Posted on 03/29/2022 10:03:06 PM PDT by nickcarraway
After skipping 2021 out of COVID caution, the long-running Oklahoma Bigfoot Symposium returned in March to a crowd of believers, some who say they’ve had their own close encounters with the fabled beast.
Cherokee Nation citizen, Sissy Turner, said that as a child she saw Bigfoot twice, the first time with her brother in Hulbert, then later in the same rural area next to a lone tree.
“We were just goofing off, running up the road and stuff,” she said. “So, we looked over and right next to the tree, it was standing, and it had its arm up on a limb. That limb was at least 7 foot tall. We just kept looking at it, looking at it, and it was massive. So we got scared and run back to the house. Our mom, she took us back up there in the car and it was gone.”
The Oklahoma Bigfoot Symposium, hosted by the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center, was held March 12-13 at CC Camp near Stilwell. A tradition since 2012, the event featured vendors, Bigfoot-related artifacts, evidence and noted speakers.
A special symposium guest was the beast itself, as portrayed – in a long-haired costume – by D.W. Lee, a Cherokee Nation citizen and research center executive director who claims to have encountered the elusive Bigfoot on more than 20 occasions since the 1990s.
“That’s right – we managed to drag Bigfoot in from the woods to do a presentation,” he joked in an event preview.
The event’s keynote speaker was Ken Gerhard, a noted cryptozoology author and TV personality.
“I investigate evidence of unknown animals, which includes Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, the chupacabra, thunderbirds,” said Gerhard, who has appeared in a number of related television programs on the History Channel, Travel Channel, National Geographic, Syfy and more. “I’ve investigated all of the different types of mysterious animals.”
Gerhard says he’s never seen Bigfoot himself, but may have captured its sounds.
“I’m convinced I’ve heard and recorded vocalizations that can’t be explained,” he said. “I’ve found footprints and a possible bedding area – some weird stick structures. I’ve interviewed hundreds of eyewitnesses, and I’ve done field research all over North America from Alaska to Central America, and I’m convinced they exist.”
Researchers note that wooded, rural areas, like those in Adair County, are the perfect habitat for the towering creature.
“Eastern Oklahoma has kind of been a hotspot for Bigfoot activity in recent years,” Gerhard said. “There seems to be a lot of sightings. As you would expect, the vast majority of it is in the wilderness areas where you have a lot of natural resources and a lower population density.”
Descriptions of Bigfoot vary, but the most common attributes include a height of up to 10 feet and a weight between 400-1,000 pounds. Most, researchers say, are black, brown or a reddish color. A stark white variation is uncommon, but researchers claim they exist even in Adair County.
Arguably the most widely recognized Bigfoot footage was taken in 1967 in northern California. The shaky video from Roger Patterson and Robert “Bob” Gimlin shows what they alleged was a female Bigfoot loping alongside a creek.
The lack of definitive proof, Gerhard says, may be attributed to the beast’s low population and elusive nature.
“Really the only logical way to explain it would be that Bigfoot, first of all, is an extremely rare species,” he said. “It’s all speculation, but it’s probably just a few thousand animals spread across the continent. The other thing is that Bigfoot must have adapted behavior patterns specifically not to be found by humans. They are great at hiding.”
Biologist Jim Whitehead, who manned a table filled with castings of purported Bigfoot impressions, has said that sightings date back to the (Cherokee) Removal era. For Dennis Henderson, of Tahlequah, a chance meeting with Bigfoot was “traumatizing.”
“I was out in southeastern Oklahoma with my girlfriend – who’s my wife now 38 years later – and we were camping up on a ridge by ourselves,” he said. “All of a sudden it got quiet. I was overcome with the worst fear I’ve ever had in my life, and there was something big and dark over there. I couldn’t see any features but there was a big, dark figure. I grabbed her out of the tent and we left then drove into Poteau and stayed in a hotel. I stayed out of the woods for a couple of years.”
Teddy Roosevelt wrote about a bigfoot encounter in one of his books. A story he got from an old hunter named Bauman
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/bauman.htm
Because the ET's and the Lock Ness monster bury them, silly!
That's right, the thousands of people who claim they saw a Sasquatch over the past 50 years were all lying. Every photo and video taken over the last 50 years were fake. Every footprint was faked. People can believe that but it's more likely they exist than not.
There’s no “reported” remains.... Just saying.
That is super funny. Perfect!
It seems the only treasure they have found is whatever they get paid to do this. It requires people like my wife watching the commercials to make a profit. So if the Bigfooters can find a sponsor, maybe they can make a living on their fantasy.
They’ve arrived
“J’arrive!”
Finally. “He’s a hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent... “
You would think that the exponential growth in high quality digital cameras in the last 20 years would have given us something newer and better than the footage we have been looking at for the last 55 years. The lack of good quality physical or digital documentary evidence leads me to believe Bigfoot sightings come from the imagination of highly suggestible people and is fed on be fraudsters selling to everyone who wants to believe.
And they’ve robots now that go around the woods making footprints
Dermal ridges and 600 lbs of weight
Cambridge Ohio North of of I-70 & East of I-77 is another hotspot. My dad had volumes of stuff from a Bigfoot Assoc located in that area.
I’m not ready to give up my belief in the big furry fella; that would be like giving up a big chunk of my childhood. Still, I wonder why there isn’t any real evidence. With all the cellphones and trail cams we should have something.
I used to hike the raw wilds of Connecticut once a week for years. I saw lots of antlers and more than a few deer skulls. Eastern Coyotes (wolf/coyote hybrids), the apex predator around here rarely break open the skull. But you’re right, the rest of the deer was long gone.
So far, no Bigfoot remains
You have to discard the Undiscovered Big Dumb Ape hypothesis pushed by the BFRO and the TV shows. Then recognize that the level of mendacity displayed by our government during COVID extends to many other facets of existence. The flippant dismissals of the lived experiences of tens of thousands will then suddenly look as absurd as the Federal mask mandate.
I believe it was Ivan T. Sanderson who wrote the book on the Abominable Snowman and mentioned the one in the Cherokee nation.
Adair County just southwest of me. Been close to it but never heard or seen anything. Maybe the Bigfoot does not go into or Washington or Benton Counties in Arkansas.
Has ANY game cameras ever recorded a Bigfoot that was not faked?
Sure there are! The NW corner is 75% forest. There's bear, moose, mt. lions, coy wolves, and of course Squatchie. You just want to smoosh his face in your hands and go "Whooshagoodboy? Whooooosshagoodboy? You are! Yessshhyouare!"
OK to have news articles about Bigfoot.
Not OK to have news articles about 2020 voter fraud.
Which of the two is more likely real?
Lots of stories from the early settlers and Indian tribes about this critter. I can’t say I believe but I am open to it being possible. I live in the mountains and have seen lots of very strange things over the decades that if one demands a logical explanation would take great contrivance and a huge leap of faith to accept or one could say it was a booger that take that same leap of faith.
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