Bigfoot might not be real, but the fascination is

By MARCUS SCHNECK, The Patriot-News
January 23, 2010, 12:19PM

Eric Altman is awaiting test results on “some possible hair samples.” Altman is the director of the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society. He collected the samples recently in Clearfield and Jefferson counties, which he described as Pennsylvania’s “hot area” for bigfoot reports.

Bigfoot sightings in the midstate are dwarfed by the dozens of reports that have come out of the state’s north-central wilds, Altman said. Adams and York counties provide some reports in “areas that are more remote, a little more wooded,” he said.

Most recently, in October, Tom Biscardi and the Searching for Bigfoot team were drawn to York County by rough amateur video in which they claimed to have seen a female bigfoot carrying an infant.

The existence of bigfoot may remain in doubt, but the fascination with the mythic creature endures.

While many Native American cultures have tales of bigfoot or sasquatch-like creatures in their folklore, modern interest in the phenomenon soared in 1951 with photographs of footprints in California. Most bigfoot reports arise from the West Coast.

The Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society, which was launched in 1998, boasts a few hundred followers. Dozens of similar groups exist nationwide.

The legend is the focus of the Bigfoot Film Festival, which runs Friday through Sunday at the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art at Millersburg.

Even those who want to believe in bigfoot are skeptical of its existence in Pennsylvania. In a state with 12 million residents, it seems likely the creature would have been spotted by now if he is here.

“We don’t track bigfoot sightings,” said Jerry Feaser, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. “The only time in recent years that there was a bigfoot sighting happened, coincidentally, the same week a bigfoot researcher was in the Harrisburg area.”

Investigators for the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society have recorded “some unusual footprints that we can’t really say are bigfoot,” Altman said.

Loren Coleman, one of the world’s most published cryptozoologists (researchers in the study of hidden species), said he thinks there is something real behind some of the bigfoot reports. In the last month, he said, he has heard of at least 10 legitimate reports, all in the northwestern U.S.

Chad Arment, a Lancaster County man who writes books on cryptozoology, does not rule out the presence of bigfoot in Pennsylvania. “There are some interesting old stories, particularly in Central Pennsylvania, of gorilla-like creatures,” he said. Still, Arment said the presence of bigfoot would be a “long shot” in Pennsylvania.

Scott Weidensaul, a Friedensburg nature writer who has written about the search for lost species, doubts that bigfoot is here. “It breaks my heart to say it, but I just don’t think it’s true,” he said. “We would have had a body by now."

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/01/bigfoot_might_not_be_real_but.html (Submitted by Caty Bergman)