Bigfoot's indelible imprint (No, not Janet Reno...The REAL Bigfoot!)

USA Today ^ | 11-1-02 | Marco R. della Cava

[Johnny Shear]

IN THE SISKIYOU MOUNTAINS, Ore. — There are times in life when we must summon every shred of courage to stand tall and unflinching in the face of fear. This is not one of them. It is 2 a.m., and outside a flimsy tent lit by a full moon something stirs in this primeval forest.

[Johnny Shear]

I LOVE this stuff.

We had a Bigfoot type creature in my Indiana home town when I was a kid...His name was Mo-Mo!

Anybody ever REALLY see a Bigfoot?

[LibWhacker]

Janet Reno IS the real Bigfoot.

[LibWhacker]

Click here to hear Bigfoot howl (and do other nasty things).

[Physicist]

There's no obvious reason why something like bigfoot couldn't exist, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone claims to have discovered a new species of beetle, I'll take his word for it that a specimen has been placed in a drawer somewhere in the British Museum. If someone claims to have discovered a second living species of hominid, he'd better bring one in.

[cactusSharp]

I've studied this stuff or decades and am convinced
it is real...but evil,not to be flipped with

maybe some demon/like kicked outta heaven.....
....I know a Johnson credible type who saw the
same thing 18 years ago in Colorado and the
smell still nauseates him when he thinks about
it.

[Paul Atreides]

Photos don't lie.

[Johnny Shear]

I've studied this stuff or decades and am convinced it is real...but evil,not to be flipped with

maybe some demon/like kicked outta heaven.....

Really? Like figments of people's imaginations or real flesh (fur)?

[onedoug]

Though no fossils, anywhere.

[humblegunner]

"It's interesting that something allegedly that large has never been found."

I have an exwife this guy needs to talk to...

[mhking]

"Hold muh beer 'n watch this!" PING....

If you want on or off this list, please let me know!
This has come about after much badgering by you, my friends and extended family...

[weikel]

ROTFLMAO.

[spetznaz]

I personally do not believe in the existance of Sasquatch/bigfoot/yeti etc, but there is a wee chance it might be true. After all for many years explorers thought that the Mountain Gorilla in Africa and the Orangotang in Asia were figments exuded from the superstitious imaginations of the natives, but to their chagrin both gorillas and Orangs came to be real. Hence there is a slight chance that Sasquatch exists. As for the lack of bodies it is really not that often that someone out in the woods comes upon a bear carcass! Hence it is within the realm of probability that a rarer species like Sasquatch (if it exists) would have an even harder likelihood of a carcass been discovered! A good example is stray cats! Unless they get run over by a vehicle one never finds their remains after their demise. Hence lack of body evidence does not necessarily mean no creature.

However my personal theory is that maybe what the BigFott 'witnesses' have seen is either a prank, or might be an escaped pet goreat ape (ranging from an orang to a gorilla ....maybe even a large gibbon)! After all the gorilla is a creature that is unlike any found in the States, and maybe confusion could come from a sighting.

And although a wild gorilla running free in North America may seem absurd at first, remember that in Britain there have been reports of Lions, Leopards and 'mystery cats' stalking he wild countryside and killing sheep! On top of that some have actually been caught, and to the surpirse of naturalist turned out to be 'amalgamations' of two cat species (eg when a Male lion and a female tiger mate they produce offspring called a Liger which is larger than a lion or tiger; and when a male tiger and a lioness mate they produce a Tigon. Do a search on them ...especially the Liger. Interesting). Anyways the British cats were not Ligers or Tigons, but there were several Leopards, and some Leopard/Cougar combinations! The leopards were especially bad for the sheep farmers since leopards have a penchant for slaughtering for pleasure (they are the only cat species that does that, and int heir native Africa they are feared more than the lion). Hence if exotic Wild cats can be found in the UK there is a chance a gorilla could be lose in North America.

Anyways i would say Sasquatch is merely wishful thinking. Or it might be an escaped ape. However i doubt there is actually some hominid bipedal creature chilling out in the woods!

It is possible, but at the same time highly improbable.

[cactusSharp]

actually,hair has been found and analysed
the results were: of unknown origin....
it was done TWICE (the test)
in NMexico and New york as well

[ErnBatavia]

Bigfoot lurks, but probably not on FR....

[Johnny Shear]

Yeah, I've heard about those tests. But nothing ever made me think it was anything more than an unidentified animal of some sort...Not a "Demon". And besides, why would some kind of demon leave any evidence?

Have you got any links on the hair tests? It seems to me that if someone really found some kind of new species (Based on DNA) we would have heard a LOT more about it...

[Ditter]

Do you know why you never find a dead bear in the woods? Other bears eat them. We have been bear hunting in Canada. The bear was skinned & the hide carried back with us. Our guide said the body of the bear we left behind would be totally gone in 24 hours. I am not at all convinced that Bigfoot exsists, but if he does this would be his fate in bear country.

[cavtrooper21]

how's about vacation next year? Sounds like fun! Scare the p**p outa MrsCT21!

[demosthenes the elder]

"Think about it: If illusion alone could generate such devotion, you'd have a Unicorn Society and a Leprechaun Society. But you don't,"

But we DO - we call them "wiccans"

haven't finished the article, haven't read the posts, but couldn't resist the potshot.

[Antoninus]

Though no fossils, anywhere.

That's not necessarily true...

Gigantopithecus

[AuntB]

Bumping for a later read....I want them trained to go after the envirofreaks that inhabit these same forests. :<)

To answer your question, a psychologist from Grants Pass tells the most credible tale of a bigfoot encounter (near Oregon Caves last year) that I've ever heard. Hey, Hillary got elected senator..anything is possible!

[oldfart]

I used to crawl around in caves a lot. There are a lot of them (caves) around the western mountains, so I got to spend a lot of time in the woods too. I met two people who had seen Bigfoot. One is a lady who was camped with her husband in southern Oregon. They had laid their sleeping bags out behind the car and were more or less sound asleep. She was awakened by a foul odor and realized something was between her and the car. She turned her flashlight on it and saw what she first thought was a bear. Then it turned to see where the light was coming from and she saw its face. She screamed and it took off. Her husband woke up but didn't even see it.
The other was a case where several guys were sleeping in the woods near their jeep. It was a clear night with lots of stars. Again, the odor woke my friend up. He said he could 'feel' something was near, but he couldn't see anything. As a matter of fact, he couldn't see the stars either. He shouted, the stars suddenly reappeared, he woke his partners and they adjourned their camping trip to a nearby city park.
I haven't seen one, but then, I haven't seen the other side of the moon either. I believe there is another side to the moon, just as I believe there is something out there that just wants to be left alone.

[Buffalo Head]

In my younger days I believed in both Flying Saucers and Bigfoot. There seemed be convincing evidence in those less technically sophisticated times. Most of the photos and other evidence have sense been determined to be hoaxes.

I am now 99% convinced that neither exists nor ever existed. That conclusion results from the lack of video evidence. Today, it seems that 10% of the population travels with camcorders full time and hardly a newsworthy event occurs without good video surfacing almost immediately. Lack of reliable evidence today is very revealing.

[Buffalo Head]

sense = since

[onedoug]

Granted. Though it is not represented anywhere in the later and contemporary geologic column, and so is most likely extinct from near the time of its last examples. In China, I think.

[goody2shooz]

You really think if it wanted to be left alone the creature would be checking out automobiles?

Really, this Bigfoot seems as curious about us as we are of it. Or maybe it is a male and a closet automobile freak. This would reinforce my female intuition that testosterone is attracted to the combination of steel, petrol and synthetic rubber!

[albee]

"I never saw a Bigfoot
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one."

Apologies to Mr. Gillete

[WyCoKsRepublican]

#14 I'm juth' an odinaweh guy. Thith is thimply ludicrith! Bethides, wit' her on the bed in the hotel, how wath' I to wesith?

[matrix]

Skunk Ape Other mysterious primates of the world may more famous, and more fearsome, and more celebrated in tantalizingly indistinct frames of 16mm film, but only one big hairy monster can rightfully claim to be the stinkiest: the Skunk Ape of the Florida Everglades. The creature is generally described as being about seven feet tall and 300 pounds, covered in a dark fur the color of mud, and bearing a distinct and far-ranging aroma redolent of an unholy mixture of skunk, rotten eggs and cow manure. "It stunk awful, like a dog that hasn't been bathed in a year and suddenly gets rained on," Charlie Stoeckman said in an evocative account of his Skunk Ape sighting in the Florida Keys in 1977. Some accounts indicate that the Skunk Ape has been a part of Everglades lore for decades, but the swamp beast only became widely reported in the cultural aftermath of the 1967 Patterson Bigfoot film. In addition to being an era of Bigfoot mania, the 1970s were also the period when developers began a concerted foray into the Everglades. This led to large numbers of out-of-towners being exposed to the colorful legends of the local folk, who may have been willing to spin extravagant tall tales of the Skunk Ape just to fool the city slickers. Early stories of the Skunk Ape contained a conspiratorial edge, as it was rumored that the government had captured a living specimen and the Army held it captive in a secret vault at Everglades National Park, until the Skunk Ape smashed through a concrete wall and escaped. There are dozens of sightings on record from throughout the '70s, almost all of them containing a specification of the creature's pungent odor. And on the whole, the tales are more tongue-in-cheek than most monster sightings usually are -- the Skunk Ape is regarded as an old buddy rather than a terror of the wild, and in some cases, you can almost see the eyewitness winking at you in the words of his report. "Sometimes, sitting by the fire, I'd hear him walking in the brush," Jim Spink said in describing a Skunk Ape encounter from 1975. "He'd approach, standing there in the jungle. I knew he was there. I'd say, 'Hi, come on in. Have some coffee.' But he never did." Although Skunk Ape sightings have slacked off in recent years, the creature enjoyed something of a comeback in 1997. A guided tour group in Ochopee saw a large, ape-like animal ambling through the outskirts of a swamp. Soon afterward, Ochopee fire chief Vince Doerr saw a similar creature cross the road near his home and rush into the swamp. Doerr managed to take a distant snapshot of the supposed Skunk Ape (shown on this page) before it disappeared. This "first ever photograph" of the Everglades monster stirred a great deal of publicity, but Doerr himself denied that he had captured proof of anything extraordinary. The fire chief believed it was simply a prankster in a gorilla suit. "I just think someone's playing games. I just looked at it and laughed," Doerr said. "If I thought it was real, I would have run in there, beat it to death and sold it to the National Enquirer."

[matrix]

  The Skunk Ape is one of the many local variations

of the Bigfoot phenomena, this one hails from way

down south in Dixie; in particular Florida, the

Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, (where's he's

been given the delightful moniker, Pigman),

and the swampy bottomlands of the Mississippi River.  The creature became more than just a local story in 1973, when a rash of reports brought him to national attention.  The skunk ape was even covered by all three national TV network news shows, though Walter Cronkite looked

as if he was having a hard time repressing a snicker as

he narrated the account.

  The report that made a celebrity out of the skunk ape

was one in which a Florida man claimed that he had actually hit one of the creatures while it was crossing the road.  The monster was obviously hurt, the man said, but it managed to limp off the road and into the dense swamp, where it disappeared.  The police examined the man's car and determined that he had indeed hit something - the fender was dented and there were traces of blood and fur on the car.  Investigators thought the man had hit a cow.  The witness insisted differently, it was a large hairy biped with an evil smell, he said.  It was the creature known as the skunk ape.

  While a bad odor is a feature of many Bigfoot stories, the Southern variety does appear to possess a particularly awful smell - hence the name skunk ape.  When Ralph Chambers reported spotting the thing near his Elfers, Florida home in 1966, he says that he particularly remembers the creature's sickening odor.  What Chambers saw was big, hairy, over seven feet tall, and four feet wide.  The thing vanished into the swamp and when Chambers tried to track it with his dogs, the poor pooches seemed so disgusted by the strong odor that

                                                       they would not follow the trail.  Chambers

                                                       said that a year later the thing showed up

                                                       in his backyard.  The dogs attacked it, but

                                                       the creature barely noticed.  According to

                                                       Chambers, "The dogs kept on biting at its

                                                       ankles and feet."  But the thing turned very

                                                       slowly away and started walking down the

                                                       road that led back to the swamp.

                                                         A man named H.C. Osborn, an engineer

                                                       and amatuer archaeologist, said that he'd

                                                       been hearing skunk ape stories for years,

                                                       and he was told they had been circulated

                                                       among trappers and fishermen since the

                                                       1920's.  But Osborn insisted he had never

                                                       personally believed any of the stories until

                                                       one day in the spring of 1970 he and four

                                                       friends were digging up an Indian mound

                                                       in Florida's Big Cypress Swamp, and the

                                                       creature popped up right in front of them.

                                                       "It's made a believer out of me," said the

                                                       bewildered Osborn.  He too said the beast

                                                       was seven feet tall, and he estimated that it

                                                       must have weighed some 700 pounds.

  The creature left footprints in the soft earth, and Osborn measured them at a lenght of some17 1/2 inches, and a width of 11 1/4 inches at the toes.  "In later trips we found smaller tracks indicating that there are at least three of them in that section of the swamp."

  One of the other members of Osborn's group, Frank Hudson, said, "We have talked to many old-timers in the area.  They say they are afraid to talk openly about it.  They thought people would laugh at them or think they were crazy."

  In June of 1977, a heavily advertised

film called "Sasquatch" was playing in

Florida.  Commercials for the film were

appearing regularly on television, and

as one might imagine, they seemed to

stimulate a rash of skunk ape sightings.

Three youths reported to the Charlotte

County Sheriff's Department that they

saw the creature twice in one night.

The first sighting took place at 9:00 PM,

the secondaround midnight.  They said

the creature was about seven feet tall,

had reddish-brown, and didn't seem to

friendly, it stood up and then growled

at them.  Deputy Carl Williams drove

all around the area where the sightings

were made.  At a small pond he caught

"something" in the beam of his police

spotlight.  "It was a big animal ... it was

hunched over and seemed to be having

a drink."  It had long brown hair, and

when hit with the spotlight, lumbered

off into the woods.

  The deputy's first thought was that the

creature was a bear, for bears are fairly

common in the region.  "I couldn't say

it was wasn't a bear for sure, but it just

seems logical that it must have been,"

Williams said.  He did however, think it

a bit passing strange that the creature

had reddsh hair while most of the bears

he had ever seen were black ...

 

.

On September the 8th, 1998   after an eight month vigil,   Dave Shealy took this shot of a skunk ape crossing the backyard of his Collier Co.             Florida home.

Everglades Day Safari tour guide Dow Rowland saw a Skunk Ape when he had a dozen tourists in   his Ford van on July 18th, 1997

"It did look like some sort of a creature out there in the swamp,   but I thought it was a guy in a       gorilla suit.  I had to tell the       British children on the tour it           wasn't a real creature."

                          Dow Roland

Three days later Collier County   Fire Chief Vince Doerr snapped the picture above of a skunk ape           on July 21st, 1997.

[matrix]

SKUNK APE_ HEAR SOUNDS!

[matrix]

HOWL! Win Media

[agrandis]

there was a guy who rode a mo-ped in a little town in FL I lived in who they called Sasquatch. That's the closest thing I've ever seen. Talked to him, too - a nice guy.

[Rebelbase]

I've camped all over the Big Cypress and Everglades when I was a kid. One night we were camped about 10 miles from the nearest gravel road and in the middle of the night I heard some very wierd moaning, screaming type sounds (no jokes please!) off in the distance, then it faded to quiet...might have been a panther, but its fun to think otherwise.

I had great fun making a pair of "bigfeet" out of 1/4 plywood, layered, sculpted and sanded then nailed to a pair of old tennis shoes. I'd put them on in them middle of the night and stomp around in the mud near the younger kid's tents......Come morning their eyes were as wide as saucers!

[tubebender]

From 1972 till 1993 we owned a fishing lodge on the Klamath River near Bluff Creek between Orleans and Weitchpec Ca. We were about 10 miles from a hot spot for bigfoot. I was listening to the CB radio one sunday in the mid seventies and heard the call for the search and rescue of the gal abducted by Bigfoot. (it was a hoax of some hollywierd types.) My neighbor up there was a retired sheriff told me he was on his hose looking for his cattle above our place when the horse bolted and threw him off. At the same time his three dogs started whining and cowering plus there was a horrible smell that gagged him. H esaid he damn near ran all the way back to the house with his hair standing on end. The horse was waiting for him there.

Do a goggle search for the Willow Creek Museum for further info.

[KneelBeforeZod]

[geopyg]

I used to do work with a Fish & Wildlife Officer in Washington State. One day he was working with me he said he missed out going down to Vancouver, Washington to get some hair off of a fence that had reportedly ben crossed by a Bigfoot. I found it interesting that the State would send someone down to get the sample. If the Fish & Wildlife "experts" think the whole idea of Bigfoot is goofy - wouldn't they just tell the "crackpot" to send the sample through the mail?

[Jeff Chandler]

It isn't likely that an escaped ape could survive the winters in the mountains of Oregon, so it's either a Bigfoot, or a hoax.

I would love to believe in Bigfoot and Flying saucers, I really would, but I don't.

[walkingdead]

I hail from way North-Eastern California (Burney), and I have in fact heard him before. Sounds like the deepest sound you've ever heard mixed with a super high pitch scream. Almost like something big killing something much smaller. Weird, and freaky.

A couple of buddies and I were out in the woods drinking some beers back in high school. Well we heard that sound (none of us had ever heard it before) and decided we'd better get the heck outta there. Anyway, a few months passed and we all kinda forgot about it. Well one night I was watching this bigfoot documentary where this dude caught the sound on audio tape. When they played that tape every hair on my body stood on end. It was pretty much exactly the same sound.

Another time we were out shooting our .22's and we heard something walking up the cliff from us, in fall, under oak trees, something walking on two feet, two big feet. If you've spent alot of time outdoors you know the sound of something walking on two feet. You cannot mistake it for any other sound, not deer, not bear not anything.

My last personal experience was the one where we actually smelt it, and boy are people right. I thought my buddy had done the unthinkable, and I was giving him a ration of crud before I realized he wasn't joking. Something stunk, and it didn't come out of any of us. (I was actually glad that smell didn't come from my buddy. I couldn't have been his friend much longer, if his butt smelled like that!)

Anyway, I have many more stories that I've heard from others who lived there, but these are just my personal experiences. Others have had way better......

[JavaTheHutt]

However my personal theory is that maybe what the BigFott 'witnesses' have seen is either a prank, or might be an escaped pet goreat ape (ranging from an orang to a gorilla ....maybe even a large gibbon)! After all the gorilla is a creature that is unlike any found in the States, and maybe confusion could come from a sighting.

I remember as a kid reading about Teddy Roosevelt encountering a sasquatch while on a hunting trip in California. Teddy Roosevelt was a pretty accomplished hunter, and went on safaris in Africa more than once. He couldn't identify what it was he saw standing on the opposite side of the river, staring him down.

Based on his experience as a hunter, and his overall level of intelligence, I believe he would have been able to identify an ape if he had seen one.

[beachn4fun]

Here is another little piece to add to the puzzle. A friend of mine from Oregon claimed that he and some friends of his (this being years ago of course) pulled that famous "bigfoot in the woods looking at the camera" prank. He brought this up all by himself with no leading from any of us in the group. Now, him being a prankster in the first place, I do have to have a smidgen of doubt to his confession. Anyway, I say, show me the "bigfoot" before I'll believe.

[Revolting cat!]

"Who's that walkin' round here, Mercy
Sounds like baby patter, baby elephant patter thats what I calls it
Say up in Harlem at a table for two
There were four of us,
me, your big feet and you
From your ankles up, I'd say you sure look sweet
From there down there's just too much feet
Yes, your feets too big
Don't want ya, cause ya feets too big
Can't use ya, cause ya feets too big
I really hate ya, cause ya feets too big"

YOUR FEETS TOO BIG (Bensen - Fisher -The Four Inkspots), Fats Waller Version of Lyrics

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Bumping for a later read....I want them trained to go after the envirofreaks that inhabit these same forests. :<)

Bigfoot, there is tree sitter in tree. Be good boy, shake tree hard!