He stands 9 feet tall with stringy brown fur all over his body and glowing red eyes, and if he truly does exist, he probably lives in a forest near you.

The ape-like beast known as Sasquatch is mere legend to skeptics, but to members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, he is a legitimate scientific conundrum. The group regularly scours areas in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and other wooded parts of the state in search of “squatches” — that’s right — plural Sasquatch.

Based on sightings reported by BFRO’s Web site, Washington state is effectively Bigfoot central, more specifically the densely covered Cascade foothills of Southwest Washington. The group believes Sasquatches live in complex communities with advanced social norms and complex forms of communication, including their own language.

“These people who live here, if you could get them to talk to you, they would tell you, ‘We hear them all the time,’” said Scott Taylor, a particularly active member of BFRO who led a group of eight people on a research trip near Mount Rainier National Park last Saturday. “We try to come out to places like this to meet the witnesses and sit and talk and let them get it off their chest, because many of them have been bottling it up for years.”

The group’s claim to fame is the “Skookum Cast,” a body impression of an ape-like figure found in the Skookum Meadow, in the southern portion of the Gifford Pinchot. It was unveiled in 2000 and studied by the late Washington State University anthropologist Grover Krantz, who dedicated much of his career to studying Bigfoot, along with the Kennewick Man — skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on the Columbia River in 1996.

Taylor, a retired U.S. Marine and engineer by trade who lives in Spanaway, said Lewis County is one of his most common areas of investigation, and he experienced one of his five Sasquatch sightings while deer hunting south of Mossyrock in December. He said his attention peaked when he heard the characteristic Sasquatch “scream.”

“It’s high-pitched like a chimp, but with much more timbre, like a growl. You experience a primal sense of fear,” Taylor said. “I scanned the slope and saw a creature on all fours dart from one tree to another. And that’s common when they come into contact with people. They’ll get low to avoid being seen.”

Tyler Bounds, a Stanwood man also on the expedition, said he has spent time on old logging roads outside Morton, where he saw trees jammed into the ground with root structures facing upward. He said he heard a strange growl on the excursion.

“It sounded like a monster,” he said.

But in the world of Bigfoot, the believers are clearly outnumbered. A total lack of bones, plus purposeful attempts at Sasquatch hoaxing serve only to bolster the case for skeptics.

“It serves them no purpose to be seen by us. How often do we find bones of bears or cougars? They quickly decay,” Taylor said. “And it’s pretty easy to tell what’s real and what is a hoax.”

Another member of the expedition Saturday says he has never seen a Sasquatch. He said he’s a federally funded anthropologist, but declined to give his name.

“Once you start looking into the evidence and reading books and all .. the idea that it’s all hoaxing and misidentification, I don’t know, is it a collective hallucination?” he said. “It seems more reasonable to start looking at the idea that these things really exist.”

Bigfoot Hoaxer Ray Wallace Has Roots in Toledo

Perhaps the most famous Bigfoot hoaxer of all time hailed from Toledo.

Ray Wallace, apparently with the help of a Toledo friend, Rant Mullins, wanted to play a trick on Northern California miners in the 1950s when he was on a road-building project. Wallace made a wooden cast from an outline of a friend’s foot expanded by three times and left impressions in the ground near logging sites.

According to interviews with Wallace’s family, the hoax began as a way to deter people from vandalizing the sites but later developed into a lifelong hobby. The fake tracks helped coin the term “Bigfoot” in a headline of the Humboldt Times in Eureka, Calif.

Wallace died in 2002, but is survived by family still in the area. Bigfoot believers generally don’t buy the Wallace hoax because its announcement came after his death when family members found the foot pressings after sorting through his old junk. The Bigfoot faithful also take particular umbrage with what they say are fabricated quotes in a 2002 article by the New York Times calling Wallace’s passing “the death of Bigfoot.”

“He used to mess with us kids. Then he made those tracks at a camp down there in California — ‘course they got up the next morning real excited,” said Dale Wallace, Ray’s 76-year-old nephew who lives in Toledo. “Yep, he was a real character.”

The following are Bigfoot-related news snippets from The Chronicle’s archives:

April 12, 1982 — A retired Toledo logger said he helped create the legends of a Bigfoot creature around Mount St. Helens. Rant Mullens, 86, said he and his uncle were returning from a fishing trip in 1924 and decided to throw a scare into some miners in the area. They rolled rocks over the edge and hightailed away. Later the three miners from Kelso reported seeing huge, hairy, apelike creatures that hurled boulders down upon their cabin. The miners said they fought off the creatures with rifle fire.

Mullens said he built on the legend four years later, when he whittled giant feet out of green alder wood and a friend stomped around the banks of the Muddy River, leaving tracks for berry pickers to notice.

“I tell you, people will believe just about anything,” the solitary, retired logger said from his home in Toledo.

April 19, 1982 — H. Woodman, Napavine, wrote a letter to the editor saying he saw a Bigfoot creature in 1953.

“Going home one evening on the Rutledge Road in the Littlerock area, I drove around a corner and saw a single animal — I thought it was a bear standing on its hind legs in the road. It was taller than a 6-foot man and was brown in color. It ran across the road, leaped a split rail fence and was gone in four or five seconds.

“Sometime later, I read some literature and remembered this sighting. The animal had hind legs that were of human proportions. A bear’s hind legs are short compared to its body. When it ran away at great speed it did not run on four legs but ran erect as a man would. A bear would run on all fours… I know what I saw and the only proof I need is to remember that it was erect when it ran away.”

Feb. 10, 1997 — Ruth Steele, 73, was convinced that a Bigfoot creature was roaming the hills near her home in Dryad.

“No question about it, I seen it … I’m not hallucinating — I’ve got a good mind.”

She believed she had seen either a Sasquatch or some kind of alien three times in six months. She didn’t carry a camera with her those times, but she had begun to. All the sightings took place near rural Doty and Dryad on the semiforested River Road.

The 7-foot-something tall humanoid was covered with gray, white and sometimes black fur, she said. The animal’s face appeared pink skinned. The furry creature walked upright and wore no clothing. In the most recent sighting, in January, the creature heard her car, turned and looked directly at her. Its eyes shone red.

“It shocked the devil out of me when I seen it,” Steele said. “I thought what in God’s name is that? … He wasn’t no human. He’s never nothing I’d seen in the woods.”

During a recent sighting her daughter, Debra Steele, 41, also saw the creature. “It looked me right in the face — it scared the pants right off of me,” the younger Steele said.

Aug. 5, 2001 —  The public had its first chance to see the Skookum Cast, a plaster casting of what might be Bigfoot. Wildlife biologist Dr. LeRoy Fish, Oregon, said the heel had what appeared to be a callus.

The 3½ by 5 foot chunk of plaster held the reverse imprint of what Fish and Kevin Lindley of Mossyrock said was an unknown primate.

The impression had been discovered in Skookum Meadow in Skamania County in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, between Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams.

Bigfoot skeptics say Wallace could have been behind famous tracks found at the Ape Cave near Mount St. Helens.

Reported Bigfoot Sightings in Lewis County

1967

Winlock — “The Brinson Monster” — Startled by a tall standing beast, high school kids who were out for a night of beer drinking at their regular spot return with a rifle and attempt to kill Bigfoot.

1969

White Pass — A Washington State University student sees a roadside Sasquatch who was startled by his headlights and then stepped over the guardrail on U.S. Highway 12.

1980

Packwood — Man reports a large scream from an animal running across the back side of the High Valley Country Club.

1990

Morton — Two men cutting cedar shake blocks near a creek hear a peculiar scream on an old logging road.

1994

Mineral — Two friends see a “dirty white” Sasquatch picking branches from a crab apple tree near a farm.

1996

Morton — Two people spot a Sasquatch bathing in a pond and periodically slapping the water with huge hands.

1998

Randle — Two hunters hear unusual “whoop howl” in stand of old growth forest.

2000

Morton — Mother and daughter see “large animal with long reddish brown hair” cross the road.

Morton — Woman stops her vehicle to look at what she thinks is a bear in a roadside ditch, but when it stood up, she thought it was a gorilla. She said the Sasquatch appeared to be injured and bleeding and had a “sad look” as it crossed the road in front of her car.

2001

White Pass — Family traveling from Tacoma report a Sasquatch standing in the road.

2002

Mossyrock — Riffe Lake fisherman and his son see a Sasquatch walking in a clear-cut forest near the shore.

Randle — A man and his wife are awakened by a loud scream similar to a peacock, but louder and with more timbre. The man went outside and mimicked the call and was answered six times.

Packwood — Elk hunter is spooked to find giant footprints in snow.

2003

Morton — Night watchmen for a logging company hear a strange short scream with a deep tone and two days later describe a figure “like Andre the Giant stepping over a rope.”

2004

Doty — A dozen teenagers camping at Rainbow Falls State Park hear a strange scream after putting out their camp fire.

Mossyrock — A wife and her husband hear two strange screams while out elk hunting and camping near a clear-cut forest.

2005

Salkum — A man driving down a dead-end country road sees a nondescript “gray patch” get up and move two steps into the woods.

2006

Doty — A man hunting in a wooded area comes into direct contact with a Sasquatch, which screamed at him and then “said something” he couldn’t understand.

2007

Winlock — A man lets his dogs run in his back yard when he hears a strange scream come from Olequa Creek.

2009

Salkum — Three men sitting in a drift boat on the south side of the Cowlitz River hear a sound like a “chimp screaming” from dense brush directly across the river. They said the sound carried on wailing for a minute or more.

Source: bfro.net

Chronline.com

Todd and his team have released several teaser videos as proof and claim that they are keeping the location secret in order to protect the newly found creatures. Their website sylvanic.com has very limited information as to who the team is and what it is they actually found.

Their website itself holds no real information. There are a few links for an online store to buy the “video evidence” of the creatures they filmed. Not a surprise.
So what is the real story behind the “Sylvanic Bigfoot” ?

According to Todd’s Youtube account, there is a short video clip of the supposed evidence that was captured recently. The video was uploaded to Youtube on November 27, 2009. I don’t know the date of the video itself.

As far as most of the information from Slyvanic.com, the details of the location or more video proof cannot be divulged due to the team’s effort to help protect these creatures by there claims.

Source: ghosttheory.com

If you’ve seen any hulking hairy beasts or unexplained gigantic footprints lately, a group of sasquatch seekers wants to hear from you.

The Western Canadian Sasquatch Research Organization hopes a newspaper advertising blitz this summer will help sniff out reports from witnesses who have encountered the legendary hairy giant.

“Many reports are not brought forward because many people who have a story to tell do not want to be ridiculed,” said Roman Forczek, a Lacombe welder who specializes in conducting field research for the sasquatch group.

“We do receive a lot of stories that you just have to dismiss. That is unfortunate, because we do treat the research seriously.” The sasquatch group has already collected nearly 700 accounts dating back to the early 1800s of footprints, sasquatch sightings, strange animal vocalizations and suspicious physical damage in the woods.

Its researchers, which include a Calgary chemist and lab owner, have analyzed hair samples, shot photographs and video and travelled to secluded sasquatch hot spots in their quest to prove the legendary creature exists.

The group was founded in 1999 under the name Central Alberta Sasquatch Research. It now has 33 members and covers Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

“We are trying to unravel this mystery,” Forczek said.

“We don’t claim to have any concrete evidence or indisputable evidence.” But Forczek hopes that proof isn’t far off.

Already, about a dozen people have responded this summer to the group’s advertising blitz in community newspapers, mostly in towns along the front range of the Rocky Mountains. Ads have appeared in Jasper, Grande Cache, Rocky Mountain House, Edson and Coleman, and the group is organizing more ads in Alberta and B.C.

Strange bedding That advertising caught the attention of an avid hunter and outdoorsman, who told Forczek on Monday about a shelter and strange bedding he found 20 years ago in a remote cave in the Rocky Mountain foothills.

“This fellow strongly believes this bed that he found inside of the cave was not made by bear or deer or any such creatures,” Forczek said.

“It is in an area that has had numerous sighting reports over the past 30 or 40 years.” Calgary organic chemist Brian Baillie can’t wait to set up a sasquatch search in the area sometime over the next month.

“The best chance of us getting more evidence is someone coming forward and saying, ‘Hey, I saw one,’ or ‘I saw some tracks,’ and us getting out there to see what we can verify.

“We’ve got hidden cameras that we set up in trees and all over the place. We haven’t been lucky enough yet. We’ve got lots of pictures of deer and things like that,” Baillie laughed.

There has even been sasquatch evidence around Edmonton, with reports of giant footprints along the river valley and sightings near Hobbema, Baillie said.

In 1969, numerous unrelated witnesses reported a spate of sightings near Nordegg, including five construction workers who reported seeing an enormous creature at the Big Horn Dam.

The brother of one of those workers recently contacted Baillie as a result of the sasquatch group’s ad campaign. Baillie interviewed the man and went through his brother’s sasquatch scrapbook.

“His brother, to his deathbed, swore that is exactly what he saw.” Field trips Neither Baillie nor Forczek has seen a sasquatch. However, both said they have seen evidence the creatures exist during separate field research trips to verify earlier sasquatch reports.

Forczek said he heard cracking branches, guttural grunting and high-pitched screams outside his tent in the middle of the night during a sasquatch research trip southeast of Big Horn dam in August 2005.

A search the next day failed to turn up any physical evidence.

And Baillie said he saw massive, human-like footprints from a creature with a huge stride in April 2005, when he checked out a forestry road north of Nordegg where a man had reported seeing a sasquatch two weeks earlier.

The research group is serious about weeding out hoaxes, Baillie said. There certainly have been some unbelievable reports and at least one crazy request, he added.

Quite a few years back, one woman wrote to the group “looking for love,” Baillie laughed.

“She was looking for a sasquatch because she wanted to mate. We never got back to her.”

Source: canada.com

CRITICAL EVIDENCE:

“Frightening encounters with the legendary monster known as Sasquatch are reported in almost every state of America. These run-ins with terrifying upright hairy beasts date back centuries and sightings number in the thousands. Despite the many Sasquatch reports, skeptics point to the lack of evidence as compelling reason for the creature being merely a myth. Now, however, new analysis of the best existing evidence could finally uncover proof of this elusive beast. A special MonsterQuest investigation gathers together the critical evidence – from startling videos to tracks, prints and sighting maps. State of the art analysis may finally give definitive proof that Sasquatch is among us.”

Monster Quest airs tonight at 9:00 pm Eastern Time on History Channel.