Ohio was a natural choice for an episode of Finding Bigfoot. There are hundreds of reports from there, and I would guess that Ohio has more bigfoot researchers there than anywhere outside of the Pacific Northwest. Matt Moneymaker lived in Ohio while he attended law school in Akron during the 1990’s, and knows that area well. I had done an expedition there a few years back near Beaver Creek State Park soon after an excellent vocalization was recorded there, and indeed I heard what I believe was a sasquatch at very close range one night on that trip. I knew it was just a matter of time until we did an expedition there.

The video we came to investigate was taken by a man named Jeff Patterson at Salt Fork State Park. Jeff started calling himself the “Squatchmaster” at some point, and has since posted many short films on his Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSquatchmaster ). The film shows a dark, upright figure walking through shallow snow to a tree. It then grabs the tree and starts shaking it back and forth until the video clip ends. The footage clearly shows either a bigfoot or a human.

Jeff’s story starts before his video does. According to Jeff, he was sledding in Salt Fork State Park with several of his children. They parked at a parking lot and Jeff and his son, Chris went towards the woods to look around for bigfoot footprints. They had run across possible prints just a few weeks before in this same area, and they wanted to see if any more had shown up.

They soon reportedly heard snapping noises in the woods, and they both followed the noises. A sasquatch was seen walking along the nearby trail, which is in a small ravine and runs through the area. They paralled it a short ways and lost sight of it, but could still hear it. Soon they saw it again a distance away as it walked out of the ditch and towards the tree. This is where the film starts, so you know the rest. After the film ends, Jeff doesn’t know what the figure did because he was leaving the area.

An interesting component of the video is that one can faintly hear speaking in the background. Jeff and Chris both said they were the only ones there, but the noises can readily be heard. Jeff and Chris said that they could hear two creatures making noises to each other. When Chris was asked what they sounded like, he said the noises sounded like a sasquatch. Hmmm… a red flag had been raised.

(Photo of Bobo during the recreation)

We found the same tree that the figure was shaking in the video, but it had been knocked down and broken by the time we got there. Jeff remembered where he was standing while he filmed, and it was not difficult to find the exact camera position by aligning the numerous trees and branches visible in the footage. This would later give insight into the height of the figure as well. We were also able to do our recreation using the same camera Jeff used for the original footage.

Another red flag was raised while we were interviewing Jeff and his son. Being a professional educator, and having taught fourth through sixth grades for more than a decade, I was very eager to speak to Chris about the encounter. Most teachers are very good at determining when a student is telling the truth or not, or even if they are leaving out important details. I figured that my experience would give me a pretty good handle on the authenticity of Chris’ version of the story.

When I asked Chris what the thing looked like, he said that he saw a large, dark figure shaking a tree. When he was asked if he could see its face, Chris answered that he saw a large, dark figure shaking a tree. When asked about if it was covered in hair, he said that he saw a large, dark figure shaking a tree. It was soon becoming pretty clear that Chris had probably been coached on what to say.

Comparing our recreation video to the original, it was obvious that whatever is in that clip is not very big. It seems to be about six to ten inches shorter than Bobo. Looking very closely at the original video, there seem to be some frames that hint at the figure wearing clothing as well, though this is less than sure.

Before we did our investigation, I received some information that the Squatchmaster video had been proven a hoax, so I did some online investigating into the work done by others on this film. I ran across a very reliable reference to a video where Jeff Patterson himself confessed that the video was a hoax, and that he did not believe that there were any bigfoots in Salt Fork State Park. At one point he said that he believes the footprints found in Salt Fork were the result of other bigfoot investigators trying to hoax him. The videos in which Jeff confessed these things had since been removed from his Youtube channel. Looking again, I found that all of the Squatchmaster videos were only a month or so old. It occurred to me that it had only been a month or so since the producers had contacted him about using his video for the show. I suspect that Jeff did a major house-cleaning on his Youtube page at about this time for obvious reasons.

At the end of every video recreation, each team member has to tell the witness to his/her face what we think of the video. Sometimes this gets a little uncomfortable, especially for Ranae when she tells them they’re wrong or lying. Now it was my turn to feel a bit awkward. Jeff and Chris had been nothing but kind to us, and were enjoying their time recreating the film.

Each team member took his or her turn telling Jeff that the film probably doesn’t show a sasquatch. My turn came up and I looked Jeff in the eye and told him that I did some digging on the history of this film. “Since you are on record yourself saying that the film doesn’t show a sasquatch, why should I think it does?” were the words I used. Jeff agreed with me. Bobo later told me that Jeff looked like he was going to cry. I’m glad he didn’t. I felt a bit bad. Jeff and his son showed up to the town hall meeting the next night and waved at us when we walked by, so I guess it didn’t hurt his feelings too badly.

That first night’s investigation was done not far from Jeff’s film site. Bobo and I teamed up together and hiked various horse trails through the woods for several hours. We heard strange calls on two occasions that night. The first time was when Bobo and I crested a hill and he did a call. A short reply call came from our north west. Bobo immediately thought it was a human, and it might have been. In fact, at the time, I thought it was too. Later, after looking at a map, I realized that it seemed rather unlikely that anyone was in that area. I do not know what made those sounds, honestly…

The second set of sounds came a while later after Bobo and I left the hill top and were hiking in a densely forested canyon. This call came from our south, from the direction of the road. Again, we assumed it was a person doing the noises, but the crew back at base camp later told us that almost no cars were seen driving the roads that night, and they saw no people in the area either. It’s possible that both of the evening’s sounds were human, but I would give either one, but the first one in particular, a fair chance of being from something else…

The town hall meeting was excellent. There were over 170 people in attendance, and many of them were bigfooters. When we asked who had seen or heard a bigfoot, a staggering number of hands shot up. We took the time to listen to each and every person’s story, which took several hours. After marking them all on a map, I finally got a chance to mingle and talk to some folks. I met many people that night, but a highlight for me was to meet Don Keating. Don has been researching bigfoots in that area since the 1980’s, and his name has been on my radar for a long time. I was thrilled to meet him.

The next day I went to speak to Chief Little Soldier of the Munsee/Delaware Indian Reservation. Chief Little Soldier told us about the two eyewitness sightings that he had had on the property over the last three years, as well as the numerous strange sounds he had heard, and the footprints he finds while walking the land. I investigated his most recent sighting from May of 2011, but a year or two before, he saw a smaller individual running through the trees just under the ridge line above him while walking the trails.

The sighting I investigated happened while Chief Little Soldier was pounding in a trail maker. He looked up the trail to see a creature walking across the trail and into the ravine below. The creature brushed its head against a branch as it ran downwards, and took the slope and cleared the river in six or seven steps. Using the branch as a marker, we figured out that the creature stood at about 7 feet, 5 inches tall, give or take a bit.

(Arrow marks branch that Bigfoot brushed against, gully is behind and down from tree location)

Chief Little Soldier had been finding footprints of three individuals in the area over the years. One individual has feet of 17 inches in length, another of 15 inches, and a smaller one a little less than 10 inches. He believes that he most recently saw the 15 inch individual.

Just a few days before, Chief Little Soldier found prints of the smallest individual on one of the trails nearby. While Chief Little Soldier was filming his recreation, I sneaked off to try to find the footprint.  Using the directions Chief Little Soldier gave me, I soon located a very faint yet obvious footprint right on the same stretch of trail I was directed to.  It had been several days, and rain had occurred, but the print was worthy of a photograph, no matter how poorly the picture turned out.

(small footprint from the Reservation)

Though I did not investigate her sighting, I would like to make a comment on Lorena’s sighting report of a sasquatch watching her children play in a playground. It was a very close range, daylight sighting with no chance of mistaking a bear or deer for a bigfoot. She watched it for long enough to observe some very interesting physical details. As it turns out, there is an eyewitness drawing of this bigfoot, as well as a short description of the account at BFRO.

After getting Bobo from the woods, all four of us went to meet with Tim Stover. He encountered a bigfoot on October 6, 1992 while crossbow hunting in Salt Fork State Park. Tim was perched in a tree stand watching and listening when he caught sight of a 7.5 to 8 feet tall, coyote-colored sasquatch coming up the hill towards his location. He saw it quite clearly and was only 38 yards away. Interestingly, Tim remembered that he could see no whites in its eyes at all.

Because of the sheer number of people who are interested in bigfoot in this part of Ohio, we decided to invite the public out for another grid search, much like the one we held in North Carolina during season one. The weather was not nearly as nice that day as it was in North Carolina, but still a great many people came out to comb the forests with us. I spent much of the time walking with families and interpreting things that were pointed out to me as possible bigfoot evidence.

I did not see anything that day that I would consider bigfoot data, which probably explains my absence from that particular clip of the show. However, we did come across a strange thing that defies explanation on my part. Over the course of the day, I saw two or three small branches that were sticking out of the ground, as if pushed in the mud. They were embedded about two or three inches deep into the soft soil. No substrate nearby had been disturbed. I am guessing that these 18 to 24 inch long branches had fallen out of the trees and stuck into the ground that way, but it was a puzzling thing to see. I still had a great time meeting the local people and talking about bigfoot with fellow bigfooters.

The last night investigation was held on the fringes of the park away from any place humans might go, such as a campground or picnic area. We started in a cemetery and headed out into open fields surrounded by ravines that lead down to the reservior. These ravines are heavily treed in and very brushy. It was kind of a long night, and my team only heard coyotes until Bobo notified us that something just hit the ground nearby where he and Ranae were standing. He said it was possibly a rock, but he couldn’t be sure. Matt and I went to their location to help solve the mystery. Bobo and Ranae showed us where the sound came from, and together we all four slowly searched the area. One of us ran across a walnut fruit and suggested that this might have been the source of the sound. Sure enough, there was a walnut tree not far from our location, and it was very possible that the fruit had just fallen out of the tree nearby and made the reported noise.

As a test, Matt tossed the walnut fruit into the air. We wanted to hear the noise for ourselves, and we wanted Bobo and Ranae to compare the two sounds. The walnut fruit went twenty or so feet into the air and fell directly on Ranae causing an explosion of laughter. We know Matt didn’t do it on purpose, because he would have missed. It was too perfect, and a great way to end the night. We solved the mystery of the sound, and we got to witness a perfectly slapstick moment after a long night in the woods.

This was my second trip to Ohio, and I can’t wait to get back out there to do some more bigfooting. The entire eastern side of the state has excellent habitat for bigfoot, which is only part of the reason there are so many reports from there. The other part is the number of bigfooters looking into the mystery from that area. By their good efforts, more information will continue to come from that region. Thank you, bigfooters in Ohio and neighboring states, for your work. Keep it up.

Source: http://www.northamericanbigfoot.com/search/label/Field%20Notes

Looking at a map, it is clear that Canada is a really big country, but it took visiting the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies for its sheer vastness to really hit home with me. The terrain is so big, and vistas so grand, that describing it as awe-inspiring falls short of the real experience.

While there is more than ample room for many sasquatches in the mountains outside of Calgary, Alberta, there is not a great number of sightings on record. I think this can be attributed to not only the huge amounts of land for the bigfoots to inhabit, but also to the fairly small number of people.

Back in the 1970’s, veteran bigfooter John Green noticed the correlation between rain fall bigfoot sightings. The eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies receives significantly less precipitation than the mountains of British Columbia to the west, and the number of sasquatch encounters reported drops in proportion. To find a bigfoot in this vast landscape would be harder than usual, and it’s never an easy task.

We came to the area to investigate a video obtained by Todd Standing. I heard about Todd several years ago as a man who had supposedly obtained several pieces of footage of sasquatches at a secret spot that he called “Sylvanic.” He then put the clips together into some sort of film and was showing it in small movie theaters around Canada. Not long after, his name popped up again as a man who was lobbying the Canadian parliament for official protection of sasquatches.

(Standing and Barackman)

Having never really taken the time to look closely at Todd’s videos, I was pleased to be going to meet him. I find that so much more information comes out when speaking to the actual videographer, and it was an opportunity to come to an informed opinion on Todd’s work for myself .

We met Todd on a rainy day in an empty campground where several bigfoot encounters had happended over the previous several years. He refused to take a jacket or use any rain gear, claiming it was not cold. He was soon shivering in a wet, cotton shirt, maintaining his position that it was a nice day.

Todd is a very polite and well-spoken man. I genuinely liked the guy, as well as his message regarding sasquatches: protect them, and let them be. He has taken great strides to increase the public’s awareness of bigfoots through his actions. While these actions are labeled as self-serving by his critics, the fact that attention was brought to sasquatches is undeniable.

Todd currently lives in Calgary, but he lived several hundred miles away when he obtained his videos at Sylvanic. He told us that he could not take us to the actual spot because it is a three-day hike back to this secluded valley, and the last day would be spent belly crawling up a river bed in a specially designed gillie suit made by Todd himself. He went on to say that nobody wants to be back there because of the problem grizzly bears that inhabit that area. He claimed that the rangers say there is a 10% chance of being killed by a bear while in the area, and it was too dangerous to go. It seemed to me that a bunch of hurdles were put in the way of anyone wanting to see the location for themselves. Todd did offer to take anyone there who wanted to go at a later time, but it would take a week or two for the trek.

Questioning Todd, I soon learned that at this time he had five videos that had bigfoots in them. The first video is apparently only a sound recording with no images of sasquatches (I didn’t get to hear the recording). We investigated video number two, with the creature quickly bending over out of sight while above Todd on a hill. His third video shows what is either a bigfoot or a man in suit running on a hillside. This creature is the same brownish orange color as the creature in video number two. Video number four is a close up of what appears to me to be a bigfoot puppet behind some branches. Its dark eyes stare unblinking off to frame right, and there is very little movement visible. The skin appears very much like felt, and its fur lacks the flow pattern that one would expect from a living creature. Video number five is a similar shot, but with a much more convincing bigfoot head. It slightly resembles Patty from the Patterson/Gimlin film, but with a rounder face and more dog-like nose. Over the last month or so, there seems to have been another still released showing this same head, but possibly from another film.

I asked Todd what was up with video number four, the one that looked like a Muppet head. He said that he does not know why it looked so bad. He suggested that the lighting might have made it appear that way.

We were to be investigating his second video, the one with a brief glimpse of a creature bending down facing away from the camera. The video is very brief, but it seemed that it showed something bipedal and hairy. An arm and even possible buttox muscles can be seen, or are at least suggested. We were to rely solely on Todd’s measurements since we were unable to go to the actual film site. This would be problematic for our reconstruction, as going to the actual film site is very important for a sense of scale. Trusting someone’s measurements when you’re trying to find out if their film was hoaxed makes little sense anyways, but it’s all we had to go on.

Todd claimed to have not even believed in bigfoots at the time he obtained his second video. It was his film flip that convinced him they were real. This was very peculiar to me because he claimed to have made approximately a dozen trips to the location trying to film a bigfoot by the time he got his video. He chose Sylvanic as likely bigfoot habitat, and he even developed an intricate theory of sasquatch social/family structure, all before he believed in bigfoots. I personally don’t believe that griffons exist, and I don’t plan expeditions based on how they would live (if they were real) to see if I’m wrong…

Questioning Todd further, we found that he was unaware of the elevation of the Sylvanic location. He said that he never paid attention. This, if true, would be a very dangerous thing to ignore, as we would soon find out during that night’s investigation (it snowed on us in August). How could Todd have chosen a location, planned his hikes in (most likely using topographic maps), visited a dozen times, and not noticed the elevation? This seems very unlikely.

When investigating a film, I sometimes think of the late Rene Dahinden and his comments on the Patterson/Gimlin Film. He said that what you need to know is in the film. Certainly, Rene would think that the context of a film is very important, too, but I like to examine films starting with what is actually seen. Good films stand on their own, and their context only serves to reinforce or put in doubt a clip’s authenticity.

With so little to go on for video number two, I am left with not knowing what is in it. The film looks like either a bigfoot or a guy in a suit bending over. Since there is very little information to be gleaned from the actual video, I have to rely on the context. Todd was unable or unwilling to go to the actual spot, there were inconsistencies in his story surrounding the clip, and there’s that Muppet face staring, unblinking in film number four… These leave me with serious doubts about what is shown in any of his videos.

Expressing my concerns to Todd, he correctly stated that video will never be enough for proof. How true. Todd goes on to say that only a body will ever suffice. As much as I hope this isn’t the case, it could very well be the grizzly truth at the end of the bigfoot mystery.

We did the first night investigation in a nearby valley. Ranae and Bobo headed up a trail while Matt and I walked up a road. It was raining, but as my team gained elevation, the precipitation quickly turned into a heavy snow. It was a dramatic change from just a few days before when we were roasting in the mosquito-filled swamps of Northern Minnesota. It was also a reminder of paying attention to your elevation. Ignoring such a detail could prove to have fatal consequences here in the Canadian Rockies, even in the middle of August.

The night investigation was relatively quiet. Our calls were magnificent, though. The rocky walls of the valley threw our vocalizations for literally miles in both direction. We counted to see how long our echoes lasted after we stopped calling: eight seconds. It was very cool.

The next day, we were to meet with tribal representatives from the Stoney Nakota First Nations tribe. The elders were considering helping us in our quest, but they wanted to ask us some questions before they agreed. Bobo and I met Lenny and Peter (a different Peter than the one who blessed us on camera) for breakfast. After a short meeting, they realized that we were not there with the intention to hurt sasquatches in any way. They shared that things are changing, and the elders were interested in helping raise consciousness about sasquatches. Lenny and Peter soon were comfortable that Bobo and I had good hearts, and we shared some common goals and ideas. They agreed to bless us in a smudge ceremony the following day.

Lenny is a master tracker. He has had several encounters with bigfoots on tribal lands over the years, and gave us much to think about. He reminded us that there is more to this world than what can be observed with the five senses, and he shared his tribe’s belief that sasquatches walk the line between two worlds. He taught us about noticing the temperature differences at different elevations within a valley, which dramatically affect the direction of air currents at that level. He told us about the habits of the deer, elk, and moose in the neighboring valleys. He reminded us to trust our feelings and intuitions. He was obviously a master tracker, and probably part Jedi who is clearly strong in the Force.

Our town hall had a pretty good turn out, especially when considering the nasty weather that was hitting the area. Many reports surfaced from the local area and as far away as Edmonton. Lenny showed up to the meeting and addressed the crowd for a few moments with his message as well.

The next day, Ranae and I met with Tyler Huggins. Tyler saw a bigfoot while hiking with his brother and a dog. The sasquatch darted across the trail just 15 or 20 feet in front of his brother, while Tyler was a bit further back. Both witnesses got a clear view of the creature. The sasquatch ran down a very steep slope, hurdling logs and debris until it was out of sight. Tyler then observed a large tree being violently shaken, though he could only see the top of the tree, not the creature doing the shaking. While Ranae kind of came a little close to replicating the running across the path, she would not even attempt to sprint down the hill, let alone hurdle the debris in her path.

While the crew was filming the recreation of Tyler’s sighting, I walked up the trail a few hundred yards and then off into the brush a ways. Sitting in undergrowth and enjoying the quiet, I started looking around. Just from where I was sitting, I saw no less than five types of edible plants, including raspberries and rose hips. When you consider that I am unfamiliar with the plants of this region, there are probably many others growing nearby that are nutritious. It is clear how so many large mammals can live in this area. There is abundant food, at least in this time of year.

The next day, all four of us interviewed Lonni and Donna about their encounter. They were both attendees on a BFRO expedition that lasted several days. Several occurrences hinted at sasquatches being in the area, with the strongest evidence being the rock that was thrown at the tent. The night of the rock throwing, a group of women stayed in camp and talked with each other, laughing often. I believe these sounds caught the attention of a local bigfoot and brought it in for a closer look.

Lonni shared photographs of an indistinct track way through the grass with us, and told us of his encounter the night before with something that gave him a low growl that he could “feel through his body.” While no visual sighting was had, the context strongly suggests that a bigfoot came by to see what was going on.

Our last night investigation took place a short distance away from Lonni and Donna’s encounter location. We were to be using a mechanical deer to try to draw any predators (or other animals) out into the open so we could film them. The deer looked great until it was made to move by using a remote control. Its head would slowly twist right to left, and its tail would slowly flick up and down. It strongly reminded me of the Washington episode from first season with that remote control goose cam. Like the goose cam, it was clear that the technology for remote controlled deer is lacking. After a few wiggles solely for the sake of the camera, I let the deer just be still. I thought it might have a better chance to draw something out that way.

While Ranae and I were in the hunting blind with the thermal camera, Bobo and Matt climed a nearby hill to do calls. We were hoping their calls would draw some attention to the meadows below where Ranae and I were stationed. At one point, Matt claimed to have heard a bigfoot vocalization through the parabolic dish he was using. Bobo did not hear it at the time, and the recording was faint and muddy.

Down below, Ranae and I heard a very interesting sound. It sounded like a clear, high pitched tone, almost like a bell tone, but clearly organic. We both agreed that it was unlikely to be from a coyote, and neither of us knows what made the noise. It came from a good distance, and much further away than the coyotes we had been hearing off and on for several hours. The call was made twice, and not heard again.

The Canadian Rockies were a challenging place to go bigfooting. The area is simply huge, and there are very few roads penetrating the higher elevations. Not a lot of sightings come out of the area were were in, but then again, there aren’t a ton of people there either. What people there are stay in the cities, or on the few roads that are available. Still, the witnesses we spoke to at the meeting, the lore and knowledge shared with us by the Stoney Nakota First Nation Tribe, as well as the sightings we investigated leave little doubt that bigfoots live in the area.

Source: http://www.northamericanbigfoot.com/2012/01/finding-bigfoot-alberta-canada-field.html

A 12-year-old Alaskan hunter tells the “Finding Bigfoot” crew that he saw an 8-foot bigfoot-like creature up close in a forest clearing. The show uses this computer-generated bigfoot as the boy describes his encounter.

For some viewers, Animal Planet’s new series “Finding Bigfoot” is a comedy: Did you hear that guy perform a bigfoot howl?

For others, including the show’s stars, it’s a drama of serious investigations into reported bigfoot sightings in Oregon and across the country.

Animal Planet executives may not care how people react to the show as long as viewers tune in. And they are.

Over the show’s six-episode first season, “Finding Bigfoot” has averaged 1.2 million viewers in its Sunday night premieres, making it among the top three series on the Discovery-owned cable network (“River Monsters” and “Whale Wars” are the other Animal Planet hits.)

Each episode features the four-member “Finding Bigfoot” team investigating images or video captured of the ape-like bigfoot , often followed by a night-time exploration using infrared cameras to detect heat signatures.

Occasionally, a computer-generated bigfoot is shown in re-created scenes.

Next week, Animal Planet will announce it has renewed “Finding Bigfoot” for a 10-episode second season to begin airing in early 2012. There are also plans for the network to air a two-hour special this fall around Halloween tentatively titled “The Squatchiest Place on Earth.”

Asked why the network would devote a series to a creature that’s yet to be proved exists, Animal Planet president and general manager Marjorie Kaplan deadpanned, “It doesn’t exist?”

This weekend’s season finale of “Finding Bigfoot” was filmed at Ike’s Pizza in Leaberg, about 20 miles east of Eugene on Highway 126. The episode, called “Behind the Search,” is a one-hour reunion special with the “Finding Bigfoot” team taking questions from an audience while recapping their six-episode first season, including an episode filmed in the Willamette National Forest.

The four-person team, led by Bigfoot Field Research Organization founder Matt Moneymaker, investigated a video shot by kayakers on the McKenzie River that appears to show a biped – a bigfoot? a human? – standing near some rocks on the shoreline. Moneymaker tends to see bigfoot everywhere, while field biologist Ranae Holland is the team’s skeptic.

“It is true that we felt if we were going to do the show that we have a skeptical voice,” Kaplan said. “She represents the viewer a lot of time,” said Keith Hoffman, “Finding Bigfoot” executive producer for Animal Planet. “Viewers want to see people who don’t just totally believe, although Ranae has told me she would like it to be true (that bigfoots exist).”

In the McKenzie River sequence, Holland quickly concludes the creature on the shore is not a sasquatch, but a human. Although it didn’t make it into the final episode, Portlander Cliff Barackman, the show’s level-headed educator (imagine the professor from “Gilligan’s Island”), said he agreed with Holland; he had previously researched and debunked this reported sighting at his website.

Barackman taught sixth grade and music appreciation at Cascade Heights Public Charter School in Milwaukie, taking a six-week leave of absence earlier this year to film the first season of “Finding Bigfoot.” He won’t return to the school in the fall because of his commitment to the show’s second season. He said students got a kick out of his interest in bigfoot.

“They absolutely loved it,” he said. “Some would say, ‘Mr. B., I don’t think bigfoot’s real,’ and I’d say they are but you don’t have to believe.”

Barackman, 40, was friends with two of the other three “Finding Bigfoot” cast members before he was cast on the show and he’s had his sights set on a TV gig for a while, previously appearing on A&E’ s “Bob Saget’s Strange Days” (for a sasquatch hunt episode) and on History’s “MonsterQuest” (as a bigfoot expert).

Barackman said he always had an interest in monsters as a child and was a fan of the 1970s paranormal TV show “In Search Of. …” At Cal State Long Beach, he spent time in the library between classes, pulling random books from shelves to read. Barackman said he stumbled upon a book of scientific, peer-reviewed papers about sasquatches, which ignited his interest in bigfoot. From there, he said, “It got worse and worse.”

He moved to Oregon three years ago, in part for the easy access to the wilderness for bigfoot expeditions. “When I looked at the climate and the cultural climate – the eccentric, weirdo-centered culture – I thought I’d feel comfortable having the opportunity to do gigs playing guitar, meet interesting people and have access to squatchy places,” Barackman said. “I go to bars and restaurants in Portland and I’m not bashful about bigfoot. I’ll ask people, have you seen a sasquatch or know somebody who has? And in Portland it averages one out of five people say yes.”

So, has he ever seen a bigfoot? Barackman said he’s collected footprint samples, recorded vocalizations and been screamed at from 40 feet away, but his only possible sighting was through a thermal camera during a “Finding Bigfoot” shoot in North Carolina. He takes criticism of bigfoot believers in stride on the show and in conversation.

“They can be as wrong as they want,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me at all. The reality of the species does not depend on their belief nor does it depend on mine.”

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2011/07/finding_bigfoot_makes_a_big_impact_in_its_first_season.html

The TV show Finding Bigfoot has a lot of critics debunking the evidence that the legendary cryptid really exists. That now includes the people who appear on the show itself.

Cast members from the TV show have commented in various online forums that they are bugged by the heavy-handed editing done by producers of the series, and are not happy that they seem to be putting false words in their mouths. To say nothing of using tricks to make their actual findings more seemingly groundbreaking.

Critics of this kind of documentary-style Reality TV shows have pointed to programs about the Paranormal which seem to build on the gullibility and limited experience of viewers. The phrase “what the hell was that?” is becoming a catch-phrase for the practice.

It derives from the many characters in these shows who utter the phrase as they respond to perfectly normal, and easily explained, phenomenon caught on camera. Usually through night-vision FLIR lenses and “filming” ghosts or the famed Sasquatch itself. This seems to be the case in the latest example of rigged Reality TV.

Cast member and BFRO leader Matt Moneymaker says, in response to a question about one particular scene with typically grainy footage, “… the thing I ran after up the hill was a human — someone who was sneaking around us in the woods trying to watch the production in progress. I said so repeatedly and vehemently at the time, for the cameras, but they edited out all of that in order to make it seem unclear what I was chasing after.”

That seems to be all the proof needed. Looks like Reality TV itself is the next Sasquatch. Someday everybody will try to prove it really does exist..

Source: Gather.com

Animal Planet is building upon its recent series Finding Bigfoot by adding a one-hour special, Finding Bigfoot: Behind the Search.

The special, slated to air July 17 at 10 p.m. EST, features members of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization (BFRO) team as they discuss their excursions to find the mythical creature in depth.

Gathering for a town-hall meeting in Oregon, Bigfoot fans get the chance to ask the team probing questions about the series and their adventure.

Finding Bigfoot: Behind the Search is produced for Animal Planet by Ping Pong Productions. Keith Hoffman is the exec producer for Animal Planet, while Brad Kuhlman and Casey Brumels are the exec producers for Ping Pong Productions. Marc Etkind is VP of development for Animal Planet.

Animal Planets: Finding Bigfoot has quickly become a much watched series by cryptid enthusiasts and random Bigfoot fans alike. The shows search for Bigfoot with the members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization also known as the BFRO has explored some of the most interesting Bigfoot sightings and reports and gone over some of the evidence collected which unclude Bigfoot photo’s and possible Bigfoot footprints. There have been some questions about older and newer episodes airing so here is an up to date episode guide for Finding Bigfoot which includes first runs and reruns for next couple weeks.

UPDATED ….

July 15, 10:00 pm “Alaska’s Bigfoot Island”

July 16, 12:00 am “Alaska’s Bigfoot Island”
July 16, 5:00 am “Alaska’s Bigfoot Island”

July 17, 2:00 pm “Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia”
July 17, 3:00 pm “Alaska’s Bigfoot Island”
July 17, 4:00 pm “Caught on Tape”
July 17, 5:00 pm “Fishing for Bigfoot in Oregon”
July 17, 6:00 pm “Frozen Bigfoot”
July 17, 7:00 pm “Swamp Ape”
July 17, 10:00 pm “Behind the Search”
July 17, 11:00 pm “Behind the Search”

July 18, 2:00 am “Swamp Ape”
July 18, 5:00 am “Behind the Search”

July 22, 10:00 pm “Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia”

July 23, 12:00 am “Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia”
July 23, 5:00 am “Bigfoot Crossing in Georgia”

(silver star Bigfoot photograph)

A team member on Animal Planets series Finding Bigfoot , Cliff Barackman does a video debrief of the Silver Star Photograph showcased in the “Frozen Bigfoot” Washington episode. Barackman also goes over some interesting connections between Bigfoot and cemeteries. The Finding Bigfoot Washington episode continues the crew’s search for Bigfoot and its look into some very interesting sightings and evidence. Members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) contiue their quest to prove the existance of the elusive cryptid.

GIBSONVILLE — At first, Bernadette and Leonard Braley didn’t pay much attention to the spots of mud on the road about 50 feet from their home on Quartz Court in Gibsonville last October.

But then the Braleys began looking at the mud more closely and thought they looked a lot like footprints. Leonard grabbed the measuring tape and Bernadette a camera. They took photos of what they thought were 16-inch muddy footprints and then forgot about them for a few months.

This past January, Bernadette began thinking about the photos again while she was going through shows on her digital video recorder. One was news footage of man who encountered Bigfoot trying to attack his dog.

It got Bernadette thinking. She did a quick Internet search and found Bigfoot Lunch Club, a group that follows Bigfoot sightings, and there is one in North Carolina. Bernadette emailed her muddy footprint photos to the club. In February, the Braleys were invited to Troy to talk with a group from the Animal Planet television network that was doing some filming for a six-part series called “Finding Bigfoot” that started airing this month.

The Braleys were featured in an hour-long “Finding Bigfoot” episode about Sasquatch sightings in North Carolina. It aired at 10 p.m. Sunday on Animal Planet, which can be found at Channel 63 on Time-Warner Cable in Alamance County.

“When Animal Planet got there, they went crazy when they saw the pictures,” Bernadette Braley said. “They wanted to come to our house and do filming for their series.”

A four-person team from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization — BFRO — as well as a producer, cameraman and several others spent a day with the Braleys in March, asking questions, filming and trying to recreate the footprints.

“Their first question was do you live near power lines,” Bernadette Braley said.

Power lines run on the opposite side of their house. The second question was about the deer population. The Braleys’ property backs up to woods and there are a lot of deer. At the time the footprints were found, there was a lot of new construction going on in the cul-de-sac and plenty of mud in the area.

“They have concluded that Bigfoot sightings are around power lines because they like to run along the power lines and also deer. They like to eat deer or run with deer,” Bernadette Braley said.

The footprints were about 12 feet apart.

“They did some tests,” she said. “They put mud on the bottom of their shoes. They had a fellow running in the area. He jumped.”

The test subject was 6 feet tall and he left footprints that were about 6 feet apart.

“They estimated it was probably a lot taller and a lot heavier and running on the ball of its foot,” Bernadette Braley said.

The four-person team of researchers includes Bobo, a commercial fisherman, Cliff, a professional educator, Matt, the president of BFRO and Ranae, a skeptical scientist. They all have varying experiences with Bigfoot and different beliefs about the existence of the creature, according to an Animal Planet release.

“What binds them together, however, is their longing to understand the creature, passion for proving its existence and willingness to stop at nothing to finally track down Bigfoot,” the release states.

The Braleys enjoyed the experience with the Animal Planet group. Bernadette made the whole crowd chili. The researchers left behind a motion-sensitive night-vision camera that they set up in the woods.

The Braleys have a lot of photos of deer and rabbits and leaves falling, but they still haven’t captured Bigfoot on film.

Leonard Braley was always a believer that Sasquatch existed. Bernadette said she was always skeptical. After doing a lot of Internet research, talking to people and interacting with the folks from Animal Planet, she’s starting to be a believer herself.

“I’m leaning in the direction that there’s got to be a Bigfoot out there,” she said. “There is just too many sightings for it to be people’s imagination or hoaxes.”

The Braleys haven’t actually seen Bigfoot and never reported anything to authorities last year. Bernadette suspects that whatever made the muddy footprints is long gone, but she holds out hope.

“I, personally, would like to see it,” she said. “I would love to actually take a picture of it.”

Source: http://www.thetimesnews.com/articles/gibsonville-44858-muddy-prints.html

Michael Greene of Salisbury has attracted a lot of attention in his hunt for Bigfoot.

More than 300 people joined Greene and about 10 staff members of the Animal Planet cable-TV channel at the Eldorado Outpost on N.C. 109 near Troy and began a search for signs of the mysterious, perhaps mythical, creature on Saturday.

Green was glad to see the crowd.

“Five years ago, I joined the Bigfoot Field Research Organization (BFRO). I was just tired of doing this myself, a little discouraged, and had no one to talk to and share my hobby,” Greene said.

Greene’s interest in Bigfoot began when was working toward a master’s in behavioral psychology. He wrote a thesis on group hysteria, and one of the subjects he studied was Bigfoot.

He came to believe that Bigfoot was possibly a real entity, so the reading and investigation began.

Greene, a lifelong public servant who worked in several government agencies, convinced the Animal Planet crew to stop in the Troy area on their way to filming a series on Bigfoot sightings. The film crew will continue on to Florida, Georgia, Oregon and Washington state.

A six-show series is planned to air on Animal Planet this fall.

Greene, now 69 and retired, moved with his wife to Salisbury two years ago. They wanted to be near family and to investigate Bigfoot sightings in the area. North Carolina is a hotbed for sightings, according to BFRO investigators who attended Saturday.

John Pate, Tommy Poland and Olaf Seamen all told of the excitement of the hunt. Seamen drove six hours to join the search in the Uwharries, and he usually spends 10 weekends a year on the hunt.

“The more you look at something, the more the book opens up,” Pate said.

While some see the hunt as pure entertainment, the BFRO researchers say the subject is no longer the stuff of fantasy. BFRO now boasts scientists and university researchers.

David Pardue says he has pictures of his own sighting of a family of four Bigfoots. He claims to also possess evidence of territory marking by the creature. Pardue says that Bigfoot often twists a small tree, first one way and then another, laying it down to signify its territory. He says that Bigfoot can change his eyes to red, and makes an audible sound known to the investigators.

Since Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, is nocturnal, most of the serious hunting is done at night.

“I have had very little sleep for a week. The Animal Planet crew stayed out all week till nearly 5 a.m.,” Greene said.

Greene usually doesn’t allow anyone to accompany him on the hunt, and he said that after recuperating for a week or so he’ll return to solitary searches.

On Saturday, Bigfoot enthusiasts began to arrive about midday. Most came by car or truck, but there were horses and four-wheelers, too. Even a helicopter, arranged by the Animal Planet crew, flew over the activities.

Matt Moneymaker, head of the BFRO, organized a grid search that started in a large hay field and moved into the woods. Television cameras and microphones surrounded the searchers as they looked for elusive clues.

Moneymaker instructed searchers to spread out and stay at arm’s length from each other as they formed a long line headed into the woods. He used a bullhorn to instruct everyone to look for hair on trees or barbed wire, nests of stick structures, trails cleared of twigs and limbs, and “tall boy trails.” Tall boy trails have been cleared of tree limbs and branches up to 8 feet high.

Hair samples were found, and the Animal Planet crew saved them for analysis.

Greene said the crowd was about what he expected on Saturday. He only had time for a short interview while guiding the TV crew and searchers.

“Let’s hope somebody gets lucky today,” Greene said just before the search for evidence of Bigfoot began.

While the show is in production, Greene and his fellow Bigfoot believers will stay on the hunt.

Popular baits to attract giant bi-peds are apples, peanut butter and candy bars.

The most popular of the candy bars is the hard to find Zagnut. The Eldorado Outpost of course had them displayed at the register and the cashier said, “We keep Bigfoot bait year round.”

Source: salisburypost