CryPtoReports.com

So l have now returned to the northern hemisphere and summer has brought fruition to the greening of spring. Swimming pools are filled with the exuberance of youth, anglers are hitching their boats, and the Illinois River is once again the primary destination for the canoe enthusiast.

They come from all across the state, and the country, and all over the world to experience the delight of a slow, cool “float” down the Green Country Highway. They come to camp and float, they come to picnic and float, they come to fish and float. They come in cars, they come in campers, and they come – and I’m not kidding – on motorcycles. They come to see the clear waters, they come to see old friends, and they come to see the monster. Monster? Yeah, that’s right, the monster. “Soppy,” the now legendary Illinois River Monster.

In summer 1982, a number of my aunts and uncles had come from Kansas and set up camp at one of the larger establishments on the upper Illinois on State Highway 10. I was awash in kith, kin, and cousins, to the tune of 20 or more. So, I put them all in canoes, as was their wish, and sent them down the river. Several hours later, they all returned happy and hungry, with a wish, to repeat the experience on the ‘morrow.

I told them I would be happy to send them down again and suggested to the cousins a night float. They were all agreed, and the next day I sent the aunts and uncles, along with the younger cousins, downstream. That evening as the sun was sinking below the tree line, I put three boats of older cousins in the water and off we went. The moon was near full and the effect was that of an old black-and-white silent film. The trees shook silver in the breeze and the naked gravel banks shone white against the dark river. The only sound was the rippling of the passing water and the occasional thump of a paddle on the side of a boat.

All was serene until we heard what sounded like footsteps. Something was creeping down the right bank. Just out of sight, in the darkness of the tree lined shore. I told the cousins that it was in all probability a farmer’s cow, but I wasn’t so sure. I had seen cows come to the water, but there were fences, and this was an unlikely time to see a thirsty bovine. Whatever it was continued to follow us, and after 30 minutes I was convinced, by the wet hair standing on the back of my neck, that we were being tracked.

I did my best not to alarm the cousins and discouraged an attempt to beach the boats and investigate. We were only going four miles, About a quarter of a mile from our landing, the mysterious footfalls and rustling foliage faded into the forest. We loaded our boats, I accepted the thanks of my family and we motored up old No. 10 to the campsite.

I am not the only Okie with a tale on Soppy. On Aug. 1, 1990, a woman living in a mobile home near Eldon reported to Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department she heard noises, noticed a bad smell, and saw a creature about 10 feet tall and about 400 pounds. A deputy investigated and found impressions big enough to place both his feet in. Just two days later, an 8-year-old girl and her mother described a creature 8 feet tall with dark brown, frizzy hair and standing on two feet rummaging through a trash pile near their house. There have been several reports in this area since the early ‘70s.

On Feb. 5, 1996, a man living in the Vian Bottoms, about two to three miles north of the Arkansas River, saw a black figure moving in and out of the trees. He said it looked to be about 8 feet tall, huge, muscular build, with very long stringy hair, and walked upright on two legs.

In April of 2000, two friends canoeing the Illinois River had stopped at a designated camp point and something approximately 8 feet tall, dark brown in color, and covered in hair except for areas of the face and hands walked out of the woods. It began to cross the river, turning while in the stream to look at them, and then walked into the woods on the other side of the river. They investigated the area where the animal crossed and found tracks that were deeply imprinted in the soil.

A woman driving near Green Leaf Lake on Nov. 18, 2001, saw something cross the road in front of her. She said it was about 6-1/2 feet tall, with long, dark hair except for the face area, and had a thick build. She described the creature further as looking “like a person with hair.”

In October of 2005, Tahlequah 911 received a call at about 6 a.m. one morning from a man near the Welling bridge who said he had just seen what he believed to be Bigfoot. It was 7 feet tall and hairy, and from the anatomy it appeared to be female.

There is a woman who lives in the Pumpkin Hollow area who says she and her relatives have been “spotlighting” similar creatures for years. She says the animals smell of berries and urine. A woman living in Lost City has reported that three generations of her family has seen the hairy, smelly creature, and that it seems to be fond of children.

One of the most popular areas for Bigfoot sightings is the southeastern Oklahoma community of Honobia. In October 2006, a documentary film crew from Kansas visited Cherokee and Adair counties to interview the local citizenry about sightings and engage in a Bigfoot hunt with the Green Country Bigfoot Research Center. Afterward, they traveled to Honobia, near Talahina, for that community’s annual Bigfoot festival.

In July 2008, a woman living in an area known as Murphy’s Hill, near 14-Mile Creek, said she was receiving a curious and regular visitor that was “getting bolder” and “coming out in the daytime.” She said one “Sunday afternoon the wind shifted, and we smelled it.” She said she went into the yard and found the door to her dogs’ pen broken almost in half. And, that the dogs get really quiet when this thing is around. The previous February, a friend had moved into the trailer next to hers and soon after, he said he heard a deep, low growl and something shook his trailer. One evening the two of them were outside when they saw something tall and furry run between the trailers. They went inside and shortly heard a bang on the door and the sound of heavy footsteps running away.

This creature has lived in Oklahoma for generations. There are old stories among the Cheyenne of seeing the wild man traveling with the herds of buffalo. The old Cherokee called it Tsul ‘Kalu – the slant-eyed or sloping giant.

The Chickasaw chief Tishomingo hinted at the humanity of the Sasquatch: “Why do you want to hunt the wild men? My children, they are a tribe even as are we. They have families, hunt, fish, and procreate. Leave them alone and they will leave us alone.” The Comanche chief War Shield agreed, but added a dire warning: “Nothing that is said, or accused toward the hairy brothers of the forests, will cause them to leave their homes; they deal with the round eyes the same as we, they will kill the round eyes to protect their home.”

So, here we are again at the birth of another summer and the search begins anew. In May, a couple of dozen researchers again descended on Oklahoma, hoping to catch a glimpse of Soppy and his “cousins.” Equipped with night-vision goggles, long-range lenses, sensitive audio recorders, and an unshakeable belief in the existence of the yet unproven Bigfoot, they come. They come in cars, they come in campers. …

Source: tahlequahdailypress

A shape shifter is a mythical creature that can change form at will. Many cryptids (creatures which are believed to exist but for which no conclusive scientific evidence has been found) are also linked to shape shifter legends and lore.

Shape shifting cryptids commonly reported in Michigan each and every year draw cryptozoologists, paranormal investigators, and traditional folklorists from all over the United States to study them.

In fact, you might have seen one yourself.

The Michigan Dogman  is a local cryptid that was popularized in 1987 by DJ Jack O’Malley and his production manager Steve Cook of WTCM radio. The two men invented the Dogman (or thought they did) by cobbling together various legends (like the New Jersey Devil and the Boggy Creek Monster), and then wrote a song about him that they played as a prank on their show.

To both men’s shock and surprise, reports of actual sightings of the Michigan Dogman started to pour in almost immediately after broadcasting the prank. Looking into the sightings a bit more seriously, the two men discovered that such reports had been taking place in and around Michigan since the early 1800s, when French traders visiting the local Indians referred to the creature as the loup garou (which is French for werewolf).

Numerous  people who report seeing the Dog Man describe a moment in which a creature who looks like a very unusual and very large dog suddenly stands upright and seems to transform itself into a cross between a dog and a man right before their eyes. Such transformations are typical of shape shifters.

Another kind of shape shifting creature that haunts certain parts of Michigan, especially Wayne and Otsego Counties, is a large black panther-like cat.

Reports of black panthers in places where black panthers do not belong have been occurring throughout North America and Europe for about 25 years. England continues to experience a rash of such sightings, as other parts of the United States experience them as well.

While brown cougars are native to North America, neither brown cougars nor black panthers are native to England, and black panthers are not native anywhere in the U.S. In fact, some controversy exists over whether even plain brown cougars exist in Michigan near cities, so reports of black panthers are doubly strange.

Some researchers who have studied the black panther reports attribute such sightings to escaped zoo panthers that have managed to naturalize locally, but animal biologists see this explanation as very unlikely.

Other paranormal researchers explain the appearance of the large black cats as being a manifestation of a creature that can inhabit both imagination and physical reality at the same time or shift back and forth between them, depending on conditions.

In other words, a shape shifter of this kind is part supernatural entity, but also has physical mass and physical characteristics when it wants to manifest them.

While all of this may seem incredible and strange, it’s worth noting that mainstream folklorists like Indiana University’s Thomas E. Bullard have been publishing papers on the possibility that certain kinds of folklore and certain urban legends spring from a real, physiological experience, and that such reports differ significantly from other mere stories and traditional myths.

Other researchers have tied the appearance of shape shifting creatures in modern times to the ancient Greek concept of the daemon (from which the contemporary word ‘demon’ derives). The word ‘daemon’ literally means “spirit of place” and refers to a living being that inhabits both physical and spiritual realms.

So if you’re out fishing or hunting the woods of West Michigan this summer and you spot something strange; something not quite animal and not quite human: you’re definitely not alone in what you see.

Close your mouth. Catch your breath. Grab your camera.

Source: examiner

A mysterious looking body found along the shore of Okanagan Lake might be the remains of the legendary Ogopogo, an expert says.

Dan Poppoff found the 1.2-metre-long carcass last month while he was kayaking in the lake, close to Kelowna.

The Kelowna resident immediately called Arlene Gaal, who has written three books about the legendary sea creature and documented sightings of the Ogopogo for the last 30 years.

A day later, he sent her a photo of the carcass.

“I told him he had my attention right away,” Gaal said.

She told him to store the body in the freezer and has arranged for two scientists to analyze DNA from the tail.

The carcass had a spinal cord and vertebrae, which made it one of the first interesting discoveries she’s seen in the last 30 years.

“This is something very important to the scientific community. What we’re looking at is an unidentified species and this might open the door to this mystery,” she said.

Like Scotland’s mythical Loch Ness monster, evidence of the Ogopogo’s existence is largely anecdotal.

Since 1978, about 1,000 sightings of the Ogopogo have been recorded in the Okanagan. Every year, at least five people come forward to say that they have seen the sea monster.

Two sightings have already been reported in 2009. Those who claim to have seen the animal say it resembles a whale in its size, the way it moves and the commotion it creates when it emerges from the water.

“We’re looking at a definite large animal that is swimming in the Okanagan Lake. I’m sure of that,” Gaal said.

Source: canada.com

MARBLEMOUNT — A tour along the upper Skagit River usually includes breathtaking and colorful wildlife — eagles, soaring across the sky or lighting in trees to catch salmon in the river; raccoons, scrounging for eggs and any leftover garbage from careless campers; deer; and ever so occasionally, a cougar.

But look a little closer, into the shadow of the tree cover, and some say you might find something that puts a new spin on the “wild” in wildlife.

Dave Button, owner of Pacific Northwest Float Trips, loaded up his small bus recently to lead a group of visitors on one of his most popular river tours — to see where the elusive and legendary sasquatch has allegedly been sighted.

A clever marketing scheme? Maybe. But the 65-year-old river guide, a man with a tenacious gift of gab and friendly wit, will happily tell you he’s never seen the hairy ape-like creature himself. But he’s met more than a few credible folks who have.

“People get really mad about it,” Button said, while tromping toward the river at the boat launch in Marblemount, where two large “Rough River”-type inflatable rafts sat bobbing on the surface of the water.

“One lady jumped up and said, ‘I’ve never seen sasquatch!’” Button howled, throwing his hands in the air and leaning forward. “I said, ‘Ma’am, have you seen a

mountain lion?’ She said, ‘Well, no,’ and I said, ‘But they’re out there.’”

The group of 12 — some firm believers in the legend that is known by a variety of names around the world, and some just along for an entertaining and relaxing ride on the river — climbed into the rafts, on that overcast and drizzly day, armed with binoculars, rain jackets, cameras and carefully packed sack lunches.

In many ways, that river tour was less about sasquatch and more about the people looking for him.

The searchers

Last month’s trip was the first for sasquatch researcher Jason Valenti, although he often heads into the Cascades at night in search of the mysterious creature.

Valenti, 38, is always eager to share his own personal encounter on a spring morning in 1996 with what he suspects was a sasquatch, or a “humanoid.”

“It was a class-one Bigfoot sighting,” said the tall man with the quiet demeanor that all but disappears when he explains his experience. He had been driving through the Appalachicola National Forest near Tallahassee, Fla., when he spotted a massive figure in the roadway.

“If Dennis (the passenger in his vehicle at the time) would have rolled down the window, he could have reached out and touched her arm,” Valenti said, insisting that what he saw was “definitely a female form.”

Valenti’s outlook on life changed, the foundations of his existence shaken to the core. Since that early morning encounter, Valenti has been driven to uncover the secrets behind Bigfoot.

He moved to the Bellingham area in 1999. At least once a month, he takes to the hills in eastern Skagit and Whatcom counties trying to catch a fevered glimpse of sasquatch.

Any luck?

No sightings locally so far, he said. But he has plenty of audio recordings of what he estimates are probably Bigfoot.

Several of the curious visitors sitting next to Valenti on the raft leaned forward as he ticked off various Bigfoot facts: They weigh anywhere from 1,200 to 2,000 pounds; their eyes glow red, just like the local Native Americans have said; they’ve been known to kidnap people; they have a foul odor that can be detected for quite a distance.

As far as Melanie is concerned (she didn’t want her last name used), there’s no reason to be skeptical. Some might consider the sasquatch legend a myth, but Melanie said she likes to keep an open mind — especially after having seen the famous footage of what was allegedly a Bigfoot caught on film in 1967 by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin. Melanie saw the film for the first time while she was attending the University of Washington in the 1970s.

Melanie said she’s never seen a sasquatch herself, but “When I’m deep in the woods, sometimes I feel their presence — a consciousness that is very intelligent and loving,” she added, while listening carefully to Valenti’s stories.

Melanie’s friend, Irene (who also did not divulge her last name), is quite sure that sasquatch exists. She decided to take the river tour on Melanie’s suggestion and see for herself where the giant creature has been spotted locally.

“I’m considered weird in some circles,” she said with a hearty laugh. “But I don’t care.”

Sasquatch — also known as Kala’litabiqw by the Upper Skagit Tribe and See’atco to the Coast Salish — has been a part of the local lore for generations, said Kenney Cuthbert, an Upper Skagit tribal member, as he stood in front of the group just before leaving on the rafts.

Cuthbert has never seen a sasquatch, but has heard tales from those who say they’ve been frightened by something ape-like, hairy and imposing while picking wild blueberries in the forests of Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom counties.

“My dad has seen them on the Suiattle River between here and Darrington,” Cuthbert said, quietly, as the group listened in rapt silence. “I knew three kids in Darrington that went over a hill on the Suiattle to pick blueberries. They saw something they thought was a bear. All the sudden, it stood up, and they said it was about 10 feet tall. It scared them so bad, they had to get out of there.”

Tour mixes lore, nature

As the rafts made their way along the relatively quiet 10-mile “wild and scenic” section of the Skagit River between Marblemount and Rockport, they moved by houses tucked behind clumps of trees set back from the river, as well as numerous rocky islands. Button, the guide, pointed out several locations where he’s been told sasquatch lurks.

“The Native Americans own 40 acres and they’ve (sasquatch) been known to come through there,” Button said, waving his hand toward a distant hillside. “They’re migratory,” he added, “and they live in caves.”

So, if he’s never seen one, how does he know?

Well, through the years, he’s heard stories and done some minor research on the subject himself.

Button started up special “Quest for the Elusive Sasquatch” river tours this spring. He used to conduct them as part of other river tours.

The Skagit County native and former teacher came up with the idea in the 1980s after chatting with a sasquatch expert from Sedro-Woolley.

Button began guiding the tours with the idea of highlighting the Native American legends of Bigfoot along with the eagles that populate the area in the winter and the local habitat.

Since then, the tours have turned into a healthy mix of Native American lore, socializing and some of the most beautiful sight-seeing in the world, he bragged.

And people are enthusiastically interested in the Bigfoot angle, he said.

Always the gregarious storyteller, Button is quick to infuse humor with the rumor to entertain his guests.

As he rowed the oars of one raft past a discarded piece of blue fabric, he joked loudly, “And there’s sasquatch’s long underwear!”

The guests smile and point — not at the sasquatch location, but instead at a bald eagle hunched in the branches of a tall Douglas fir. After all, at least half of the tourists ignore the hidden sasquatch in favor of the more visible wildlife.

Julie Engel of the Redmond area came north with her 14-year-old daughter and two of her daughter’s friends to take the tour — not so much for a chance to see a sasquatch but to get out of the busy city and enjoy a relaxing river ride in rural Skagit County.

Tilting her head thoughtfully, she considered the sasquatch legend. She’s heard plenty about it, having grown up in rural Oregon.

Does she believe it?

“I don’t believe it, though I guess it could be possible,” she said, laughing.

“Then again,” she shrugged, “It could be just a bunch of hairy hobos living out there.”

Source: goskagit

Trudging gingerly across the arid sands of the Gobi desert, Czech explorer Ivan Mackerle is careful not to put a foot wrong, for he knows it may be his last. He scours the land and shifting valleys for tell-tale signs of disturbance in the sands below, always ready for the unexpected lurch of an alien being said to kill in one strike with a sharp spout of acidic venom to the face. A creature so secretive that no photographic evidence yet exists, but the locals know it’s there, always waiting in silence for its prey, waiting to strike – the Mongolian Death Worm.

Reported to be between two and five feet long, the deep-red coloured worm is said to resemble the intestines of a cow and sprays a yellow acidic saliva substance at its victims, who if they’re unlucky enough to be within touching distance also receive an electric shock powerful enough to kill a camel… or them.

Given the latin name Allghoi khorkhoi, the Mongolian Death Worm was first referred to by American paleontologist Professor Roy Chapman Andrews (apparently the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character) in his book On the Trail of Ancient Man, in 1926 but he didn’t appear to be entirely convinced about the whole idea. Even though locals were desperate to relay events of when the dreaded worm struck, Andrews writes: “None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely.” But it wasn’t to stop other inquisitive adventurers taking up the investigative mantle when Andrews was no longer interested, or able to pursue the matter.

Only a few years ago, in 2005, a group of English scientists and cryptozoologists spent a month in the hostile Gobi desert searching for the fabled creature, and although they spoke to a number of Mongolians in the area, all of whom regaled wondrous stories of the worm, no one could verify they had seen the creature first-hand. Even still, after four weeks the team had gathered enough verbal evidence to be convinced that the worm really does exist. Lead researcher, Richard Freeman, said: “Every eyewitness account and story we have heard describes exactly the same thing: a red-brown worm-like snake, approximately two feet long and two inches thick with no discernable head or back (tail).”

Today, it is Ivan Mackerle, a self-made cryptozoologist who travels the world in search of scientific evidence that proves creatures like the Loch Ness monster and Mongolian Death Worm exist. As a boy he read the stories of the Russian paleontologist Yefremov, who wrote about a worm, which resembled a bloody intestine, that could grow to the length of a small man and mysteriously kill people at great distance, possibly with poison or electricity.

Mackerle says: “I thought it was only science fiction. But when I was in university, we had a Mongolian student in our class. I asked him, ‘Do you know what this is, the Allghoi khorkhoi?’ I was waiting for him to start laughing, to say that’s nothing. But he leaned in, like he had a secret, and said, ‘I know it. It is a very strange creature.’”

So Does the Mongolian Death Worm really exist, and what if it does?

This insistence by locals that worm is a reality will continue to fuel inquisitive minds and as long as open-mindedness remains a fair virtue, we’re prepared to wait a little longer for empirical proof of its existence.

Just remember, if you do decide to go Death Worm hunting in the Gobi desert, don’t wear yellow, seemingly that’s the color that sends our wrinkly friend into one its trademark electrifying, spitting freak outs. Don’t say we didn’t warm you.

Source: in.com

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

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

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

Believe it?

The young man sure seemed convincing when he reported the sighting to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. It dispatched investigator Cathy Betz, whose job is to separate hoaxes from actual Bigfoot sightings in Florida’s Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: scrippsnews

There has been a mysterious looking specimen found on the shores of Lake Okanagan that could possibly be linked to “Ogopogo”. There will be a tissue sample sent to scientist in Ontario to do some DNA testing and then the specimen itself will be sent to Alberta to be examined.

A Kelowna resident named Dam Poppoff found the specimen about two weeks ago as he was going along in his kayak at the far end of Lakeshore Road. The specimen is said to measure a little over a meter long and is being kept in Poppoffs freezer. Poppoff has not yet claimed that the strange carcass is indeed an example of Ogopogo but he said he is very interested on finding out exactly what the strange creature is.

Poppoff contacted long time Ogopogo researcher and writer Arlene Gaal with information about his findings. Gaal has since set up the tissue sample and carcass to be observed by unnamed researchers , Gaal did not want to identify the researchers so they could work without any distractions. Its not yet known when the results will be available or a match made as to what this creature actually is , but many in the cryptozoology world are waiting in anticipation.

This would ofcourse be a major find if it is indeed a yet unknown creature. Lake Okanagan has been the site of many sightings and reports of Ogopogo over the years yet to produce any solid evidence of the creature existance. We will track this story and hopefully have some more information to report.

YAKIMA, Wash. — Jim Hebert, a longtime insurance agent in Wenatchee who grew up in Yakima, waited three or four years before he told anyone about his bigfoot sighting while on vacation in Yellowstone National Park in 1994.

Wednesday, though, the 59-year-old Hebert shared his tale on the History Channel show “MonsterQuest.”

The program, which has featured episodes on the chupacabra, Loch Ness monster and giant squids, aims to “examine all the evidence available, from pictures and video to hair and bones, as well as the eyewitness accounts themselves,” according to the show’s Web site.

Hebert said while he was driving through Yellowstone, he looked over into a clearing below a wooded hillside and saw a “black hairy thing about 8 feet tall,” he recalled during a phone call Wednesday evening.

Earlier this year, a crew from “MonsterQuest” flew to Wenatchee and had Hebert reenact his experience in a similar-looking area up Chumstick Canyon in Leavenworth.

“There’s no question I saw it,” he said about what happened 15 years ago, emphasizing the image was blazed into his brain.

“Nobody can shake me,” said Hebert.

Source: yakimaherald

Did Sasquatch once roam the forest near Bonney Lake, Lake Tapps and Sumner?

According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the answer is “yes.”

The organization reported on its Web site that sightings of Sasquatch – commonly known as “Bigfoot” – have been documented since 1967 in Pierce County.

BFRO, based in Southern California, was founded in 1995 and is the oldest and largest organization of its kind – a virtual community of scientists, journalists and specialists from diverse backgrounds.

BFRO is widely considered as the most credible and respected investigative network involved in the study of Bigfoot.

According to BFRO, members seek to resolve the mystery surrounding the “Bigfoot phenomenon.” BFRO said the large ape-like creatures are most often spotted in forested regions with abundant protein sources like deer and fish.

Bonney Lake Councilman David Bowen said he recalled many people discussing “Bigfoot” and some claimed to have heard something or perhaps caught a glimpse.

“I owned an auto-wrecking yard and I remember hearing several people discuss or expound on the subject of Bigfoot,” he said.

Bowen said his sister, Wilma Bennett, remembered a girl claiming she had seen the creature.

Bowen said his older brother lived in Kapowsin at the time and borrowed a rifle to protect him and his wife if attacked by Bigfoot.

There have been several documents sightings and reports, including Bonney Lake and Sumner, according to BFRO.

In October 1975, two boys reported they saw two white creatures that smelled like skunks standing at the edge of the woods near Lakeridge Drive near Sumner. They estimated the creatures were 7-feet tall.

A couple reported to Bonney Lake police that someone was sneaking around close to their home in the south end of Lake Tapps. The officer reported he found a 14-inch human-like track (left foot) close to the front porch.

Richard Noll, a BFRO investigator, contacted the couple and they told Noll strange activity began in the summer of 1975.

The couple told Noll they their daughter was driving home from work about 11 p.m. when she saw a pair of reddish-looking eyes – 7 or 8 feet high – in the middle of the road. When she got closer, the daughter reported a shadow going in front of her headlights.

She stated it went into the woods opposite her home and drove into her parent’s driveway honking her horn and ran to the front door yelling in a frightened voice.

Late that night, the couple was awakened by a loud noise and large footprints were found at the north end of the couple’s property. The daughter moved out a few days later.

A few days later, the couples’ sons were sleeping in their backyard in a tent when they heard their dog barking frantically.

Days later, the dog was found beaten to death in the driveway and was bloodied across the nose and chest.

On Oct. 12, 1975, a woman reported she heard something heavy running across the roof where she was babysitting.

The next day, the couple found two ducks dead.

Two days later, another of the couples’ daughters heard footsteps and animals screams. Police found a footprint that was 16 inches long and 7 inches wide with five toes 2 inches long.

The BFRO Web site shows Washington with the most sightings at 465, followed by California (411) and Oregon (211), along with British Columbia with 112 reported. The most recent report in the state was March on Camano Island.

One of the earliest reported encounters reported in the state with Bigfoot was in 1924, when a five miners reported they were attacked by several “apemen” near Mount St. Helens.

The most famous evidence of Bigfoot is a 58-second film by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin in 1967 in Bluff Creek, Calif.

Since the first visual evidence of Bigfoot, there have been books, movies, comic books and documentaries produced.

Source: pnwlocalnews

Sasquatch, the mythical “Bigfoot” of western North America, makes its home deep within the fertile imaginations of gullible people. If you insist on looking for one in the real world, though, you should search in the home of the black bear – at least according to a tongue-in-cheek study of the ape-like creature’s habitat preferences.

The study has a more serious message too: it’s easy to be fooled into believing a plausible-looking habitat analysis, even when the data is totally erroneous.

Conservation biologists often need to predict where rare species are capable of living – for selecting the best site for a national park, for example, or forecasting how badly a species’ range will suffer as the climate changes in the future.

The latest technique for making these predictions is so-called ecological niche modelling, in which researchers log the locations of known species sightings, then gather environmental data for those places to define the ecological limits of the species’ range.

Jeff Lozier, an entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was worried that some people may have been too uncritical in applying the technique. “Whenever you have these new, shiny, easy-to-use approaches, there’s a temptation to use them even before you know what the kinks are,” he says.

So Lozier and his colleagues decided to apply ecological niche modelling to an obviously false data set – Sasquatch sightings. They gathered all reported sightings in the US states of Washington, Oregon and California and used the environmental data to predict Sasquatch distribution.

They found that the model yielded a perfectly plausible prediction about Bigfoot habitats – a warning to modellers that spurious results will not necessarily announce themselves through obvious warning signs.

“The point of the paper is really well taken,” says Dan Warren, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of California at Davis who is an expert in ecological niche models. “I think the literature is rife with people who are over-interpreting what comes out of these models.”

The researchers also compared the niche model for Sasquatch to one they developed for black bear. The two were statistically indistinguishable, they found. This suggests that many supposed Sasquatch sightings may simply be misidentified bears – a mistake that has been made on at least one occasion, Lozier notes.

Source: newscientist