What is believed to be the only sculpture in the world created to scale in meticulous detail of an adult specimen of the legendary “Bigfoot” resides in this Ozark town.

“It took three months to get it from my head to his (the sculptor’s) head,” said Clifford LaBrecque, 73, of the fiberglass-and-fur model of Bigfoot he commissioned in 1976 at a cost then of $9,000.

“It’s accurate to the inch,” LaBrecque says.

The striking model of Bigfoot stands 8 feet tall in the dining room of LaBrecque’s home. He says it depicts accurately what LaBrecque remembers from sightings and a physical encounter with a Bigfoot specimen on June 18, 1977, and from many descriptions of the creature prior to his experience.

The encounter happened, according to LaBrecque, between 9-10 p.m. near a woodpile behind LaBrecque’s home in the Windsor Heights suburb of Des Moines, Iowa. Prior to the altercation, LaBrecque says he observed almost nightly a Bigfoot specimen — about 8 feet tall — that sometimes appeared with two apparently juvenile Bigfoot creatures.

He says he called a Des Moines newspaper to tell of the sightings and had argued with the newspaper over copyrights to Bigfoot photographs should the newspaper act on his tip and obtain photographs.

On June 18 he had decided to shoot to kill the larger Bigfoot and had positioned his car for the shot that he believed would furnish incontrovertible evidence of the reality of the Bigfoot creature.

LaBrecque says he had been open-minded from an early age to the possibility that such a creature as Bigfoot existed.

“When I was a little kid, I heard stories about the wild man of the west, and I began watching out for one,” he said. The busy youth found countless stories about American Indian legends of the wild man, and stories of similar creatures all over the world. As an adult he interviewed many people who claimed to have sighted a Bigfoot specimen.

(close up of bigfoot sculptures face)

First encounter

But it was not until 1977 that his eyes gave him all the evidence he needed to believe in Bigfoot.

“Our neighbors had a big black lab. One night I heard the dog barking around the woodpile. I looked out and saw what I thought was the dog on the wood pile. I remember thinking: ‘That (dog) is going to knock my woodpile over.’

“Then it dawned on me that my woodpile is this high and what we were seeing is much, much taller than the woodpile. I got my wife to look and she saw it.

“We couldn’t believe it.”

An inspection of the woodpile the next day and after subsequent sightings found bark pulled from the split wood and the inner surface of the tree bark gnawed away.

That first sighting set in motion a series of sightings that would lead LaBrecque to spend night after night in the woods hoping to see the Bigfoot party traveling to the woodpile. He even conducted surveillance from settings in trees, but did not see the migration.

Skepticism

LaBrecque understands the skepticism some people may bring to his story. At 73 he can do without it, along with the skepticism the public would bring to a videotape of what he says shows a Bigfoot in its natural habitat.

He has shown the video privately but declines to show it publicly because of the ridicule that some people have for those who claim to have had unusual or paranormal experiences.

“I’m not going to listen to anyone who doesn’t know crap telling me I don’t know crap,” LaBrecque said. “Right now if one of these creatures walked across the back yard and I called and tried to tell about it, people would say, ‘Oh. That’s the guy with the Bigfoot model in his house.’

“You are done before you start. You’re not going to win that one.”

A showing of LaBrecque’s Bigfoot model at the 1977 Iowa State Fair attracted many spectators, LaBrec-que said, and several with stories of Bigfoot sightings.

After talking publicly about his Windsor Heights experience, LaBrecque says a farmer came forward to share a story of a Bigfoot sighting and to warn LaBrecque about continuing to talk about the incident.

A second witness to the Windsor Heights incident has long stopped talking about it because of the skepticism, ridicule and laughter the story evokes from listeners, he says.

“You have to understand just how hurtful this can be to the people who have seen Bigfoot,” LaBrecque said. He says he has been the subject of extraordinary skepticism for his creation of the Bigfoot model before he actually saw Bigfoot. To LaBrecque it is simply good fortune that the sighting confirmed for him all that he had heard about the creature. It enabled him to better endure the scorn people bring to his story, he says.

LaBrecque said he is resurfacing now in the Bigfoot culture only because of a news reporter’s call and renewed interest in the creature that he says was sighted four years ago in a rural area near West Plains, Mo.

“They’re here in Norfork,” LaBrecque said. “I have talked to people who have seen them.”

“This is what they say it looks like,” LaBrecque says, pointing to his model.

Source : http://www.baxterbulletin.com/article/20111213/NEWS01/112130333/Norfork-man-recounts-Bigfoot-encounter

William Jevning Bigfoot author and researcher has made some claims of a possible coverup by the US Forest Service over the existance of Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Jevning says he does not specifically mean that there is some kind of government coverup but possibly one on a lower level and explains cases of which forest service personnel were involved. If these claims are true or can be substantiated about the USFS officials in Washington St and a Bigfoot coverup it could prove to be very interesting.

Here is the direct information that Jevning posted on the Bigfoot coverup subject :

For those who may be interested in the subject of the Sasquatch (Bigfoot), I wanted to bring something up I was recently talking about.

I was chatting with someone about the possibility of a cover up in regard to this subject, I don’t specifically mean a government one

However, I know of two cases in which forest service personnel were involved.

with limited space here, this may take a bit to explain, so for those reading this, please be patient with me.

If the worlds largest living hominid were to be proven to exist on the north american continent, ALL logging would stop overnight..literally

The industry and all associated businesses would cease to function for years…I believe this could provide a very credible reason

If such a cover up were being perpetrated…..food for thought

“Video capture image of what a Calgary researcher claims is Bigfoot. He claims to have taken the video in the spring of 2011, three hours from his home in Calgary in the Banff/Kootenay area. Photo courtesy Todd Standing”

If nothing else, the news is bound to make big strides with the Banff tourism industry.

No longer will Alberta’s best-known mountain park depend solely on breathtaking scenery and abundant wildlife to impress visitors and lure overseas tourists.

And no more envy towards other famous vacation spots like Loch Ness and Lake Okanagan, where legendary creatures are rumoured to lurk.

Banff now has Bigfoot. Lots and lots of Bigfoots, in fact.

Yes, it’s an allegation that would have Ripley wondering whether to Believe it or Not, and P.T. Barnum reaching for his cheque book, but the mountains west of Calgary are a hotbed for the huge-footed primates.

That’s the assertion of a dedicated bigfoot research organization based near Calgary, which claims not only to have video and photo evidence of the mythical beast, but DNA proof as well.

“When I first started, I was a skeptic, but not anymore — now I’m a wholehearted believer in the species,” said Todd Standing, spokesman for the Sylvanic Bigfoot group.

Standing’s allegations of a Bigfoot colony living near the border of Banff and Kootenay national park will raise many eyebrows, but his evidence has piqued the interest of the Discovery Channel.

This week, crews from “Finding Bigfoot,” a hit show on Discovery’s Animal Planet channel, are filming in the Calgary area, and Standing says the upcoming episode will be centred upon Sylvanic’s discoveries.

“We’ve had exceptional results and we’re working with people doing DNA analysis,” said Standing.

He says preliminary results from hair samples sent in for testing suggest an unknown species of primate, while video and photographs suggest a creature larger than a gorilla, with human-like features.

Of course, it’s that latter evidence that’s bound to have the skeptics taking sasquatch-sized swipes at Standing, particularly the photographs he says are proof of Bigfoot.

Paranormal footage, as a rule, is supposed to be grainy, badly-focused and jittery, as if the camera was assembled by Fisher-Price and mounted to the bumper of a gravel truck.

Not Sylvanic: Standing boasts a collection of sharp video clips and crisp photographs of Bigfoot, showing far, far more than the usual hirsute primate dashing behind the nearest bush.

Instead of blur, we get full-face portraits of the creature, peering from behind trees.

“I’ve had multiple interactions with them, and I’ve filmed them and photographed them on many occasions,” said Standing.

“It’s a real, living breathing animal, which I got within 60 or 70 yards of.”

What the producers of Finding Bigfoot make of all this remains to be seen, as their quartet of sasquatchologists examines the Alberta evidence to see if it’s on solid footing.

The show has gone across North America investigating sightings of the creature, with the network “committed to looking for the Bigfoot until it’s found.”

Standing says he has — though he knows his belief in Bigfoot and the proof he produces from the Banff backwoods opens him to mockery, derision and the suggestion he should sober up.

But he accepts the skeptism, because he originally joined the Sylvanic team with the intent of disproving the ancient story of an ape-like creature hiding in the wilderness of North America.

“I thought it was a combination of hoaxes and mistaken identities, and I wanted to prove it wasn’t true,” said Standing.

Now, he says Bigfoot is a fact — and with weeks, he hopes to have the DNA evidence to prove it.

“We hope to have results by October,” said Standing.

If that’s the case, tourism officials in Banff will surely be thrilled. As it is, they welcome the attention of the popular television show, saying any link with Bigfoot is a bonus for visitors.

“Anything interesting that attracts people is a good thing — it seems like some harmless fun,” said Mary Morrison, spokeswoman for Banff Lake Louise Tourism.

“I mean, who wouldn’t want to see a Bigfoot?”

Source: http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/08/29/platt-bigfoot-boom-in-banff

“Doesn’t look like a deer to me,” the farmer explains in the set-up to the video.

The tape is described as taken “near the St. Croix river.” In the video clip the man captured , a large red-haired figure is seen passing through the woods for a single fleeting moment. It is an interesting Bigfoot sighting and in the video below it is broken down and zoomed in for better looks at the mysterious creature. Take a look at this Minnesota Bigfoot sighting and decide for yourself if its possibly a Sasquatch.

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 comments mad by the various family members sound somewhat authentic as to their surprise. The unusual feature of the creature in actual daylight may add a bit of credence to it but some believe it to be another hoax with someone in a gorilla suit. But the video is sure to be analyzed by members in the field of cryptozoology and those who specialize it film analysis. Kansas is not know as a Bigfoot sighting hotspot so this sighting is considered rare in that area.

Here is the Kansas Bigfoot video so you can view and see what you think:

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.

Nor did he notice a large, furry creature lumbering along the river banks on that particular trip.

But never underestimate the power of a mystery.

Sunday, Daughters and his boat mate, Matt Stansberry, were part of an hourlong “Finding Bigfoot” segment that airs at 10 p.m. on the Discovery Channel’s “Animal Planet” program.

Why? Because a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stretch of video taken of Daughters by Stansberry — neither of the two even noticed it until it was later called to their attention — shows what appears to be a Sasquatch-type creature on the far left side of the image.

“It’s interesting footage,” says Toby Johnson, organizer of the 2011 Oregon Sasquatch Symposium this weekend at Camp White Branch on the Old McKenzie Highway. “It certainly doesn’t look like your typical guy in hip waders with a fly rod, does it?”

If the Daughters-Stansberry footage hasn’t attained quite the same renown as the Patterson-Gimlin footage that triggered the Bigfoot debate in 1967, the pair’s YouTube segment has gotten more than 107,000 hits. In addition, Bigfoot-oriented sites that have attached the link have probably doubled that number.

“I think there’s something to it,” says Greg Hatten, a McKenzie River guide and winner of the 2008 McKenzie Two-Fly Tournament. “I can tell you this: I know guys who won’t run the upper McKenzie alone — and I’m one of them.”

Others are skeptical. “There’s obviously another boat pulled up on the bank there with one guy standing by it,” opined someone else on the same site. “The other guy, ‘Bigfoot,’ is walking back to him from down the bank. They then begin speaking to each other. Bigfoot is even wearing a baseball cap.”

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so, it seems, is Bigfoot. But regardless of whether the video shows the real deal, the footage has only padded the McKenzie Valley’s burgeoning image as a Bigfoot hot spot.

At Ike’s Lakeside Pizza, in October 2009, a British TV crew interviewed area Bigfoot believers about sightings along the river; how can I forget one alleged witness telling me “he looked like the old King Kong.” Since then, Ike’s monthly “Beer and Bigfoot” gatherings have gone to biweekly sessions and, lately, weekly. The Sasquatch Symposium is anchoring its second annual symposium up river. And an Animal Planet crew not only came to gather footage for Sunday night’s show last March but is headed back next week for more.

All of which delights Daughters and Stansberry, who, at least off camera, remain skeptical that their video shows a bona fide Bigfoot but welcome the attention it brings to the McKenzie.

“Can’t hurt business,” says Stansberry, who maintains a fly-fishing blog (oregonflyfishingblog.com).

Wait, I suggested, some guides are already admitting they’re staying away from that stretch; couldn’t Bigfoot become to the McKenzie River what Jaws was to the tourist town of Amity — a reason to stay out of the water?

“If anything, more people will come because of it,” says Daughters, among the McKenzie’s most respected anglers and guides.

Like me, he’s a “ninety-five/fiver” on Bigfoot — 95 percent sure it’s a myth but 5 percent willing to be wrong.

“What surprised me was the number of people who, I realized, are highly interested in Bigfoot, like (UO golf coach) Casey Martin,” Daughters says.

Daughters, 40, and Stansberry, 33, were leading a group of other guides down the river on the day the video was shot. They were between Paradise and Ollalie campgrounds, on a Class 3 rapids known as “Fish Ladder,” when the camera caught the moving figure.

Not that either of them noticed it live or even after seeing the video. More than a year later a couple of guys at the Caddis Fly noticed the dark, moving image. The pair found a website for the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization and, almost as a joke, forwarded the footage.

Since then, the video has taken on a life of its own.

When first seeing the footage, “Finding Bigfoot” crew member Cliff Barackman of Portland found it “fairly compelling.”

The color seemed right — and so did the creature’s perceived lack of a neck. But after visiting the site and further analyzing the film, Barackman is more inclined to believe it’s a couple of guys, one of whom jumps up on a rock — perhaps to get a better view of the boat going through the rapids — and helps the other one up, all in two seconds, max.

“That’s the value of on-scene investigation,” says Barackman, who doubles as a sixth-grade teacher.

I reviewed the footage with Barackman’s insight in mind. I see more of a fleeting, dark figure than two guys on rocks, an image that — whether it is — certainly looks like a Sasquatch.

But, then, maybe that’s what darkens the shadows of the mystery, what perpetuates the Bigfoot debate: the uncertainty on both sides of the river.

Source: http://special.registerguard.com/web/sportscolumnists/26397969-41/bigfoot-daughters-footage-river-mckenzie.html.csp