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

Cliff Barackman, bigfoot researcher on Animal Planet’s television series, Finding Bigfoot, does a video debrief of the Minnesota episode.

Northern Minnesota is a rural area of forests, farmlands, and bogs. The human population is mostly in small urban areas and farms that are separated by huge tracts of nearly impassable land. Many large animals make this area their home, including deer, moose, wolves, bear, and sasquatches.

It was Andy Pieper’s interesting recordings that brought us to this location. The spot he recorded them has had bigfoot activity on or near it for many years. Most of the sounds he recorded were clearly canines, but one or two were more ambiguous. I think it’s at least possible that those vocalizations were from a bigfoot (though it’s equally possible that they were from a wolf).

(Power lines near recording location)

One of the highlights of this trip was driving those cool amphibious swamp vehicles manufactured by Argos. They have eight wheels, can float, and can drive over most obstacles. At first I felt a little bad about plowing through thickets of plants and trees, but an interesting feature of these peat bogs is that the trees and plants, once pushed down, pop back up.  Utilizing these amazing vehicles, we were able to access islands of dry land deep in the peat bogs that few people ever go to. The one we spent the most time on was called “The Nursery” by the local bigfooters because of the small human-like footprints found there over the years that they believe are from juvenile sasquatches. These islands certainly would be excellent places for young bigfoots to hunt and hide without having to worry about meddling humans.

The deer kill that Ranae and I found was the work of predators. It could have been from wolves, coyotes, or even a bigfoot, but we couldn’t tell. However, that we found the scattered bones right inside the tree line was interesting. It would be strategic for a predator to ambush any prey animals as they entered the forest after crossing the marsh.

The night investigation yielded mixed results. At one point Ranae and I heard loud plopping noises of something dropping into water. At the time, we were utterly unaware of the pond that was on the other side of the brush.  We thought that there was no body of water other than shallow, marshy pits with reeds and grasses growing in them.  After learning that the pond was there, I changed my hypothesis from rocks being thrown to a beaver slapping its tail on the surface of the water (as they often do when disturbed).  Though it is likely that the noises were made by a beaver, Ranae insisted that she could hear something large walking through the woods between where we were standing and where the noises came from. I did not hear those walking noises, but Ranae was so insistent that I have to at least keep the possibility open that those noises were from something else.

The town hall meeting was amazing. The little building we used was packed with standing room only. We took the time to listen to each and every person who wanted to share their story with us. Even after the meeting, I had people come up to me to tell me about their bigfoot encounter that they didn’t feel comfortable sharing in front of everyone. There are indeed a lot of bigfoot encounters in this area, and there has been for decades.

Bobo’s solo investigation would last three nights. I knew it would be a good one, even if the bigfoots weren’t around at that time of year.  I’ve been bigfooting with Bobo on many nights over the last seven years we’ve been friends, and if there’s something I know about him, it’s that he hates bugs. There have been several hot days in the woods when Bobo would not get out of the tent because of the horse flies. He would instead lie in the tent with the screen door open and lure the horseflies inside. Once the fly was in the tent, he would quickly zip up the door and engage the insect in mortal combat. “Only one of us can come out alive,” he claimed. He dubbed the tent, “The Thunderdome,” and bug gut stains still adorn the inside walls to this day (it was my tent…). He even would go as far as mounting particularly large flies that he found to be worthy opponents on small pieces of wood to decorate his trophy wall at home.

Jenna, the young jogger, saw a large bigfoot just a short distance from her home. Interestingly, there has been other activity around their property. Once, a very large and dark figure was seen walking about 200 yards away inside the wood line on the other side of a field.  An interesting fact that surfaced while spending time with Jenna is that her dog is named “Bobo.”

The sighting at the town hall meeting that was told by Lorraine grabbed my attention. She saw a large bigfoot in broad daylight looking into an abandoned trailer only a mile or so away from where Jenna saw hers while jogging. That trailer was still there, so this was an excellent opportunity to get some decent size estimates on this big guy that was so often seen in the area.
Lorraine is a very sweet woman with a no-nonsense attitude with the charming habit of occasionally talking like a sailor. She told me that her sister didn’t believe that she saw a bigfoot, so Lorraine told her sister that she “hopes it takes a sh** on her porch!”  She said that would convince her.  I adored her.  She was so cute and so much fun to talk to.

On April 9, 2010,  Lorraine was driving down a rural road when she found two cars stopped in the road ahead of her. Thinking that a police officer had pulled someone over, she slowed down. She saw a large dark figure next to an abandoned trailer off to her right only 90 yards away.
Including Lorraine, there were three cars stopped in the road that day with the occupants all looking at the bigfoot.  Lorraine was in the third car back. The first car had two young men wearing baseball caps in it, the second had a couple from the Pacific Northwest, and then Lorraine alone in the third car.

The bigfoot looked into the trailer window for a few moments, using its right hand to shield the glare on the window.  It then started walking down the driveway towards where everyone was stopped on the road. The young men in the first car quickly drove away in fear when they saw the creature coming their direction. The other two cars were treated to a close up view of the sasquatch as it passed only 29 yards from where Lorraine was stopped. It crossed the road (24 feet wide) and went over a 46 inch tall barbed wire fence without breaking stride in only three or four steps. After clearing the fence it disappeared into the thick woods and was not seen again.

At one point in our investigation, a man drove by in a truck and asked what we were doing. We told him about the bigfoot sighting, and he told us that that this particular sasquatch had been seen several times by people that he knows in the area. He even told us a nick name of this particular creature given to it by the locals: “Peek-a-Lou.” It seems that many of the local humans are aware of this creature and its affinity for looking into windows.

The next sighting we were to investigate happened on public (and protected) land adjacent to the witness’ property. Dale and Kristy’s were out ATV riding and bird hunting with their children when they saw a large bigfoot get up and immediately leave the area near the trail.  The ATV’s had come to a stop, and Dale seems  to have stirred up the sasquatch from hiding as he walked through the thick forest in search of game birds.  The creature retreated back up the road, which was away from where Dale had walked.  They heard it crashing through the brush for a distance, before losing track of it.

Our last night investigation actually took place in two separate locations. The mobile call blasting part was overlooking a deep river gorge containing a state park. At one point, I heard a possible call back, but it was too distant to discern if it was a bigfoot or some sort of canine. Down below in the ravine, Bobo and Ranae had some bad luck. They found that humans were in the immediate area, thus increasing the likelihood of us hearing human noises instead of bigfoots if we continued.  At that point, we quickly left the area.

Luckily, Tyler Bounds had been out bigfooting with some local Minnesota bigfooters the night before and had heard knocks. We moved the production team to this new location and started the night over again. Over the next several hours we heard several things moving around in the forest, but I do not know what they were. They could have just as easily been deer or racoons as bigfoots. Unfortunately, we never got a visual on whatever it was.

Minnesota definitely has sasquatches living there. I think we were just a bit too early in the year for this spot. The hazelnuts that are in abundance when many sightings occur had not yet fruited. (There was a sighting only a couple weeks before, but perhaps this was a bigfoot scouting to see if the fruits were available…)  We certainly had our fair share of interesting witnesses to speak to! And to me, the fact that the same bigfoot (“Peek-a-Lou”) has been seen so many times in that area is very interesting.  Looking at the sightings of Peek-a-Lou might shed a little light on the habits, range, and needs of sasquatches in that area.

Source: http://www.northamericanbigfoot.com/2012/01/finding-bigfoot-minnesota-field-notes.html

]]> http://cryptoreports.com/finding-bigfoot-behind-the-scenes-peeping-bigfoot-with-cliff-barackman/feed 0 http://cryptoreports.com/finding-bigfoot-peeping-bigfoot http://cryptoreports.com/finding-bigfoot-peeping-bigfoot#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:59:37 +0000 CryPtoReporter http://cryptoreports.com/?p=620 Finding Bigfoot Season 2 Episode 3 “Peeping Bigfoot” deals with Bigfoot reports and evidence from Minnesota.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization headed to Minnesota to investigate intriguing howls recorded at an infamous bigfoot hotspot. They go deep into the wild, hot on the trail of bigfoots rumored to be bigger and bolder than any other on earth.

On a night hunt, Matt and Cliff call back and forth to one another. In response, they hear a strange knocking sound. Could a sasquatch be nearby?

The footage we came to Rhode Island to look into was filmed by Dina and Kris from the Beyond the Veil Paranormal Investigations Group. While I do not consider bigfoots to be paranormal, many people group them into the “paranormal” category. I consider bigfoots to be perfectly normal mammals living in North American forests. Still, since they have not been “discovered” by the academics yet, and considering all the strange stories that go along with sasquatch lore, I can see why paranormalists like to look at the bigfoot phenomenon. Besides, maybe I’m wrong, and bigfoots are super weird, paranormal things from dimensions beyond our own… I doubt it, but I’m always open to being wrong.

The “Big Rhodey” video, as it is called, was obtained while out shooting extra “B-roll” footage for a short documentary that Dina and Kris were shooting nearby on ghosts. It mostly shows a stone wall being filmed from a moving car, but at one point a seemingly human-shaped dark figure appears briefly as the vehicle drives by it. It’s slightly out of focus, and it is uncertain whether the figure is moving or if it is just an illusion given by the movement of the car.

We were led to the location by the two witnesses, and soon we set out to find exactly where the figure was standing in the film. There were several trees of various sizes in the frames in which the creature is shown, and comparing the locations of trunks, stems and rocks in the walls gave us a very small area where the figure could have been standing. I am very confident that the location was determined to within a matter of a few feet, at most.

“Big Rhodey film site”

There were many things to measure at the film site, though only some of it would be useful for determining the size of the figure. The stone wall is three feet tall, and the large tree to the right side of the figure is 32 inches in diameter. The figure is standing between a large white oak tree (behind it), and a smaller pine tree (between the figure and the camera). It is 8.5 feet between these two trees, giving a relatively small area in which to be standing. Such a small area would not give any major discrepancy in possible size, possibly an inch or two at most. The total distance from the camera to the figure is less than 33 feet.

I do not know what is shown in that footage. Whatever it is, it was not there the day we did our recreation, which indicates that it was probably an animal. We found it to be a bit shorter than Bobo, and was standing upright, thus indicating that it was either a bigfoot or a human. It’s kind of a weird place for either of those things to be standing. It seems unlikely that it was a human, unless the witnesses were involved in a hoax of some sort. However, after spending time with both Dina and Kris, I do not get the impression that they were trying to pull one over on us. I am left a bit baffled.

While the results of our recreation were ambiguous, the area was thickly wooded, and was bordering a nature preserve containing a no-hunting zone. It seemed a good spot to do a night investigation, so we set out that night to see if we might get lucky and find a bigfoot (or have one find us). My team heard nothing that night except a chorus of coyotes, but Bobo and Matt’s team had better results. Bobo swears he heard a knock, which was encouraging. Later, their team also heard and recorded a whistle, but to me it sounded like some sort of bird. If any of you happen to know the bird (if it even was a bird) that makes that noise, I’d love to hear from you by contacting me at NorthAmericanBigfoot@gmail.com.

I was tapped for the solo investigation for the Rhode Island episode, and I was given a vehicle to help me get around to anywhere I needed to go in the state. After all, with so few reports, I needed to be as mobile as possible in order to get results. Finding bigfoots is never easy, and in a place like Rhode Island, it can be even more difficult. Over the next three days, my companion and friend of the ’squatch, Tyler Bounds and I would set out to the improbable: find a bigfoot in Rhode Island.

The first night came and went and no bigfoots were encountered, but the next day brought some interesting hints of possible activity in the northern part of the state. Using a local contact, we discovered that there had been a possible footprint find only a few days previously, and literally the day before a different investigator had a close encounter with a large, unseen animal barreling through thick brush. These locations were only a dozen or so miles apart, so Tyler and I headed up north near the border of Connecticut.

The footprints were discovered in an area with a prior history. The location had an extensive trail system that was mostly soft soil and sand, perfect for footprints. Previously in this area, 13 inch footprints had been discovered by local investigators, so I was encouraged that the prints found that week might have been from a bigfoot. I hiked a little less than two miles back into this swampy woodland before finding the footprints. They were in a muddy patch of trail, very near power lines.

After closely examining the area for several minutes, I eventually found three footprints, two lefts and a right.  They had a stride of 45 inches, and a step of 19 inches (remember, step is from one foot to the other foot, while stride is measured from one foot to the same foot). Measuring the three prints gave lengths of 10.5 inches, 10 inches, and 10 inches, while the ball widths were 3.5 inches, 2.75 inches, and 2.75 inches. These measurements put the size squarely within human limits, but small bigfoot prints are sometimes found. Though I think this is a very weird place for a person to be going around barefoot, I determined these prints to be human in origin, but not based on their size. The prints had a clear, high arch, which is a uniquely human characteristic. Also, the fourth and fifth digits (“ring” toe and “little” toe) were curled under a bit, indicating a life spent in shoes. Sasquatches (and humans that have never worn shoes) often show a wide splay to their toes, while wearing shoes trains the small digits to curl under a bit. Finally, there were domestic dog prints in this same immediate area. These were probably from the canine companion of the barefooted hiker.

While examining the footprints, I was treated to a loud vocalization of a barred owl from right overhead. I didn’t hear the owl show up due to its ability to fly silently (owls’ feathers have evolved to minimize in-flight sounds, thus enabling them to be better ambush predators), but I sure heard it when it screamed a mere 20 feet above my head. This is one of the many pleasures of bigfooting. Animal sounds and encounters are a special treat, whether they are from bigfoots or not. I really do love bigfooting, even when there are no bigfoots in the immediate vicinity.

The possible close encounter from the day before happened very near where Tyler and I were to camp that night, so we visited the spot during the day. The area was thickly wooded, and due to the recent storm that devastated much of the Northeast, many trees had been pushed over by the high winds. Still, we made our way back to a high spot and did some knocks and calls in the waning light. No responses were heard at that time, nor that night.

When I came out of the woods to meet up with the rest of the team, we headed off to look into an encounter had by bigfoot investigator and friend of the ’squatch, Nick Mione. The location turned out to be a spot where road workers in Rhode Island dump road kill into a ravine. In many states, road kill is simply left on the side of the road for vultures and other scavengers to dispose of, but in Rhode Island they collect the deer and dump them in various spots. (I’m not even sure if this is legal, but it’s true.) Nick stumbled upon one of these spots and saw a bigfoot while there.

It is these kinds of locations where dead things are dumped that are gold mines for bigfoot investigators. During the winter months, these sites are literally refrigerators for any scavenger. The low temperatures and snow would keep the meat from spoiling for months at a time, and any bigfoot would just have to drop by and pick up his deersicle, a tasty treat, I’m sure.

The location where Nick encountered a bigfoot was a macabre scene. There were bones littering the forest floor, and if I took the time to brush away the forest litter, it was easy to find old bones decaying under the layer of leaves that had accumulated. A hillside had been reinforced with large stones, and bones could be seen poking out between the large rocks.

Our recreation indicated that the creature was about 7.5 feet tall. Being a biologist, Nick took measurements of the step length and found them to be six feet. That’s a 12 foot stride, and is way outside of the stride length for a walking human. The creature went down a hillside and stood some distance away behind a tree.  Nick watched it for a short while until a loud “whoop” came from the opposite direction, causing him to leave the area.

For the last night investigation, we chose an area based on a cluster of reports obtained from the town hall meeting that just so happened to align with the location of the encounter a few days before between a local bigfoot investigator and a large, unseen animal. The area in question was off-limits after 5 pm unless you were granted special permission to be there, as we were. Using the idea that sasquatches follow deer herds, we put Ranae in a gillie suit up in a tree stand with a thermal imager and a parabolic microphone. Bobo, Matt, and I were to make a lot of noise and move through the woods, hopefully flushing all the animals in the general direction of Ranae. Little did I know that we were going to be carrying lit torches for visual effect (we make TV, after all).

When I was told about the torches, I laughed, asked who thought of that brilliant idea, and requested a pitch fork to go with it. It turned out that one of the producers thought of it, and there were no pitch forks for this monster hunt. Knowing that I’d eventually catch a lot of heat for this, I left my ego behind and tried to have as much fun with it as possible. We were, after all, only trying to drive any deer (or Frankenstein monsters) towards Ranae so she could film them. I do have to admit, the producer was right. It looked pretty cool on screen.

A funny thing happened while we were prepping for that scene. Bobo, Matt, and I all had our torches lit, and we were waiting for something or other on a road at the top of a hill before we descended into the forest. We were several miles back on closed access roads, and it was well after 11 pm when we heard motors. Soon a gang of ATV riders came barreling around a corner at the base of the hill. They stopped in their tracks, gazing up at three men at the top of the hill holding lit torches, surrounded by a dozen other people in a semicircle. I heard them nervously talking to each other, not knowing what to do or think about the bizarre situation they had just stumbled across. After a few frantic moments of conversation, they flipped a quick U-turn and headed off into the night. I would have loved to see their facial expressions and heard their conversations. I’m pretty sure they had no clue what to think about the spectacle they faced ahead of them.

In case you’ve never tried it, walking through the woods wielding a lit torch is not an easy thing to do, especially if you’re trying to not burn down the forest. We had several fire extinguishers with us, but nobody wanted to have to use them. We were also off-trail, and had to navigate some pretty steep terrain, all the while hollering and making a ruckus to drive the deer towards the waiting skeptic.

At one point, Matt and I heard a large splash/plopping noise. We rushed off to investigate, and we found a pond hidden in the woods perhaps 80 yards away. We both came to the conclusion that what we heard was most likely a beaver slapping its tail against the water. However, while we were investigating, Bobo heard what he described as a rock hitting a tree, falling through the branches, and hitting the ground. He was adamant that he heard exactly what he described, and I’ve learned to trust Bobo’s hearing. Perhaps the crazy scheme with the torches worked.

Ranae never got a visual on anything in the woods during her time up in the tree stand. (Even if she did, I’d wonder if she’d believe it anyway…) Bobo was positive that we had a bigfoot near us, and he could very well be right. We were less than a mile away from where that encounter happened just a few days before, and were smack dab in the middle of one of the best sighting clusters discovered at the town hall meeting.

Much to my surprise, I found Rhode Island to be excellent habitat for our big furry friends. The majority of the state is heavily wooded, and some areas are virtually never penetrated by anybody. While I believe that the local sasquatches probably just wander through the various areas, there are a couple places that they might hang out in on a regular basis. If any of you live there, I would heavily recommend trying to get into the Great Swamp for a few nights. I believe that this is one of the places in which bigfoots might just take up residence. The locals all laughed at me when I spoke about getting in there, claiming it was nearly impossible.  That sounds good to me… Let me know what you find by contacting me. Good luck, my East Coast friends!

Source : cliffbarackman.com/ri_commentary.php

The segment (part 2) even includes a retired Forestry Service Ranger who claims that Sasquatch does exist and that there is more going on then what we know. He claims that the existence of the creature is common knowledge and not only has the creature been sighted but it has been studied for years and many of their habits are now known.

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

(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.

GARBERVILLE, California – It’s a big, hairy ape-like creature that has a distinctive fowl odor say those who claim to have encountered “Bigfoot,” or “Sasquatch,” as its commonly called.  The creature is legend around the world, and especially in northern California where’s it’s been sighted on a regular basis for the past 150 plus years.  Recent Thanksgiving week new sightings in Garberville and other redwood communities have concerned both residents and the California Department of Fish and Game.

At the same time, there’s been recent reports of Bigfoot or a creature like it in and around the Eugene area.  In fact, one local resident of the Eugene suburb of Alpine noted “seeing Bigfoot over Thanksgiving” while walking his dog in the woods near his home.  Bigfoot has been a regular “visitor” to the Eugene area, say local U.S. Forest Service officials who’ve fielded hundreds of calls about Bigfoot in the woods of western Lane County.

Bigfoot responding to increase in tourism

One local media report stated that Bigfoot tracks were spotted near Garberville on Nov. 27 with massive feces droppings that were and not from a bear.  In addition, numerous residents of the back woods area of town called police after hearing “terrible human-like moans coming from the forest.”

While the California Department of Fish and Game and local and state police departments are responding to recent Bigfoot sightings by locals and tourists in and around Garberville in Humboldt County, there’s a view around here that “Bigfoot will be Bigfoot, and that’s what he does from time to time,” says Garberville resident Ian Halmrast.

Still, other locals say they’re scared for both themselves and their children.

One local film maker from the L.A. area recently made a film about the legend of Bigfoot, and noted “it’s not aggressive when confronted by humans.  The film maker also found evidence of Bigfoot kidnapping children from camp sites, but not harming them.

“There was this sound of food being scraped from a plate, and then an unbelievably loud cry as if someone was in pain.  We ran towards it, and heard the sharp and brittle crack of the tree branches.  We could then see this big thing run into the forest,” says Halmrast while breathing an exasperated sigh after the story he told.

Halmrast and others in Garberville — a former logging and mill town in Northern California that was named “Dogtown” by the first settlers who arrived in this towering region of redwood trees back in the mid-1850’s – said there’s good reason to believe “Bigfoot is still out there.”

Garberville sits high in the mountains at nearly 550 feet where, say locals, “Bigfoot likes to hang out.”

During the recent Thanksgiving week — with thousands of tourists and other visitors stopping to enjoy the redwood trees — the recent new sightings of Sasquatch began to unfold.

“We first heard that he (Bigfoot) was back when a told us about a police report of something scaring people in the nearby forests.  We all thought Bigfoot right then and there because we know it’s out there somewhere,” explains Deborah Dorsey who works in a local café.

At the same time, Dorsey notes that her brother Steve works at a nearby redwood tourist center that “markets Bigfoot” for tourists.

“Steve says he sells more carved Bigfoot figures and signs than most anything else during the busy summer months.  While the police and the scientists who come up here discount the existence of the big guy, we know different because the stories have been going on for so long,” explains Dorsey who notes her grandfather telling her about Bigfoot when she was a kid more than 60 years ago.

Bigfoot is a legend with a long history in the Pacific Northwest and California

Anyone conducting research about Bigfoot or Sasquatch will find hundreds of thousands of references to the creature’s existence.  Even accredited researches such as ape expert Jane Goodall have noted believe in such a creature existing both in North America and in various other places throughout the world.

Still, Bigfoot remains one of the most famous and controversial creatures in science today.

Those who’ve reportedly seen Bigfoot describe the ape-like beast as ranging between six to 10 feet with dark reddish hair and the weight and size of a big bull or cow.  Those who’ve alleged to have seen the creature say it has large black eyes and a sort of cave-man like features.

Here in Garberville and other small town in the redwood forest region of Northern California the main claim to fame that Bigfoot is about “always seems to center on his footprints,” says local forester Wayne Cruthers.

“You get the tourists telling stories about spotting these footprints in the woods, and you just smile because you know that so many others also see Bigfoot foot prints but they don’t tell the cops or report it.  You see, they’re not sure are they.  It could be a bear or something.  I think if we had a regular way to report Bigfoot sightings than we’d catch the thing,” says Cruthers who’s made it “a hobby to track Bigfoot legends in Garberville.”

Likewise, there have been numerous sightings of Bigfoot in 2010.  The California communities of Mt. Lessen, Mt. Shasta, Weed, Round Mountain, Elk Creek, Caribou, Happy Camp, Clear Creek, Trinity Alps, Weaverville, Crescent Mill, Mammoth Lakes, Bear Valley, Eureka, Yreka, Fort Bragg, Orick and Crescent City have all listed reports to police about a “big, hairy beast walking in the woods.”

“We’ve seen photos of Bigfoot tracks that have a sort of claw look like a bear’s footprint.  You sort of look in disbelief that such a thing could be around your home and kids,” says Cruthers with a helpless wave of his hands.

Bigfoot advocates, such as the noted crypto zoologist John Willison Green, have said “Bigfoot is a worldwide phenomenon that simply won’t go away.”

Source:  examiner

Billy Willard says he’s on the verge of a major discovery that could change the way humans think about the natural world, not to mention their need for a creature-proof home security system.

Here in Spotsylvania County, in the forests around Lake Anna, Willard contends there have been 14 sightings in the past decade of that most fabled of cryptozoic beasts: Bigfoot.

Or Sasquatch, as the elusive, apelike brute is referred to in other circles — and on the side of Willard’s blue pickup. The decal on the truck reads “Sasquatch Watch of Virginia,’’ of which Willard is chief pooh-bah (when he’s not earning a living installing and removing underground home oil tanks).

Go ahead, call him a loon, a flake, a huckster. He’s heard it all. But Willard knows what he knows, which is that three people from this area — a woman, her husband, and their granddaughter — told him they saw a shaggy, super-sized figure on two legs gallivanting across their wooded property.

Last month, Willard led a week long expedition to the site, where he installed five motion-sensor cameras that will snap photos if and when the big galoot wanders by again.

Willard, 41, says he’d like to lead a tour of the property and introduce the witnesses, really he would. But the woman who says she saw what she believes could have been Bigfoot fears an avalanche of ridicule, which is why Willard is left to deliver his version of what happened a few miles away, in the parking lot of a Dairy Queen.

“We believe we may be close to some kind of major discovery,’’ he said. “All the things they would need are here, fresh water, shelter in the woods. The high concentration of sightings tells me they’re here.’’

He interrupts his monologue to answer his cellphone, the ringtone to which is the country tune “People Are Crazy.’’

Ever since humans began telling stories, they have spun yarns involving life forms that tower above mere mortals, whether it’s the giant of “Jack and the Beanstalk’’ fame, or Goliath, or Frankenstein.

Bigfoot has been a perennial for generations, with hundreds of purported sightings (many of them of supposed footprints), most prevalent in the Pacific Northwest but also popping up in states as disparate as Rhode Island, Illinois, and Alabama.

The myth grew in popularity in 1967, when two men in California filmed what appeared to be a huge and hairy biped walking into the woods, at one point turning its head to glance dramatically at the camera.

In Bigfoot circles, the footage is referred to as the “Patterson-Gimlin film,’’ named for its makers.

In less admiring circles, the short, fuzzy clip is cited as nothing short of poppycock.

Willard knows about the film, and most everything else Bigfoot-related, all of which he’s happy to share at any time, sometimes to the annoyance of his wife, Jeanean, who is prone to blurt out, “Okay, the conversation will have to change.’’

For all of Willard’s certainty about Bigfoot, the buzz has not exactly caught on in the rural hamlets around Lake Anna, where many residents work at the nearby nuclear power plant or in construction or commute to Richmond or Washington.

Behind the grill at Tarheel Pig Pickers barbecue, Mark Lane, 54, giggled.

“When I see Bigfoot water skiing, I’ll believe it,’’ he said. “If they catch him, we’ll put him on the rotisserie and invite everyone in the community.’’

Ron McCormick, president of a home-building company, said people have more pressing concerns, such as plummeting property values and paying bills. “On the other hand, it could bring in tourists,’’ he said as he sat at his desk, playing solitaire on his laptop.

Craig Petrie, 55, mowing grass a few miles away, volunteered that he sometimes hears voices calling his name from below as he tends the cemetery adjoining Wallers Baptist Church, where he holds the titles of head deacon and chief groundskeeper.

But Bigfoot sightings? “Never happened,’’ he said, although he’s open to the possibility, particularly with all the new subdivisions in the area ripping out trees and kicking up dirt.

“If anyone’s going to see him, it’s me, because I’m always on this mower. And if he kills me, they’ll just have to walk a few feet to bury me. It’s convenient.’’

The small but avid universe of Bigfoot enthusiasts includes self-styled investigators who pursue their quest during off hours from their day jobs.

Willard, for example, hosts an Internet radio show and maintains a website from his home in Manassas; he also monitors his Bigfoot hotline for reported sightings (a recent caller announced “I just saw Bigfoot in Reston,’’ before exploding in laughter and hanging up).

More dispassionate scholars are fascinated by the unflagging interest in bogeymen.

“People have a need to think about something like ourselves, something scary, using them as a cautionary tale,’’ said Robert Michael Pyle, whose book “Where Bigfoot Walks’’ explores the history of Sasquatch.

Willard spends countless hours in the woods listening for footsteps, always with a camera, ready to snap a picture.

He brings a set of knives and a hatchet. If he finds a dead Bigfoot, he intends to walk away with the ultimate trophy, DNA evidence, to send a message to those who ridicule the believers: “To give them the final ‘Aha! I told you so.’ ’’

Source: boston.com