsaw, I never really believed the local stories of a wild mountain ape-man roaming the slopes. But, now I do.”

 

Source: Austrian Times – Polish Yeti caught on film

 

The film has been handed over to the Nautilus Foundation whose president, Robert Bernatowicz says you can definitely see something much larger than a normal man moving on two legs.

 

At this point Yeti experts are headed to Poland to try and verify that this beast exists but in the meantime I’ll let you decide from what pictures we have.

Source : http://www.inquisitr.com/35102/bigfoot-discovered-to-have-polish-cousin-pics/

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Himalayan Bigfoot to undergo DNA testing

 

Michael Cohen , http://www.allnewsweb.com/page8948949.php

 

 

Making big news in China this week is a story about Himalaya’s legendary Yeti or Bigfoot. For centuries rumours of a half-man, half-ape that roams the upper Himalayas have circulated. The creature said to stand 3 metres tall has been allegedly seen by many locals as well as hikers visiting the area. In Chinese Yeti is often referred to as ‘Xueguai’.

A number of locals living near the Nepalese border claim not only to have seen the creature, but to have collected strands of its hair. Now, it has been reported that a team of scientists have collected these strands and have already confirmed that they do not belong to any local known animals.The scientists plan to do further testing on the hair strands.

One theory regarding the Yeti is that the sightings of the supposed cryptid are in fact that of a rare bear that lives in the area but is unknown to scientists. The scientists hope to settle this mystery with the DNA tests

 

Source: China News

Was it a Bigfoot, Prowler, Or Prank ?

Mike Conley’s Tales of the Weird: Man describes possible Bigfoot encounter in McDowell 

  By Mike Conley | The McDowell News

http://www2.mcdowellnews.com/content/2009/jul/22/mike-conleys-tales-weird-man-describes-possible-bi/

 

Published: July 22, 2009

 

For a long time, this column has featured some weird stories about Bigfoot sightings in the western North Carolina mountains. It seems that folks in Burke, Buncombe, Caldwell, Rutherford, Ashe and Macon counties have some strange tales to tell about a mysterious monster in their mountains.

Many of these tales can be found on the Web site for the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO). The BFRO’s Web site is a place where folks can post their sightings anonymously and be taken seriously by qualified investigators. The good people with the BFRO will look into the matter and follow up on your sighting, no matter how unusual it may be. The Web site now lists 50 reports from North Carolina.

Recently, someone submitted a report about a possible Bigfoot in McDowell County. Apparently, the weird incident happened in Little Switzerland near the Blue Ridge Parkway during the fall of last year.

The man who submitted the report states he has a keen interest in the subject and has read hundreds of reports on the BFRO Web site. He is a member of another Bigfoot research group and has investigated an alleged sighting in another state.

Last fall, he was invited to visit an elderly friend who lives in Little Switzerland. “I arrived after dark on a Tuesday and discovered that my friend’s summer home is located at the top of a mountain,” he writes on the BRFO site. “Her ‘development’ consists of about 60 homes tucked away in the woods on steep slopes accessed via a series of narrow gravel and macadam roads.”

His first thought was that this development was built in a likely Sasquatch habitat. “Indeed, as we sat watching TV after dinner, I began to have the creepy sensation of being watched, although my friend told me that neither of her neighbors was in residence that night,” the man wrote. “After the news, about 11:30, I told my friend I was stepping outside from some night air, when in fact my intention was to have a look around and listen to the woods.”

The man wasn’t outside for more than five minutes before he was startled by what sounded like wood knocks coming from the woods. He reportedly heard a single thump that came from the woods, followed by another “answering” thump five to 10 seconds later, coming from a different direction. The sounds were repeated every couple of minutes for perhaps 15 minutes and it sounded as if the second knock changed positions slightly. He estimated that they were a couple of hundred yards away from where he stood.

The man noticed a nearby woodpile. He picked up a log and added a third knock to the mix by hitting a nearby tree. The first knock was heard again quickly, almost as an answer to the man’s knocking against the tree. After few more times, the knocks stopped and the man went inside for the night.

The next day, the man went out running for some exercise. As he ran through an undeveloped area, he again had the feeling of being watched. While he was out, he found two, human-like footprints in the soft dirt of a nearby hillside. The next night, he again heard the knocking sounds coming from the same general direction. But this time, he also heard “a plaintive, eerie howling” coming from behind the house.

“It sounded every 30 seconds of so for perhaps 20 minutes, he wrote in his report. “I told myself it could be a dog tied outdoors. I decided not to interact that night. I just had a feeling that it was not the thing to do.”

That night, the man was awakened from his sleep by the sound of a heavy thumping on the roof. As he sat up in bed, he heard another couple of thumps that sounded as if they came from the area over the closet.

“Soon I was fast asleep again, only to be scared awake by what was clearly pounding on the walls of my room that was so loud, my first thought was, ‘Someone is breaking into my room!,’” he wrote in his report.

He sat up in bed and turned on the overhead light in his room. He felt like this sound had to be caused by a Bigfoot because of the loudness and the height of the outside walls. The sounds soon died down and the man had the feeling that the creature was leaving for the night. He heard nothing more.

“Next morning over breakfast, my hostess asked me if I had been awakened by that that ‘awful pounding’ on the roof,” reads his report on the BFRO site. “We traded our stories. My friend told me that nothing of the sort had happened before in the 25 years she and her husband had lived in the house.”

The elderly woman was concerned about the noise and asked what it could have been. The man said he didn’t quite know but would confer with some neighbors.

“Before leaving my friend to continue on my trip towards eastern NC, I inspected the area around her house for footprints,” reads his report. “I found none, but I discovered that a tall tree grew up through the back deck through a hole that had been cut for it. The tree would provide easy access to the deck and roof, while the low roof in front would make the roof accessible from that position.”

If you have seen or heard a Bigfoot, you too can post your story on the BFRO’s site. It can be found at www.bfro.net.

 

Contact Mike Conley at 652-3313, ext. 3422 or e-mail nconley@mcdowellnews.com

Touched By Sasquatch

A Bigfoot researcher says he had a close-up encounter with a living Sasquatch and believes evidence will soon be found to prove they exist.

 

 

 

 

Monterey, California – The wilderness is pitch-black at night and Monterey’s Bart Cutino says he and his colleagues like it that way as they try to solve one of the enduring mysteries of folklore.

 

Cutino, 35, is an unabashed, unapologetic member of The Bigfoot Research Organization, a diverse group of about 200 researchers and adventurers. They wander through the deep woods for days at a time in search of a legendary creature – indeed, they believe there are thousands of them – inhabiting the forests of North America and the world.

 

The vast majority, they’re convinced, are in the Pacific Northwest. Cutino says there have been at least 10 sightings over the years in Monterey County, the most intriguing by a University of Southern California psychology professor who says he saw one at dusk at the Fort Hunter Liggett military base while boar hunting in 2002.

 

 

“Sometimes I’ll just drive through the forest with the headlights off, moving at about 4 mph, using a thermal-imaging unit to see every living creature. I’ll do that for seven or eight hours at a time,” Cutino, who was born and raised in Monterey, says.

 

Other times, he and fellow researchers will go out in pairs or small groups, watching, waiting, listening and searching in the darkness for any evidence of a mostly nocturnal animal with an eternal life-span that got its nickname from a newspaper in 1958.

 

The “Bigfoot” moniker, he says, makes many of his fellow researchers wince because it implies to too many people that there is only one. It is believed to be a shy, enigmatic, probably mythical creature that reveals itself for precious seconds at a time, almost always to somebody without a camera or a camcorder.

 

Misinformation and pranksters have further belittled the ongoing quest to find the real-life Sasquatches, believed to be wood apes.

 

‘It wasn’t scary’

 

Cutino, an associate with NCW Group Wealth Management in Monterey, believes there are actually about 6,000 to 7,000 in North America alone – and is convinced that there’s nothing mythical about them.

 

Indeed, on Aug. 18, 2007, he feels certain he saw one on Chinook Pass, near Naches, Wash., during an outing he took with about 14 friends, including several other Bigfoot researchers.

 

According to a report he filed that summer for the Bigfoot Research Organization, he was standing a short distance from his campsite around midnight when he heard the breaking of a branch. He decided to check out the sound with a hand-held thermal-imaging unit, a device that uses body heat to make living things visible in the darkness.

 

What he saw 50 yards down a path appeared at first to be human being peering at him from behind a large tree, peeking first around one side of the trunk, then the other.

 

“About 20 to 25 seconds later, it stepped out from behind the tree and dropped on all fours, knees on the ground, arms extended and did this little head rotation in my direction,” Cutino says. “At that point I knew what it was, and it was surreal. It wasn’t scary. I just couldn’t believe it was happening.”

 

He says the Sasquatch propped itself momentarily onto its right shoulder and inched itself forward, at which point Cutino began snapping his fingers, trying to get the attention of a colleague who was 30 yards away, near a truck containing recording equipment.

 

“Every time I snapped my fingers, this thing would make a full-body, convulsive-type movement – very agile, very animalistic – and it would pause-freeze every time I stopped snapping my fingers,” Cutino says. “Then it rotated back onto its right shoulder, put a hand up next to its face, and splayed out the hand so I could clearly see all five digits on the hand.”

 

The creature stood up, went down again, then stood again before Cutino made a decision to run in the opposite direction, toward his friend with the recording equipment. By the time his colleague got the complicated recording equipment set up and directed, the Sasquatch was gone, Cutino says.

 

He’s convinced

 

Based on measurements taken later, using a 6-foot-3, 175-pound colleague as a model in the same location, Cutino estimates that the creature stood about 7 feet tall and weighed up to 575 pounds, with the vast majority of the weight in its upper torso.

 

The head was relatively small and unusually round, and its arms were an astounding length, perhaps even longer than its legs.

 

That there is no photographic evidence is disappointing, but Cutino says it didn’t temper his exhilaration that night.

 

“At the time, I’d been going out there looking for one of these for about four years, and wasn’t 110 percent convinced that they really existed, even though I had talked to a lot of people who said they had seen one,” he says. “But after that night, I’d bet everything I love and I’d sit back and smile, knowing that Bigfoot is real. That’s how certain I am of what I saw out there.”

 

Legendary Sasquatch

 

Cutino hails from a well-known Monterey family. His father, Bert, is co-founder and chief operating officer of the Sardine Factory restaurant and a principal in Cannery Row Co. and Foursome Development Co.

 

His late uncle, Pete, was a Hall of Fame water polo coach at the University of California-Berkeley. Both of his grandfathers, first-generation Sicilian immigrants, were fishermen on Monterey Bay during the heyday of the sardine era.

 

“Both of my nanus – my mom’s dad and my dad’s dad – used to see our version of the Loch Ness Monster out there in the bay. All the fishermen called it ‘Bobo,’” Cutino says. “Looking back at all the reports, I’m guessing that it might have been an oar fish – a very lengthy, serpentine-like fish that looks like it has a mane.”

 

Those tales, plus an interest his brother, Mark, had in Bigfoot, captured Bart’s fascination when he was only 6. He began reading everything he could about the legendary Sasquatch, watching TV reports and later scouring the Internet for information. Over the past six years, he’s spent over 200 nights in the forest.

 

Sightings have been reported in every state except Hawaii and Rhode Island, numbering in the thousands, with Washington (465) and California (411) at the top of the list. Nine Canadian provinces, and seven other countries – led by Malaysia, with 36 – also have turned in reports.

 

Skeptical scientists

 

The vast majority of the scientific world considers the Bigfoot phenomena to be largely bunk. Scientists have expressed doubts that such a species could exist in numbers great enough to perpetuate itself, wondered how such a creature could find enough food to sustain itself and noted that nobody has ever found the remains of a Sasquatch.

 

They have also questioned the validity of the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, shot in Bluff Creek in 1967, that purports to show a female Sasquatch retreating from her pursuers.

 

But Bigfoot researchers have arguments to combat each of those concerns.

 

“People have a right to be skeptical, especially when you consider an evidence pile littered with hoaxes, and what a poor job we’ve collectively done presenting our case as researchers,” Cutino concedes. “However, even sifting through the debris, one will find more viable, intriguing physical evidence and eyewitness testimony than 99 percent of our court systems receive.”

 

Technology, he says, is finally catching up with the needs of researchers, and he believes irrefutable images of a living Sasquatch are likely to be captured in the next few years.

 

Until that happens, and as long as his family – including his wife and baby daughter – remains supportive, he intends to continue his quest.

 

“My idea of a good time might be unpopular, being a Peninsula resident, but everybody else can have their tee times,” Cutino says. “Just put me in the middle of a dark redwood forest at 3 a.m. and I’m the happiest guy in the world.”

 

 

 

 

Author: Dennis Taylor

 

Source – http://www.montereyherald.com/

Walking In The Track Of The Beast

An investigator looks for tracks, hair and other clues to separate hoaxes from actual Bigfoot sightings in Florida.

 

 

 

 

Land O’Lakes, Florida – Midnight, March 5. A young man drives toward U.S. 19 on Gulf Trace Boulevard in Holiday. He turns on his high beams where the road curves along some woods, just past the recreation center.

 

His lights catch a pair of yellowish eyes, then a broad-shouldered figure, 8 or 9 feet tall, covered in brown hair. The creature freezes before running to the tree line. It stops to look back at the car.

 

The young man pulls over 20 feet away. There are no other vehicles on the road. He can now see the creature from the shoulders up. The man doesn’t know why, but he thinks to yell, “Hi!” No answer. The creature disappears into the woods. Believe it?

 

The young man sure seemed convincing when he reported the sighting to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. It dispatched Cathy Betz, an investigator who lives in Land O’Lakes. Her job is to separate hoaxes from actual Bigfoot sightings in Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties.

 

She’s never seen a Bigfoot herself, but she is convinced they exist. Someday, she says, we’ll get proof.

 

Meanwhile, she’ll keep her day job: saving lives as a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa. continued below

 

 

 

 

Cathy Betz uses training and ten years experience to investigate claims of Bigfoot sightings

 

 

Betz, 45, has believed in the cryptid ever since she was a little girl growing up in Florida and her father took her to see the 1972 docudrama The Legend of Boggy Creek.

 

She read up on the subject, exploring evidence, and she became convinced that something was really out there. In 2003 she joined the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

 

She has been a nurse for 25 years. At first, she was reluctant to tell the other nurses at about her new hobby. She just told them her week-long absences were spent on camping trips. Eventually she let slip that she was attending training expeditions with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

 

They gave her some ribbing, but she didn’t hold their agnosticism against them.

 

“I don’t expect anybody to believe it,” she says. “I don’t disrespect you for that.”

 

She enjoys the trips as a way to explore the outdoors with a group of interesting and like-minded people, she says. They sleep in tents, look around for signs of Bigfoot, and get training in tracking and hair identification.

 

“I never imagined myself doing this kind of thing 10 years ago,” Betz says. “But I love it.”

 

She has been on four expeditions in Florida and one in North Carolina, and she is now on another in Utah. It was on the North Carolina expedition in 2008 that she had her closest encounter with Sasquatch.

 

At least she believes it was Sasquatch. It could have been a bear. Something walked around the tent, touching the fabric and grunting.

 

“I can’t say with certainty what it was,” Betz said, “but it was in a place with a lot of sightings.”

 

She has collected animal skulls from her various outings, many of which now decorate her home at the end of a dirt road in Land O’Lakes. In her big leafy yard, another skull hangs on a cross of sticks – leftover Halloween decorations, she says.

 

Her bathroom is decorated with enormous exotic bugs that she bought on eBay and framed. She awakes in the morning to crowing roosters and the chirps of her pet parakeet, Skittles.

 

 

Two days after the Holiday man said he saw a swamp monster, Betz met him at the scene. She compared his story to the version he submitted to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization online. It was consistent.

 

They searched for tracks but didn’t find any. He told her he was sure he had not seen a bear or a human.

 

Betz’s notes are secret, she says, in order to protect the witnesses. She says the young man from Holiday did not want to be identified for this article.

 

She considers her role to be much like what a police investigator does.

 

“We don’t want to be considered like a fluff organization,” she says. “In order to be taken seriously, we feel like we should separate out the stories that don’t pan out.”

 

As part of her investigations, she often cross-check facts, such as if the witness says it was a full moon. And she examines the area, looking for tracks, hair and other clues. She knows all about inspecting footprints for dermal ridges and mid-tarsal breaks.

 

“We’re really a research and science-based organization trying to get as much evidence as we can,” she says. “We don’t want people to think that we’re just throwing everything out there that we get.”

 

Based on reported sightings, Betz believes Bigfoot creatures are much like many other Floridians – they leave for the summer. They tend to travel in nuclear families, she says. They eat fish and berries; they kill deer by breaking their back legs, slitting them down the gut, and extracting the liver.

 

She estimates there are 5,000 to 10,000 of them across the continent.

 

Scientists doubt that.

 

“The scientific community is sympathetic to the possibility, but there isn’t a whole lot of concrete evidence that is causing a lot of scientists to give up their current research projects and go out looking for Bigfoot,” said David Daegling, an anthropology professor at the University of Florida and author of Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America’s Enduring Legend. “The problem with eyewitness testimony is that it can’t stand on its own from the standpoint of scientific evidence of an uncatalogued animal being out there.”

 

Henry Cabbage, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said Bigfoot’s existence has not been confirmed. But the agency does keep a file on the subject, which includes news clippings and letters from people requesting permits to go out and catch one.

 

So, feeling spurned by the scientific establishment, Bigfoot believers have developed their own systems for collecting and corroborating evidence. They have formal reports, credibility ratings, training expeditions and special investigators, like Florida’s own Cathy Betz.

 

 

 

When Betz completed her report on the Holiday Bigfoot, it was classified as Class A – the highest rating of credibility, meaning it was unlikely, based on the observer’s conditions, that some other animal was mistaken for a Bigfoot. The report joined the more than 3,700 others posted to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization’s Web site.

 

“Thousands of people for hundreds of years have been seeing something out there and are describing pretty much the same thing,” she said. “Most people don’t have anything to lose or to gain, but they’re still coming forward.”

 

But the physical proof is still rather scant, and Betz knows this. Photographs and videos are tenuous, and hair samples and footprints are suspect. (By contrast, there are just 100 Florida panthers, and one of them was caught on video two weeks ago.)

 

“It’s going to take a body,” Betz says.

 

Why has no one found one yet?

 

Betz says it’s possible that the Bigfoot bury their dead. She thinks there are bones, but they’re probably sitting unidentified in a museum somewhere.

 

Bears are hit by cars or shot by hunters in Florida all the time. Why not Bigfoot? Betz said there was once a Bigfoot hit by a car in the Everglades, but it escaped to the swamp.

 

But when a carcass is found, and Betz is confident one will be, all those people who make fun of her now will be believers, too.

 

She just hopes the species will be protected.

 

“Once it’s established that it’s out there, we’re afraid of what’s going to happen,” she said, fearing poachers or the government. “It’s going to be a circus.”

 

 

 

 

Author: Isaac Arnsdorf

 

Source – http://www.tampabay.com/

Skunk River Sasquatch Sighting

It’s big, it’s hairy, and it’s been sighted in Jefferson County. Just don’t call it bigfoot.

 

 

Fairfield, Iowa – “I’m not saying that is what it is by any means. I just had somebody call this office and report that is what they’d seen,” said Shawn Morrissey, operations and natural resource manager for Jefferson County Conservation.

 

Morrissey has received two reports of a large biped roaming the Skunk River valley on the eastern side of the county in as many years.

 

The first report came during the summer of 2007, and the second during the fall of last year.

 

The most recent caller claimed to have waited several months to contact officials after seeing what he described as a large hairy beast walking on two legs.

 

“It was pretty wishy-washy,” Morrissey said. “It’s my own personal feeling they saw something that tricked their eyes and was a very explainable animal.”

 

Morrissey said a more probable explanation would be the person saw a horse or a hunter wearing a Ghillie Suit, a type of a camouflage that can look like it’s covered in hair.

 

Image: A hunter wearing a Ghillie Suit

 

“I’m not going to say they didn’t see something. But I think the more likely thing is they saw something in a flash or at a strange angle,” Morrissey said.

 

The sightings have not been investigated by county officials. Morrissey said he did not know the names of those who made the reports.

 

It’s unlikely a large fur-covered biped could play hide and seek in Iowa wilderness and remain undocumented. The state simply doesn’t have enough large stretches of timber where such a creature could live, Morrissey said.

 

“This is a very populated state really. There aren’t any big chunks of wilderness,” he said.

 

And during the winter when trees are stripped of their leaves, the ground is wide open to any plane passing overhead.

 

“Most actual animals have some kind of physical evidence,” Morrissey added.

 

However, common sense hasn’t stopped Sasquatch from popping up all over the state.

 

The Bigfoot Field Research Organization Web site, www.bfro.net, lists 40 bigfoot sightings in Iowa dating back to 1970, three of which come from Jefferson County, and one from Lee County.

 

 

 

Author: Nicholas Bergin

 

Source – http://www.thehawkeye.com/

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Footprints Are Compelling Evidence

A man who has had strange encounters over the years says the large footprints, recently found in British Columbia, are good evidence of an unknown creature living in the forest.

 

 

Prince George,British Columbia – The discovery of what may be evidence of a Sasquatch near Moricetown has caught the eye of a local expert. Leo Selzer says the photos of very large footprints posted on a website by fellow Sasquatch researcher Brian Vike “hardly do justice to what you look at in real life,” but are similar to what he’s come across.

 

“The measurements coincide, the stride coincides, the general physical appearance of the footprints coincides with other evidence that I have found,” Selzer said.

 

Vike, who lives in Houston and is also a UFO enthusiast, drove out to Moriarty, about 430 km. west of Prince George, after receiving an e-mail from someone who came across the footprints on Monday morning after strange noises were heard out in the dark the evening before.

 

Along with taking the photos, Vike collected some samples of blood and hair that he plans to send off for testing.

 

After a handful of strange encounters over the years, particularly in the Gregg Creek area, Selzer is now convinced the creature is more than mythical.

 

He has set up his own web site, www.sasquatch-pg.net, to share his knowledge and collect stories from others more reluctant to tell them to others for fear of getting strange looks in return.

 

Vike’s Sasquatch website is found at www.bigfoot-sasquatch.blogspot.com.

 

Selzer maintains people have come across Sasquatches and did not even know it, incorrectly identifying them as bears. There have been times when it’s been the other way around.

 

“I’ve had people come to me and say ‘hey, look, I’ve just photographed some tremendous Sasquatch footprints, come and take a look at them,’ and they’ve turned out to be very large grizzly bear tracks,” Selzer said.

 

What’s the difference between a grizzly track and a Sasquatch track?

 

A lack of claw marks is a good first sign it’s not a bear, but Selzer added a Sasquatch footprint resembles a small child’s.

 

“You know how the foot of a four-year-old child is kind of boxy looking and from the big toe to the little toe it doesn’t have as much of a slant as an adult’s? That’s very much what a Sasquatch footprint looks like,” Selzer said.

 

Contrary to popular belief, the size of a Sasquatch print can be as little as four to five inches long in the case of the youngsters old enough to walk, although the large males’ are as much as 18 inches and 16 inches in the case of the females.

 

They are very family oriented, Selzer added, so the footprints can be found in groups of various sizes although the young adults without mates often travel alone.

 

What’s the difference between a human footprint and a Sasquatch’s?

 

“Sasquatches don’t have an arch,” he said. “They have additional joints within the foot so they have a flat foot that’s capable of wrapping around things better than the human foot with an arch.”

 

However, they’re still a far cry from an ape or chimpanzee.

 

“Sasquatches are not able to grab things with their foot any more than a human,” he said.

 

Because of job commitments, Selzer hasn’t been able to get out to search for more evidence but when he gets the chance he plans to establish contact with a family he believes is roaming around the Gregg Creek area.

 

 

 

Author: Mark Nielsen

 

Source – http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/

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