Missing 400-lb Sasquatch Statue, 'Squashy,' Returned To Ralph Spence

CINCINNATI (AP) — A southwest Ohio family is searching for Sasquatch no longer.

The Spence family in Delhi Township, west of Cincinnati, says their 400-pound concrete statue of the mythical beast, which was reported stolen Saturday, has been found.

Sixty-one-year-old Ralph Spence says his two sons bought the statue for him several years ago. They affectionately call it "Squashy."

Though it started out as a practical joke, the statue became part of the family. They even dress it up for holidays.

Spence says he received a call from a friend Tuesday who saw the statue in a nearby open field. A note found with the statue poked fun at its weight, and was signed by "the body building bandits."

Spence says Squashy is "a legend around here in the neighborhood."

Source

Alberta: Bow Valley flooding exposes rotting carcass of a Sasquatch. Legendary Cryptid believed to be a surviving Gigantopithecus

(SNN) – The recent mass flooding in southern Alberta has exposed a rotting corpse of what is believed to be the legendary Sasquatch. Cryptozoologists worldwide are lining up to examine the remains, which were located by a hiker along the Bow River, northwest of Canmore, Alberta.

Eminent Paleontologist Wally Johnson has conducted a preliminary site examination of the remains, and has discovered that the carcass appears to be ancient. “I can report that from the bone structure, stature and a comparison of the mandibles and teeth, that I believe the remains are that of a Gigantopithecus.”

“We have always believed that the Sasquatch, Yeti, or even Bigfoot, if you will, was really a surviving clan of Hominids connected to the line of Gigantopithecus.” stated Cryptozoologist Coren Lowman, “The find near Canmore is extraordinary!”

Continued

Exciting updates on the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project

I have decided to share some updates on two events related to Sasquatch here which have gained the attention of many researchers including myself. The first news is an exciting update that the results of the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid which is being conducted by Bryan Sykes, a Professor of Genetics at the University of Oxford, will most likely be published in late October or November.Bigfootology president Rhettman Mullis, who has been helping to receive and collect alleged sasquatch samples for Sykes's study, had announced on May 12 that the reception of samples for the project was now closed and that the last alleged sasquatch sample sent to Sykes for analysis was a large sample discovered on the New Mexico side of the Navajo Reservation. Mr. Mullis informed us that the reason that publication of the results for the study was delayed was due to an incredible response to alleged sasquatch sample requests, which had resulted in a continued supplying of samples which lasted past the previously set due date. Interestingly, Professor Sykes has been visiting North America recently in order to speak with some of the researchers who have submitted samples, and he has also met with US Fish and Wildlife officials at one of their main laboratories located in Melford, Oregon. It has been revealed that Professor Sykes was in California very recently to speak with Justin Smeja, and also to be filmed for a documentary detailing his study which will be released on BBC Channel 4 once the results of the many samples tested by Sykes are published in a scientific journal. As I wrote in a previous article, avid hunter, outdoorsman, and hunting guide Justin Smeja claimed to have shot an adult and juvenile sasquatch near Gold Lake, California in 2010. Although this story may sound outlandish, many people (including some credible and well respected people in the "Bigfoot community") have expressed trust in Justin's story and have said that he has been extremely open and willing to discuss it, as well as being able to pass a polygraph test.

Continued

Strange “Troll” Creature Photographed in Rural Pennsylvania

MARCH 4, 2013 12:52 AM

GREG NEWKIRK

Something weird is lurking in the snowy forests of Pennsylvania, and one woman claims to have captured evidence of it on camera.

A woman named Polly took to Facebook a few days ago in order to post this photograph of a “sasquatch” that was snapped on her friend’s rural property. Like all great images of mystery creatures, the digital zoom has been clearly cranked to a max, making any kind of fine detail next to impossible to define, but it appears to show a gangly, crouched creature moving on all fours. Polly told Facebookers that the creature didn’t fear humans and moved like a juvenile primate:

A friend of mine lives in Pennsylvania and saw this as she called her dogs in. She was scared, because it didnt run off. She has 2 big black Chows. We think she saw a baby sasquatch. And that is what she thinks also, because she has never seen anything like this. She knows what a bear looks like, and she said it looked like a little gorilla. – Polly

Continued:  http://whofortedblog.com/2013/03/04/strange-troll-creature-photographed-rural-pennsylvania/

Is Bigfoot part human?

HOUSTON -

A researcher claims that a hybrid species commonly called "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch" should be recognized as indigenous people and must be protected.

A team of scientists, led by Dr. Melba S. Ketchum, of Nacogdoches, Texas, has sequenced three complete Sasquatch nuclear genomes and determined that the species is a human hybrid.

"The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens, but Sasquatch nuDNA is a novel, unknown hominin related to Homo sapiens and other primate species. Our data indicate that the North American Sasquatch is a hybrid species, the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens," Ketchum said.

Ketchum said the Sasquatch is a result of a woman mating with an unknown animal.

"Sasquatch nuclear DNA is incredibly novel and not at all what we had expected. While it has human nuclear DNA within its genome, there are also distinctly non-human, non-archaic hominin, and non-ape sequences. We describe it as a mosaic of human and novel non-human sequence," Ketchum said.

Ketchum said public officials and law enforcement need to recognize Sasquatch as people.

"Genetically, the Sasquatch are a human hybrid with unambiguously modern human maternal ancestry. Government at all levels must recognize them as an indigenous people and immediately protect their human and Constitutional rights against those who would see in their physical and cultural differences a 'license' to hunt, trap, or kill them," Ketchum said.

Watch video and read on:  http://www.click2houston.com/news/Is-Bigfoot-part-human/-/1735978/17565382/-/fs2urd/-/index.html

Sasquatch researcher says Bigfoot ravaged apple orchard in his backyard

CHRISTINE ROBERTS
Sunday, November 25, 2012

A Vermont man insists he spotted Bigfoot in his backyard and he says he's got video to prove it.

Frank Siecienski of Hubbarton first thought that it was only a deer ravaging the apple orchard that stands on his property last year.

He pointed it out to my wife and she says 'oh God,' the deer must have been hungry, he told WCAX-TV this April. And I said no, a deer couldn't have eaten that many apples in one night.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-11-25/news/35351396_1_bigfoot-researcher-sasquatch-apple-orchard

Sasquatch in Siberia? Hair found in Russian cave 'belonged to unknown mammal closely related to man'

Hair did not belong to any known animal from the region such as a bear, wolf, or goat

Mysterious mammal more closely related to man than to monkeys

Astonishing claims were made in Russia today that DNA tests on suspected 'Yeti hair' reveals the existence of 'an unknown mammal closely related to man'.

The 'tests' were conducted on samples of hair found in a Siberian cave during an international expedition last year.

'We had ten samples of hair to study, and have concluded that they belong to mammal, but not a human,' said Professor Valentin Sapunov, of the Russian State Hydrometeorological Institute.

Nor did the hair belong to any known animal from the region such as a bear, wolf, or goat, he claimed.

Analysis was conducted in the Russia and US and 'agreed the hair came from a human-like creature which is not a Homo sapien yet is more closely related to man than a monkey', said the Siberian Times, citing claims made on a regional government website in Russia in the area where the hair samples were allegedly found. 

It stated that long-awaited scientific tests were conducted on their hair at two institutions in Russia and one in Idaho in the US.

Read on:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225276/Yeti-latest-Russian-scientists-say-DNA-tests-hair-samples-existence-man-like-mammal.html

Sasquatch sighting by Nunavik berry pickers

Two women in Nunavik had an unusual encounter while berry picking on Saturday.

Maggie Cruikshank Qingalik, who is from Akulivik, Que., said her friend saw some kind of creature out in the wilderness.

Qingalik said at first, they thought it was another person picking berries. Then they noticed it was covered in long, dark hair.
She said it was walking upright along the side of a hill, and was taking long strides. They said it would also sometimes crawl.

“We weren't sure what it was first. It is not a human being, it was really tall, and kept coming towards our direction and we could tell it was not a human,” she said.

Qingalik said the creature was 10 to 15 feet tall. Pictures posted on Facebook show the alleged footprints are 40 centimetres long.

The women said the creature didn’t appear vicious, nor did it appear interested in them.

Understandably for such a sighting, the women got scared, hopped on their ATV, and headed back to the community to warn people about what they saw.

Continued: http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/offbeat/story/2012/10/04/north-sasquatch-sighting-nunavik.html

The battle to find sasquatch

The sasquatch is just waiting to be discovered in B.C., but too few want to admit or investigate it, says a Vancouver Island wildlife biologist and author.

"And we have what has to be the best sasquatch habitat anywhere on the planet right here on the B.C. coast," said Courtenay's John Bindernagel, author of the 2010 book The Discovery of the Sasquatch.

"The question for me is no longer 'Does the sasquatch exist or not?' but 'Why has the existence of the sasquatch been resisted for so long?' " Bindernagel said.

Now 70, he believes enough sightings, tracks and other evidence of the large ape-like sasquatch - Coast Salish for hairy man - have been collected to provide evidence of the creature's existence in B.C. and North America.

Bindernagel has collected casts of massive, human-like tracks from Strathcona Provincial Park and even heard a "whoo, whoo, whoop" call. It's similar to a chimpanzee's call in Uganda, but he believes it is a sasquatch calling out for its own kind.

Bindernagel comes to the investigation of the sasquatch as a scientist. He studied at the University of Guelph and the University of Wisconsin and holds a PhD in wildlife biology. He has worked in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Central America, teaching, conducting research, surveys and preparing and implementing wildlife management plans and conservation measures before returning to Vancouver Island, where he worked as a consultant.

Continued: http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/battle+find+sasquatch/7306966/story.html

"Labor Day Sasquatch Film"

We've seen some strange footage of Gorillas in the wild before, but this one takes the cake. This place looks nothing like the African forests we're used to seeing. If this person is trying to play it off as a real "Sasquatch", then did a good job getting filming a live animal in the wild (very difficult to do). This YouTube video is titled "Labor Day Sasquatch Film".



http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/labor-day-sasquatch-film.html?spref=fb

Naches Ranger District worker has heard it all, including his own Sasquatch experience - via Chad Arment

When it comes to Sasquatch tales in the Cascade foothills northwest of Yakima, Doug Jenkins has pretty much heard it all at the front desk or on the phone at the Naches Ranger Station.

“You can pretty much tell the ones that are believable,” Jenkins says. “I’ve had people who saw bear and say they saw Sasquatch.”

Some callers, though, have a tale worth listening to.

Several years ago, Jenkins — the district spokesman — took a call from the wife of a man who, while hunting on National Forest land off State Route 410, “saw what he described as a large, ape-like creature going through the woods,” Jenkins says. “He said it looked like an upright, hairy monster, basically.

“He got in his rig and apparently told (his wife), ‘Don’t call anybody because they’ll think I’m crazy.’”

Two hours after that woman’s call, Jenkins said, “I had another woman calling and saying her husband had seen the same thing. This was about a mile away. Huge, hairy upright animal. And it was the wives who called. The men wouldn’t talk about it.”

Two years ago, Jenkins took a call from a Seattle man who said he and his teenage daughter and her boyfriend were hunting south of Bumping Lake when “they’d heard this really bizarre noise (the caller) knew was not elk.”

“He kept saying ‘You probably think I’m crazy but I’m not the kind of guy who reports this kind of stuff,’” Jenkins recalls.

The man’s daughter and boyfriend were on their way back to the truck when she stopped behind some bushes to urinate. “Apparently, behind this girl, the bushes started shaking violently and she heard this funny noise again.”

The two teens hurried to the truck to wait for the girl’s father. After a while, Jenkins says, the girl left the truck and went over to the side of the dirt road where, in the gully below, a large, hairy creature rose from its crouching position to full height in front of her.

“So they’re basically eye to eye,” Jenkins says. “She said it had a massive forehead, big, brown eyes, massive biceps and a massive chest. She said she screamed, it let out this scream, she ran back to the rig as (the creature) came up on the road and ran down the road. The boyfriend saw it, too.”

Jenkins has listened to numerous calls about incidents like that. Some he dismisses. Others he does not. But he always listens, because Jenkins has a personal reason to take them seriously: He’s had his own encounter.

In the early 1970s, Jenkins was snowmobiling at night with two friends at Darland Mountain. When Jenkins’ sled broke down, he began “monkeying around with it” while his buddies went on ahead. And he heard the crunching sound of what sounded like something walking slowly in the snow toward him.

“I’m thinking, no, not elk, not bear,” Jenkins says. “Nobody else is up here, and they wouldn’t be walking in the snow anyway.”

The snow-crunching sounds stopped and Jenkins went back to adjusting his carburetor — until he picked up an awful stench — “It smelled really horrible in the breeze,” he says — and began hearing the crunching noise again.

“I’m sitting there working frantically, because I’m scared by this time,” he says. “And then I hear this heavy breathing. And I can smell it.”

Nothing happened. Jenkins got his snowmobile going again and motored away. He caught up with his friends and didn’t say a thing to them about it.

“I’m sure there are a lot more people out there that have had experiences but don’t want to say anything,” he says, “because people will think they’re fricking crazy.”

http://sportsyakima.com/2012/07/nachaes-ranger-district-worker-has-heard-it-all-inccluding-his-own-sasquatch-experience/

Trues believers: People of all types are certain they have encountered Sasquatch

A teenage hunter who watched it through his rifle scope for longer than a half-hour.

A trumpet player who surprised it — well, the surprise was certainly mutual — at the chicken coop behind his Blewett Pass cabin.

A construction contractor who had recorded the details of hundreds of sightings before, finally, having one of his own.

Foresters who have seen it, heard it, felt it, smelled it, or followed its tracks often enough over the years, for them, the question isn’t whether it exists, but when and where it will show up next.

It would take a shelf of books to chronicle the recollections of the thousands of people who are convinced they’ve had a personal encounter with Bigfoot.

Here are just a few from this neck of the woods.

 GIANT IN THE CROSSHAIRS: Kevin Jones was only 16, in his third year of hunting in the Blue Mountains with his father, when he espied something through the scope of his high-powered rifle.

Continued:  http://sportsyakima.com/2012/07/trues-believers-people-of-all-types-are-certain-they-have-encountered-sasquatch/

Pictographs, tribal tales add to lore of Sasquatch - via Chad Arment

 June 19, 2012 by Scott Sandsberry

YAKIMA, Wash. — Not far from the Tule River in Central California is a rock shelter used by tribal villagers long before the Sierra foothills began filling up with white settlers and gold miners.

The shelter is known as Painted Rock by tourists and archeologists for its colorful array of centuries-old pictographs depicting the animal spectrum from the small (lizard, centipede, caterpillar and frog) and the high-flying (condor, eagle) to the bigger beasts (coyote, beaver, bear and man). And man, of course.

Almost all of the painted images are instantly recognizable as creatures that would have inhabited the Sierras 500 to 1,000 years ago, when the pictographs are believed to have been created.

Three of the animals, though, can only be described in today's lexicon as an adult male, adult female and child Sasquatch.

The big male, according to Yokuts tribal lore, is Hairy Man, standing on two legs, its arms spread wide, with long hair and, writes Forest Service archeologist Kathy Moskowitz Strain, "large, haunting eyes." Next to it, with the same hairy, two-legged aspect, are what appear to be the adult female, the "mother," and her child.

None of the animals shown on Painted Rock are proportionally larger than one would expect; they're all either life-sized or smaller, as if in the distance.

The painting of Hairy Man is 8 1/2 feet tall.

By the time the first white man saw the Painted Rock pictographs in the 1870s, earlier European settlers of the American west were already well aware of Native Americans' historical belief in the animal the Central California tribes called Hairy Man.

Many Native Americans, from the Cree people in Manitoba to the Cowichans in British Columbia to the tribes of central and northern California, have through the centuries taken a wide berth to avoid encountering a race or tribe of large, two-legged hairy beasts.

The account of a Methodist missionary found that the Salteaux Indians of Lake Winnipeg "living in dread" of what the missionary himself described as "these imaginary monsters."

Anthropologists' response to this has been mixed. Some believe the animals were a creation of tribal folklore meant to keep children in line and convince them not to stray too far from the villages.

But early white traders, settlers and miners often talked about the fervent belief held by the locals in what the whites invariably referred to as "mythical" creatures — which were described much the way Sasquatch is now described.

A 1790 publication related a Hudson's Bay Company trader's story about the North Saskatchewan River Indians' belief in a giant, two-legged beast called the wendingo or windingo. The Indians, noted the trapper, "frequently persuade themselves that they see his track in the moss or snow."

Two decades later a fur trader named David Thompson found a large footprint, described in historical journals as having been 14 inches long and eight inches wide, near what is now Jasper, Alberta. The print is often referred to as the first Sasquatch footprint found by a white man, though Thompson himself was said to have believed it to be the track of a large grizzly bear.

British Columbia periodicals in the late 1800s and early 1900s carried short news items referencing "the wild man of Vancouver Island" being seen by prospectors and others. And the region's Kwakiutl Indians related tales of the "Woods Giant" which was routinely described the same way — much larger and hairier than humans, walking on two legs, with deep-set eyes under a thick, protruding forehead.

Which, again, is the same description applied to many Sasquatch sightings today.

While modern-day curiosity about Sasquatch was stoked by the 1967 film taken by Yakima County residents Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, an even more dramatic incident near Mount St. Helens predated that one by nearly a half-century.

In her book, "Myths and Mysteries of Washington," prolific Northwest historical author Lynn E. Bragg wrote about Cascade and coastal tribal tales of a "band of renegades who looked like giant apes and lived like wild animals in secluded caves high in the Cascade Mountains."

Tribal belief in the giant beasts — referred to by different tribes and dialects as Seeahtic (or Selahtic), St'iyahama, Stiyaha, Kwi-kwihai and Skoocoom — were related by missionaries as early as 1840. But it wasn't until July 1924 that the non-tribal world sat up and took notice.

That year, a group of miners prospecting in the Mount St. Helens and Lewis River area reported that their pine-log cabin had withstood a night-long attack by a group of what they described to forest rangers and reporters as "mountain devils" and "hairy apes."

The miners' account was that the assault on the cabin came at night, several hours after one of the miners had fired several rifle shots at a seven-foot-tall, hairy animal. According to their story, which was related in numerous newspapers, several of the creatures attacked the cabin, pelting it with large rocks, shrieking loudly, battering at the front door and climbing onto the cabin, the latter prompting the miners to fire several shots through the roof.

The miners left the next day, so anxious to put distance between them and the creatures that one of them, Kelso resident Fred Beck, said they left behind some $200 worth of "supplies, powder and drilling equipment."

Their revelations made the newspapers, and numerous reporters and curiosity-seekers returned to the site and found numerous large, bare footprints around the cabin — but no "apemen."

The tale told by Beck and the others is considered evidence of Sasquatch by some while being dismissed by others as a hoax or a bad case of cabin fever.

According to the latter version, the "attackers" were a group of local youths pelting the cabin with pumice stones from the top of the canyon either intentionally or by accident, perhaps not knowing there was a miner's cabin at the bottom.

Beck, though, later said he and the other miners were able to see the creatures through the gaps in the log walls. "Only three of the creatures (were seen) together at one time," Beck recalled in a dictated statement to his son four decades later, though "it sounded like there were many more."

Beck's description of the shrieking, wall-banging experience bears an eerie resemblance to one that occurred Aug. 14, 2004, at remote Snelgrove Lake in the Canadian province of Ontario.

A group of people were staying at a lakeside cabin, including documentary filmmaker Doug Hajicek, who has produced more than 200 films for such entities as PBS, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Outdoor Life Network and ESPN.

For two hours in the early evening, Hajicek said, someone or something threw small rocks toward the group, though not in a threatening way.

"Fifty or sixty rocks, lobbed," Hajicek said. "You could shine a flashlight in the woods but all you'd see is trees. I didn't have the courage to stand up and walk into the woods."

Later that night, Hajicek woke up hungry, went to the cabin kitchen and flicked on a light "that illuminated my head in the window. The back side of the cabin was attacked — screams, banging on the walls, things hitting the cabin and the entire cabin started shaking and rock, and (rocks) started hitting the ceiling and the walls.

"It was like being in a bad B movie."

Neither Hajicek nor any of the others in the cabin dared go outside until long after the "attack" had abated. But Hajicek returned on the same date the following year with several other people including two research professors, one from Idaho State University and the other from the University of Minnesota. At 3 a.m., Hajicek said, "something huge hit the side of the cabin, so loud the cabin just resonated."

Shocked and scared, none of the people in the cabin ventured outside.

So, just as the year before, nobody saw whatever it was that was out there.

http://sportsyakima.com/2012/06/writing-on-the-wall-pictographs-tribal-tales-add-to-lore-of-sasquatch/
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Lufkin man puts 'Bigfoot hair' up for sale

Monsters may not lurk under beds and in closets, but hair from Bigfoot may be bought at a place near you.

While Lufkin resident Ty Shafer cannot be 100 percent certain the hair he has in his possession is from Bigfoot himself, he is selling the novelty item for $30.

Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is commonly known as a hairy ape-like monster.

Shafer thought local residents may be interested in the novelty item because of the rumors of a Bigfoot wandering wooded areas of East Texas.

“If I sell it, it’s fine, if not I’ll keep it,” Shafer said. “Since I’ve been buying and selling things, my collection just keeps getting a little bigger.”

Shafer doesn’t have a shop, but he sells novelty items online, in local auctions and by taking out classified ads in the newspaper.

Continued:  http://lufkindailynews.com/news/local/article_2a7ca9a8-ba23-11e1-8df2-001a4bcf887a.html

Scientists Say Mythical Monster The Yeti Is Real, Lives In Siberia

Posted by JacobSloan on October 24, 2011

103770942The existence of a giant, apelike monster, alternately known as Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, et cetera, has long been scoffed at and dismissed as a hoax. However, an international team of scientists say the mythical beast is real and roaming the furthest reaches of Russia. Via TIME:

Scientists and yeti enthusiasts believe there may finally be solid evidence that the apelike creature roams the vast Siberian tundra.

A team of a dozen-plus experts from as far afield as Canada and Sweden have proclaimed themselves 95% certain of the mythical animal’s existence after a daylong conference in the town of Tashtagol in the Kemerovo region, some 2,000 miles east of Moscow. In recent years, locals there have reported sightings of the yeti, also known as the abominable snowman.

The Kemerovo government announced on Oct. 10 that a two-day expedition the previous weekend to the region’s Azassky cave and Karatag peak “collected irrefutable evidence” of yetis’ existence on the wintry plateau.

“Conference participants came to the conclusion that the artifacts found give 95% evidence of the habitation of the ’snow man’ on Kemerovo region territory,” read a statement. “In one of the detected tracks, Russian scientist Anatoly Fokin noted several hairs that might belong to the yeti,” it added. The group also discovered footprints, a presumed bed and various other markers.

The scientific community has historically disputed the existence of the yeti given scant conclusive evidence. But numerous sightings of such creatures have been reported in Himalayan countries and in North America, where it is known as Sasquatch, or bigfoot.

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/10/scientists-say-mythical-monster-the-yeti-is-real-in-siberia/

Seattleite stars as skeptic on Sasquatch series

A two-hour special, "Finding Bigfoot: Birth of a Legend," airs Oct. 30 on Animal Planet. In this outing, a team of Sasquatch hunters, which includes Seattle's Ranae Holland, traipses through a California redwood forest to visit the site where the Patterson-Gimlin footage of a supposed Bigfoot was filmed 50 years ago.

By Rob Owen
Special to The Seattle Times

There's something comfortably predictable about Animal Planet's "Finding Bigfoot." Each week, a team of Sasquatch aficionados research reports of Bigfoot sightings and spend a night in the woods searching for the hairy creature. And each week they come away without proof of Bigfoot's existence; yet they remain undaunted, ready to go back out again.

It's not an unfamiliar television format, one popularized most recently by other paranormal cable series like Syfy's "Ghost Hunters" franchise and A&E's recently concluded "Paranormal State."

The first season of "Finding Bigfoot" aired during the summer, drawing an average 1.2 million viewers, making it one of Animal Planet's top series. A second season is in the works for early next year, and a two-hour special, "Finding Bigfoot: Birth of a Legend," airs tonight at 9.

In this outing, the team, which includes Seattle's Ranae Holland, traipses through a California redwood forest to visit the site where the Patterson-Gimlin footage of a supposed Bigfoot was filmed 50 years ago.

The "Finding Bigfoot" team is made up of three true believers and one skeptic. Holland, a research field biologist/ecologist with a degree in aquatic ecology from the University of Washington, is the skeptic.

When she's not out searching for Bigfoot, Holland makes her home on Lake Union. For now her place is sublet while she's on the hunt.

"I have not been home very much," she said earlier this month during a break from production in southwest Virginia for a season-two episode. Production wraps in early December.

"Then I get to come home. Some of my friends are chefs, so I'm looking forward to getting some fantastic Seattle food. Then I can recharge my batteries."

A South Dakota native, Holland, 41, worked as a field-biologist contractor before "Finding Bigfoot," often spending time collecting research samples in the wilderness.

Connection with father

Her interest in Bigfoot dates back to watching "In Search of ... " and 1970s-era Bigfoot movies with her father. Although she's a fan of the mystery of Bigfoot, she does not believe the creatures exist.

"I can't wrap my head around that there's a bipedal primate running around the woods of North America. ... There's not enough proof to say I believe," she said.

"But I'm fascinated by the idea of the phenomenon and intrigued by the reports. ... I'm curious by nature and I'm a problem solver. So I say, 'Here's the mystery, let's figure it out one way or another.' "

Holland said her role on "Finding Bigfoot" is to make sure the show's true believers "are not pulling stuff out of nowhere." She wants them to apply scientific methodology to their expeditions.

After Holland's father died in 2003 and she found herself in the woods, she went online to find reports of Bigfoot sightings. That's how she established an email and phone relationship with Matt Moneymaker, founder of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization and one of the stars of "Finding Bigfoot." He gave her access to the group's database of Bigfoot sightings.

"I love to find out Bigfoot stories wherever I'm doing field work," Holland said. But she had no aspirations to appear on TV before "Finding Bigfoot" and initially rejected invitations.

After seeking advice from respected science community colleagues, she gave in.

"They were like, 'Why not?' And I said, 'But if you Google my name, "Bigfoot" will come up.' And they said, 'You know in your heart you're a skeptic, and anyone who knows you knows how you feel and that you love Bigfoot stories,' " she recalled.

"And being on the show has not affected me professionally at all."

Voicing viewers' doubts

"Finding Bigfoot" executive producer Keith Hoffman said Holland's skepticism is a key ingredient in the series.

"She represents the viewer a lot of times," he said. "Viewers want to see people who don't just totally believe."

"Finding Bigfoot" does not take itself too seriously; hence the inclusion of a badly computer-animated Bigfoot in some re-created scenes. And the show's cast has a sense of humor. In tonight's episode, Holland is encouraged to let loose with a Bigfoot call.

"It wasn't so much a call as it was a yodel," she says afterward. "I am a quarter Norwegian, after all."

In the show's first season, one episode was filmed in Washington's North Cascades; the team visited a site on Silver Star Mountain where a photo was taken of what's purportedly a Bigfoot.

There are no plans to return to the state in season two, but Holland is hopeful another Washington episode could be on tap if the series is extended to a third season.

"I hope we'll get back there," she said. "That is a hot spot for [reports of Bigfoot] activity."

In the meantime, Holland said she's having fun tramping woods all over the country with the "Finding Bigfoot" crew. She especially enjoys when the show invites locals to town-hall meetings to discuss their own Bigfoot encounters.

"Doing this Bigfoot show at times makes me feel close to my dad," she said. "Seeing 10-year-olds come to the town halls with their fathers really brings my relationship with my father full circle."

Rob Owen: RobOwenTV@gmail.com

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/television/2016615960_bigfoot30.html?prmid=head_main

Sasquatch, rare woodpecker among strange Stennis tales

Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011

By MICHAEL NEWSOM - mmnewsom@sunherald.com

Isolated within a sprawling buffer zone protected by highly secure entrances, the John C. Stennis Space Center is an easy target for paranormal stories.

The large site’s mystique has spawned some wild theories about what goes on inside it and its buffer zone -- 212 square miles of mostly wilderness and swamp. Stennis workers get some strange inquiries about what goes on there from those interested in UFOs and other topics, said Marco Giardino, NASA historian at Stennis.

“You get some strange phone calls that all NASA centers get,” Giardino said. “You know, people who wear aluminum-foil helmets or are being looked at by aliens. There are people who think we caused climatic change by landing on the moon. There are people who don’t think we landed on the moon. You get a cross-section of crazies that all NASA centers get.”

But despite the calls, there’s nothing odd going on there, Giardino said.

“We have a very vibrant tourist program,” Giardino said. “People get to come here on tour buses all the time. The mainstream public is pretty well aware of what we do, and none of it is sneaky or nefarious.”

Cajun Sasquatch?

The rocket-testing center is bordered by two large marshlands -- Honey Island Swamp and Devils Swamp. Some interesting tales have come from Honey Island Swamp, Giardino said.

Some believe the “Cajun Sasquatch” roams the Honey Island Swamp, which is on the western side of the Stennis buffer zone near the Louisiana state line. The creature is also known in south Louisiana lore as the “Honey Island Swamp Monster” or in some cases la bête noire, which is French for “the black beast.” The creature has been described as hairy, with fur colors ranging from orangey, black, grey or brown, in various news stories and television interviews dating as far back as the early 1970s. Some descriptions say it’s about 7 feet tall and weighs 400 pounds.

“(La bête noire) is what the Cajuns call their Bigfoot,” Giardino said. “Old Cajuns swear that it jumps on their flatboats and also leaves huge footprints.”

Giardino said Stennis officials don’t get as many calls about the beast as they did years ago.

There are other legends about something called the “loup garou,” which is French for werewolf, living in the nearby swamps of Louisiana

“It is such a massive wilderness that it has been identified as one of the potential places that bigfoot, or ‘la bête noire’ or the other mythical swamp beasts live,” Giardino said. “On its own, it’s really a place full of mystery, and still has bears and alligators and God knows what-all in it.”

Ivory-billed woodpecker?

In addition to menacing, mythical swamp beasts, there have also been reports of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker living in the woods around Stennis, Giardino said. The scientific community has been at odds over the last several years about whether the large woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, has actually died out. There have been some sightings of the bird near the facility, as well as other areas across the southeastern United States.

In spring 2005, after various alleged witness accounts from across the country surfaced, along with a reported video of one of the birds taken by a University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor, some scientific groups declared the ivory-billed woodpecker wasn’t extinct. Others in the scientific community disputed that claim.

Giardino said there have been reports of the relatively large woodpecker, which has a wingspan of up to 3 feet, living in the buffer zone. It’s often confused, though, with its common, smaller cousin, the pileated woodpecker.

Whether there’s a Sasquatch, or the rarest of birds, living there, the sprawling marsh of Honey Island Swamp can capture the imagination, Giardino said.

“It’s huge,” Giardino said. “As you drive toward Louisiana, there is nothing but trees and waterways. It’s a really beautiful place, but I wouldn’t be there at night, bête noire or not.”

http://www.sunherald.com/2011/10/26/3534149/sasquatch-rare-woodpecker-among.html

Stillwater Sasquatch video arouses skepticism

A video purporting to show an auburn-haired Sasquatch tromping through the woods north of Stillwater is causing a buzz among those fascinated by the ever-elusive Elvis of the wildlife world.

Like every video claiming to be that of the giant woodland creature also known as Bigfoot, the clip is brief, jiggly and out-of-focus. It was shot, according to the YouTube posting, by an anonymous farmer with his newfangled iPhone while on his usual evening walk with his wife. According to the farmer, the couple thought they'd scared a deer until they heard some "low, odd-sounding grunting" and fired up the gizmo.

The narrator, also anonymous, said the farmer posted the video, but didn't want to pursue it any further when "he realized this was serious." In the narrator's analysis, he says the film shows "a wonderful example of how adept Sasquatch are at hiding and moving through thick brush."

Response is mixed. Some share the narrator's apparent enthusiasm, but even Sasquatch believers (more than 16,000 have viewed the video in two weeks) have voiced skepticism. Several noted that the farmer does not seem particularly alarmed at what he is seeing -- although men of Norwegian extraction have been known to make low, odd-sounding grunts themselves at emotional moments.
And on the Bigfoot Facebook page (was there any doubt?), some wonder why the crafty creature -- not far from the suburbs -- has such a nonchalant attitude in walking past the befuddled couple.

"This would have to be one dumb Bigfoot," says one skeptic.

JIM ANDERSON

http://www.startribune.com/local/east/127799518.html

Messing with Sasquatch may not be such a good idea

CHATHAM – There’s something amiss in the backwoods of Chatham, something potentially big. Lately there’s been talk around certain areas of town of an unusual howling and screeching sound as well as evidence of some very large footprints.


Since June there have been at least five to six instances of residents discovering or hearing evidence that the infamous Bigfoot may be lurking somewhere in the Chatham community. One case in particular has garnered some attention from local police, as well as a few proclaimed Big Foot experts.

On Wednesday, June 15, 2011, Michael Patrick’s mother was getting the liner to her pool changed at her residence, when workmen noticed an abnormally large footprint under the apple tree in the back yard and brought the footprint to Patrick’s attention.

Over the years Patrick and his mother had, at times, heard bizarre noises, but had always passed them off as coming from some common forest animal. But they weren’t the only ones that had heard the sounds either. The night before the footprint was found a neighbor had also commented about unusual sounds.

“My neighbor has a German Shepherd, and it heard something that night that spooked him. The dog went outside to investigate, but came back cowering, now it won’t leave its owner’s side,” Patrick said.

Unsure about what exactly the footprint was, and concerned for his mother’s safety, Patrick called the Chatham Police Department. An officer came to investigate the scene, but was unable to determine what might have caused the print.

“The responding officer stated that there was a large footprint approximately 18 inches long and 8 inches wide, and it appeared there were five claw marks,” Chatham Police Department Deputy Chief, Vernon Foli said.

To give you an idea how big 18 inches is, retired NBA center Shaquille O’Neil's feet are approximately 15 inches long, and he wears a size 23 shoe. The average human being’s foot measures approximately 9 ½ inches. Most shoe size charts end at a size fifteen shoe. An 18-inch footprint is about the size of a healthy newborn baby. Considering the size of the print, it’s understandable for a person to show a little concern if they found such a print in their yard.

Patrick documented his discovery on Facebook where he struck up a conversation with a friend. Patrick’s friend knew John Winterbauer, a Bigfoot investigator. Winterbauer in turn contacted local Bigfoot expert Stan Courtney.

Courtney has documented sightings and gathered sound recordings and evidence of Bigfoot for years. He has interviewed over two hundred witnesses who have seen Bigfoot.

“I literally know hundreds of people who’ve seen these animals. There have been lots of them in central Illinois. I’ve recorded lots of sounds that other researchers and witnesses believe come from these animals. People in Springfield don’t realize it, but there have been a lot of reports from the Sangamon River around Riverton.” Courtney said in a previous interview.

Courtney said that there have been five to six other reports of finding footprints and howling in the Chatham area since June.

So why is Bigfoot in Chatham? Well it’s hard to say really. Patrick’s property does back up to a wooded stream which flows into Lake Springfield. Courtney proposed that the creature was drawn to the house because of the apple tree that grows in Patrick’s mother’s back yard.

Stan Courtney explained to Patrick that the apple tree might have somehow been interpreted as a gift of food. In the past the Patrick’s had noticed that apples from the tree had been picked, but only to a certain height. They believed that the culprit was a wily raccoon, but the large footprint seemed to suggest otherwise. Courtney told Patrick that a creature such a Bigfoot will usually return the favor, and present a gift of its own as a show of appreciation in the form of a dead animal or a strange arrangement of flowers.

The day after his meeting with Courtney, Patrick discovered the Sasquatch’s gift, a decapitated rabbit, near his mother’s house. In Courtney’s account he stated that the rabbit had, “its head pulled off, not bitten or cut, but just simply pulled off.”

Since that strange June evening, no more incidents have occurred at Patrick’s mother’s residence. You might think that such a strange series of events would frighten most people in to staying out of the back yard, but the occurrence has not deterred Patrick’s mother from going about her normal routine.

“She’s not scared, she continues to do her yard work, she thinks it’s neat. My mom has never been skeptical of it.” Patrick said.

While his mother may not be skeptical of what happened, others aren’t ready to pin the event on Bigfoot just yet. Vernon Foli posed a possible explanation, albeit an indirect one.

“One thing I can tell you is that approximately ½ mile south of this location is the former Grindstone Valley Zoo that use to have exotic animals. The zoo is no longer in existence but the owner is Brad or Larry Reynolds and he still has some animals at this location,” Foli said.

Could the print have come from an animal from the old zoo? The Reynolds had kept large animals such as buffalo, antelope, elk, deer, tigers, leopards, monkeys, and zebras while the zoo was open. Or could it be a bear footprint? It’s widely believed by many that there are no bears in Illinois, but with their presence in neighboring states, Wisconsin and Missouri, would it be so far fetched to think that there are indeed bears in Illinois?

At this point it’s hard to tell what exactly made the footprint, but with other accounts of strange happenings and unusual howls and screeches in Chatham, many residents are raising an eyebrow.

“I definitely don’t think it was a hoax, and it was more than just a coincidence. I think that people should just be a bit more vigilant and careful, because you never know what you’re going to find out there,” Patrick said.

By Kevin Tremain (ourtowns.sj-r.com)


http://www.sj-r.com/ourtowns/chatham/x121481200/Messing-with-Sasquatch-may-not-be-such-a-good-idea

Oh, No! "Most Convincing Evidence of Bigfoot" News Conference Scheduled

Writes the promoter of this one: "No, it's not a Bigfoot in a Freezer and
we are not affiliated with those guys."

Investigate Further: http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/sanger-1/