Final Finding Bigfoot Episode Notes

Abstract

This is a compilation of my notes on the interview sequences of “Finding Bigfoot.” I donot comment on the various nighttime escapades that are portrayed as the Team’s independentinvestigations. I have tried to reduce the information to the essential facts reported on theshow, comment occasionally on aspects of the interviews and re-enactments, and then to provideannotations based on such additional information as I could find on the internet concerning thepeople or incidents reported. None of this should be interpreted to detract from the entertainmentvalue of the show, which I find considerable.

Washington

Season 1, episode 5: investiga-tions in Washington.

This site of this episode wassaid to have been chosen be-cause of photographs taken byone Randy Chase of a mysteri-ous lone creature on the [snowy]top of Silver Star Mountain,which is located in the GiffordPinchot National Forest. Weweren’t told when Chase tookthe photos. The photos were dis-played during the introductionand appeared to me to be of ahiker in a hooded jacket. To meit appeared that the hiker waswearing a backpack, and in oneview I could even see the frontstraps of the backpack.

Chase said that he didn’tknow he had photographed aBigfoot at the time, but a familymember later said, “Hey, thatlooks like a Bigfoot!” A castmember said that these are thebest still photographs ever takenof a Bigfoot. We were told thatChase didn’t see any tracks from

the subject of his photographs.

The Team flew to the moun-taintop, which is composed oftwo peaks in a saddle configu-ration. Chase was on one andthe figure was on another. Wewere not given a measurement ofthe distance between the peaks;I would say anywhere between50 to 300 meters. We were givenno information about the kindof camera (film or digital), lens,resolution, or megapixels.

Bobo went to the subjectpeak and they used a digitalcamera to take re-enactmentphotographs of him. Later theTeam went on and on about howBobo and the other figure wereso different, but to me it was anunconvincing exhortation to be-lieve. We were never shown anyof the photographs in particu-larly great detail, and the ver-sions shown in the comparisonsegment do not show the back-pack and straps that I thoughtI could see in the introductory

segment.

After a town meeting in Ya-colt, three stories were chosenfor further examination.

Story 1 was told by RyanHarris. The date of the incidentwas not mentioned. Harris waspatrolling some family propertywhen he saw a figure leap acrossan access road in two steps. Itwas “bi-pedal” and about 7 feettall. This happened around 9:30or 10 pm. The distance from hispoint of observation to wherethe figure was seen is not clear.It could be anywhere from 50meters or more. Bobo staged are-enactment. He leaped acrossthe road, and it took him 3steps; however, I noticed thatBobo jumped from far back onthe apron. The first step actu-ally landed on the road edgeand the next two carried himacross the road. Ranae tapedvarious distances. The edge-of-apron to edge-of-apron distanceis 14’ 8”. They discussed how

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Bobo’s steps are only 5’7” butthe creature’s were 8’9”; how-ever, without clear evidence ofa similar starting point fromwhich to stage the re-creation,these measurements are mean-ingless.

Story 2 was told by CaseySkodje and Shane Hamre. Thedate of the incident was notmentioned. They were walkingalong a road while hunting andheard something walking in thewoods parallel to them, as if

it were stalking them. Cliff didthe re-enactment and had trou-ble going through the woods.The incident took place at night.They concluded that the pair ofhunters was escorted or drivenout of the woods by a Bigfoot.

Story 3 was told by JamesHolmack. The date of the in-cident was not mentioned. Hewas walking along the banks ofthe Lewis River when he heardwhat he at first thought wereother fishermen. He saw a fig-

ure atop the bank. It was 8 1/2to 9 feet tall with shoulders thatwere 4 feet wide. (This intriguedme because a numerical esti-mate of shoulder width is some-thing I don’t I would generallybe prepared to attempt.) Boboattempted to re-enact, but hisfootfalls, according to the wit-ness, did not produce the samelevel of noise. The creature wasmarkedly bigger. Bobo says hesaw an even larger one once, sohe believes James saw a Bigfoot.

New York

This episode was season 2, num-ber 1; it was filmed in New Yorkin the Catskill mountains. Thisis where Douglas Pridgen filmedwhat appeared to be an apein a tree in 1997. We are toldthat this is sometimes called the“New York Baby Footage.”[9] Weare told that Jane Goodall her-self saw the footage and wasof the opinion that “no waywas it a chimp.” Ranae threwout the obvious alternative thatit might have been a Gibbon.This suggestion is confoundedby the apparent larger figurefrom whose shoulder the apeseems to launch itself into thetree.

Pridgen said he made thevideo in 1997, but the ape-likefigure was first noticed by hiswife in 2000. They visited thesite and Matt filmed while Cliffclimbed the tree. In the result-ing footage, the “baby” seemsabout 40 percent of Cliff’s size.They sought a further opinion

from Gregg Dancho, identifiedin the caption as a zoo direc-tor1 but referred to by Matt asa “primatologist.” Matt notedthat the subject is clearly not ahuman, and it “lives in the trees.”2 They asked Dancho how likelyit would be for a human to seean escaped ape in the wilds. Hesaid that they are extremely se-cretive, so it was very unlikely.They asked him what he thoughtthe big figure in the film was?“Got me,” he answered. (It seemsnot to occur to anyone that per-haps it is in fact a pet Gibbonwith a human.) They asked Dan-cho about the likelihood of anundiscovered North Americangreat ape. He replied that hewould not be surprised at all.

A town meeting was held inPawling, New York. They de-cided to pursue two stories thatcame out of it.

Story 1 was told by RobertBoyd. Cliff goes to the site withhim. The date of the story is

not mentioned. The witness andhis girlfriend went camping andpitched a tent. He heard distinctfootsteps but couldn’t see any-thing. Then things were thrownat them. Finally the tent waspushed from the outside. Nextthing he knew it was morn-ing. (Did he get knocked out?)Cliff conducted a “listening ex-periment” by having the wit-ness turn his back and listenwhile Cliff descended towardsthe campsite. The witness saidthe footsteps during the eventwere much louder. Cliff askedhow was the tent pushed in,and the witness said down andin. Cliff said that there areseveral reports of tents beingpushed “down and in.” Cliffmade much of the sound ev-idence but oddly, after listen-ing to testimony about howloud Bigfoot footsteps were thatnight, he says (roughly), “Nohuman is going to walk downa steep slope on a pitch black

1 Dancho is the director of the Bridgeport, Connecticut Beardsley Zoo.[8]2Elsewhere in the series the claim has been made that juvenile Bigfoots live in trees.

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night, not making any noise...”Cliff concluded that there wasindeed a Bigfoot encounter.

Story 2 was told by BobbyGreffrath. The date is not men-tioned. Matt and Bobo met withhim. The witness swerved tomiss a garbage bag in the middleof the road, and then he lookedin his rear view mirror and saw a

big hairy creature. He kept driv-ing, and as he turned the cornerhe saw “some thing, a 7 foot tallcreature” alongside the road. Itstepped up the slight embank-ment in a single bound, and dis-appeared. (So were there twoseparate sightings? Were theretwo Bigfoots?) Bobo re-enacted:he jumped up the side of the

road. The witness said this is nothow the creature did it: it juststepped up, a 7 foot step. Bobosaid this is not surprising. (Butif Bobo is 6 1/2 feet tall himself,how does he explain the suppos-edly vast difference between hisstep and the creature’s?) Mattand Bobo both believed this wasa Bigfoot encounter.

Rhode Island

This was season 2, episode 3.The Team visited Rhode Islandto investigate a video of a road-side Bigfoot encounter.3

The two women who madethe film were filming from theircar in connection with making aparanormal documentary. Cliff’swebsite[4] identifies their groupas the “Beyond the Veil Paranor-mal Investigations Group.” Onlater viewing, they saw a Bigfootsome thirty feet back from thestone wall bordering the road.Cliff: hard to say whether it’s astump, rock, or a Bigfoot. Bobobelieved he saw an arm swing,so he was more inclined to con-clude Bigfoot. Ranae: if this wasfootage for a documentary, whywas it so blurry and out of fo-cus?

The two women character-ized themselves as both paranor-mal and Bigfoot investigators.They were out making a “B roll”and they didn’t know why it wasso blurry; they re-took the shotand the quality was good. TheTeam staged a re-enactment us-

ing the same car and the samevideo camera. The result wasthat Bobo appeared bigger thanthe entity in the women’s video.Bobo wondered if it might havebeen a juvenile Bigfoot. It wasalso suggested it may have sim-ply been a kid in a hoodie. Mattsummarized that no solid con-clusions could be reached on thebasis of the video and their re-enactment. Cliff discusses thissebment on his episode guide.[3]

They conducted the townhall meeting at the city hall ofEast Greenwich. They parkedtheir SUV right in front of afire hydrant and went in. Mattasked for a show of hands of peo-ple who have seen or heard aBigfoot in Rhode Island. Theyheard several stories and inves-tigated the following three.

Story 1: A fellow was in themiddle of the street on his bicy-cle when what he thought was awhite gorilla stepped out from afield and pursued him briefly be-fore leaping over a stone wall ina single bound. Matt remarked

that this story was one of thefirst reported Bigfoot sightingsin Rhode Island. It took placein 1974. The witness said thatthe creature he saw was whitehaired with a pointy head andlong arms and about 6 feet tall.Matt added that white Bigfootshave also been seen in Ohio andBig Sur, California.

Story 2: About a year agothe witness heard a grunt off thetrail but didn’t see what madeit. He saw footprints. The storywas somewhat confusing, but itseems that the tracks weren’tthere initially, but appeared onthe way back. The witness said,“As soon as we seen them, weknew that something wasn’tright.” (This is somewhat enig-matic to me, and there is norestatement to explain whathe meant.) He brought back afriend. They cast one print anddug another out.

There was much discussionabout the ability of the maker ofthe print to span the trail (likea small road) in just one step.

3 The Youtube copy of this show had the following amusing comment from “FDCPElmo”: “How to make a findingBigfoot episode: 1- Go to random state. 2- Talk to locals and believe any story they tell because noone seems likea person who would tell a hoax. 3- Come up with random new technique you have never tried before to search forbigfoot. 4- Split in the same 2 teams as always. 5- Go into forest at night. 6- Anything you come across is evidence. 7-Make some whoop whoop sounds and whack some sticks against trees. 8- Conclude there are bigfoot in the area.”

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After a running start, Ranaetook a flying leap and dupli-cated it. She felt the printsmight have come from a joggerwearing some kind of glove-shoe.She noted she duplicated thestride and the depth of the print.Ranae voted no Bigfoot; Bobovoted yes; Matt voted yes. Theguy still has the cast and the dirtwith the foot impression. Maybethey should send it to Meldrum

of Idaho.Story 3: Finally, they gath-

ered up Cliff and met with awitness whose occupation wasgiven as “biologist.”4 His sight-ing took place 5 years ago. Theyasked him what he was doingout there at the time of his sight-ing. He said he hadn’t been outin the field for several years,and had come out to bone upon his tracking skills. He heard

a “snap” and saw the Bigfootaround 120 feet away. It wentaround a corner and evidentlyhe was not successful in follow-ing it. Upon questioning, he saidthat he could hear it as it contin-ued along on its journey. Therewas no eye contact. Bobo andMatt were convinced that he sawa bigfoot.

Canada

This is season 2, episode 4,filmed in Canada.

The manifest purpose forthis episode was to examine“interesting but controversial”footage from Todd Standing.The introductory segment toldus that Matt originally saw thefootage several years ago, thatthe clip is short, and that somepeople say it’s a hoax. Theylooked at the film in their car.The Bigfoot is seen for about 5seconds. It turns and goes be-hind a rock. Film over. Bobowondered why Standing didn’tjust keep filming, because inmost real videos that’s whatthey would have done. Ranaemade the same point: why didn’the keep shooting and try to flushit out for more footage?

They met Standing in orderto question him further and toperform a re-enactment. Stand-ing refused to take them to theactual site, for the reason thatit is an arduous and danger-

ous journey. As a result, theresulting re-enactment was vir-tually worthless; neverthelessBobo concluded that the subjectwas probably a Bigfoot–becauseit was so much bigger than hewas. (Still, query how that couldbe determined using the compro-mised re-enactment.) Cliff likedthe fact that he could see “but-tocks muscles.” Ranae pressedStanding on why he didn’t filmmore, or have one of the othersin his party film him while heclimbed up and tried to flushthe creature. Standing said thatit was a difficult rock climbingscramble, and he wasn’t going todo that with a running camerain one hand. (Note that this an-swer was not responsive to thequestion why he didn’t have anassociate film while he climbed.)Standing elaborated a theory ofBigfoot social structure whereinsentinels guard the family unitduring the day, and Cliff saidthat this theory made sense.

Matt did not directly reach aconclusion in the segment, buthe opposed Bobo’s positive con-clusion by saying that if Bobohad been in a costume, he wouldhave appeard as big as the crea-ture in Standing’s clip. Ranaedirectly said she could not ruleout a person in a suit. Cliffhedged, saying that because there-enactment was not done inthe exact same spot, “it is am-biguous” (i.e. he could not vote“yes”). Standing virtually whinedthat no video would ever begood enough. Cliff has an exten-sive discussion of this segmenton his site.[3]

They held a town hall meet-ing and selected three stories forfollow up.

Story 1 was investigatedby Cliff and Ranae and wastold by Tyler Huggins, whosebackground was not discussed,but who seems to be a BFRO“investigator.”[6] His story wasthat he was walking down a path

4 This witness was identified as Nick Maione. Hudson Valley Magazine[13] refers to a Nick Maione as “leadinvestigator for the New England region of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.” I don’t know if this is thesame Nick Maione. However, in his episode guide, Cliff refers to Nick as a Bigfoot investigator. This should have beendisclosed.

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behind his little brother when acreature about 15-20 feet away,who at first he thought was akid, bounded across the roadand ran down a steep ravine.Then they saw a tree pushedover down in the ravine. Cliffreminded us that not all Big-foots are huge: there must bejuveniles. The Bigfoot was saidto be about Ranae’s size, soshe performed the re-enactment.She leaped across the road andstarted down the ravine. Shetook about two steps to clearthe road. Ranae talked abouther performance as if she some-how failed miserably to do whatthe creature did. However, theshow presented it’s own recre-ation clip of someone in a Big-foot suit running across the road.This is an attempt to give us anidea of what the eyewitness saidhe saw. That footage showedthe creature clearing the roadin two steps just like Ranae.Accordingly, I wasn’t convincedby Ranae’s confession of failure.Ranae said she had “no expla-

nation,” which seems to be hercode for “I am the show skepticso I am not allowed to say it wasa Bigfoot, but by a process ofelimination, that’s what it musthave been.” Cliff concluded itwas a Bigfoot based on the dis-tance to cover the road and thesteep slope it had to navigatethrough.

Story 2 was told by KeithHamilton and investigated byBobo. The witness went hiking,set up camp, and around 11 pmheard footfalls. Then somethingurinated on his tent. He openedthe tent flap and saw it run off.They did a brief re-enactment ofthe distance involved when thewitness actually saw the Bigfootand concluded that it’s shoul-ders were twice the width ofBobo’s and that it was 8 feet tall(or more). Bobo said there area number of stories about Big-foots urinating on tents. Boboconcluded that he saw a Bigfoot.

Story 3 was told by Lonni Ol-son and Donna Ross and investi-gated by the full team. (“Inves-

tigated” is probably too stronga term; they merely went out tothe site and listened to the storybeing told again.) The events de-scribed in this story took placeduring a BFRO expedition. At 3am Donna heard a rock. (Theywere in the middle of a forest ormeadow, and there don’t appearto be an abundance of rocks. Didshe hear it hit something?) Thenext morning she went outsideand found the rock. She held avery rounded rock for the cam-era. (It looked like a river rock,but no river is shown nearby andno comments are offered aboutthe character of the rock.) Lon-nie prowled around and foundnot footprints, but where thegrass had been stepped on andbent. The next night they heardtree knocks and growls. Mattsaid he could rule out bears, andit was unlikely someone followedthem in to the campsite just toannoy them like this, therefore,by the process of elimination, itmust have been a Bigfoot. Novotes of the other cast noted.

Minnesota

This is season 2, episode 5,filmed in Minnesota.

The Team went to MooseLake, Minnesota to investigate arecording made by BFRO mem-ber Andy Pieper.5 They listen tothe recording and hear wolves,except for one noise that wasslightly different. Ranae thoughtit was all wolves. The met withthe witness at the location. Thereason he had been at thatlocation was that the owners

of the property had called theBFRO on account of Bigfootsightings. The owners were notinterviewed. They all listenedagain, and the witness pointedout where he thought they mightbe hearing a Bigfoot. At bestit is an ambiguous sound. Mattclaimed that Bigfoots are smartand they purposely use callsdisguised as the calls of otheranimals (coyotes or wolves) toprevent humans from becoming

aware of them. Cliff discussesthis episode on his site.[3]

They staged a town meetingwhich was well attended and atwhich about 80 percent of theattendees raised their hands. Itis illuminating to watch the por-trayal of the town meeting onthe show and then compare tothe following account publishedby station WDAZ:

“When the programs host,Cliff Barackman, asked people

5 The recordings were made during a 2009 BFRO expedition organized by Pieper.[1]

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to raise their hands if theyd ac-tually seen Sasquatch anothername for Bigfoot about eighthands went up. When he askedif anyone had heard the crea-ture, the number of hands inthe air doubled. Then, whenBarackman asked if people hadheard stories of sightings andother Bigfoot evidence, nearlyevery person in the room raiseda hand.”[15]

They decided to further in-vestigate the stories of three. Allof the incidents were said to beunusual because they happenedin daylight.

Story 1, investigated byMatt and Ranae, was told byJenna Wilenius, who was outjogging near home when shefelt she was being watched. Sheturned around and saw a Bigfootwatching her. It was very tall,and human-like except for beinghairy. In shock, she just kept onrunning. Later her mother toldher it was a Bigfoot. They go tothe site, and although it is dif-ficult to determine the distanceat which the sighting took place,it looked roughly 100 yards tome. Jenna recalled how tall thecreature was based on a branch

on a tree, and she could still lo-cate that branch. Ranae walkedover there with a stick and con-cluded that the top of the stickat the height of the branch wasabout 11 feet. It looked higherthan that to me. Ranae com-mented how difficult it wouldhave been for such a huge crea-ture to navigate the fields andkeep hidden, so it must havebeen a misidentification. (Con-fused with what?) Matt pointedout that a height of 11 feet putthe creature way out of peoplerange, that it was definitely nota bear, and that people haveseen other very tall Bigfoots. Ac-cordingly, he felt she saw a Big-foot. Jenna at this point wasadamant that she had seen aBigfoot. Her story is featured ina news report by WDAZ.[15]

Story 2, investigated by Cliff,was told by Lorraine Tomczak,who said that one day while driv-ing down a road she saw somecars by the side of the road,looked around, and saw a Big-foot peeking in the windows ofan abandoned trailer. It turned,looked at her, [and walked off?].The trailer seemed to be about100 yards from the road. Cliff

measured the height at whichLorraine estimated the top of itshead to be 108 inches (9 feet).He believes she saw one. Herstory is featured in a news re-port by WDAZ.[15]

Story 3, investigated by the4 Team members, was told byKristy Aho and her husbandDale. The whole family, includ-ing three young children, wereproceding down a path on 4-wheelers. Dale walked into thewoods with his gun, and thecreature immediately jumpedup and ran away. Kristy sawit and knew immediately whatit was. Kristy remarks that thecreature was so big that itmade the ground vibrate whenit walked off. They estimate theheight at 7 1/2 to 8 feet. Bobowent into the brush and raisedhis hand to develop a height esti-mate, and the result of this wasa revised estimate of 9 feet. Mattfelt that they had seen a Big-foot. Ranae felt it was anothermisidentification (with what?).Matt objected that a mere per-son wouldn’t have made theground vibrate. Their story isfeatured in a news report byWDAZ.[15]

Ohio

This was season 2, episode 6,and was filmed in southeasternOhio near Salt Fork State Park.Ohio, we are told, is number 5 inBigfoot sightings, and number 1east of the Mississippi.

The nominal purpose of theepisode was to investigate avideo made by Jeff Patterson,who was out taking his son sled-

ding. His account was that “Iturned the camera on becauseI heard some noise up ahead ofme.” A large dark figure thenturned to a tree and shook it.In fact he seems to have pulledit out of the earth and brokenit, because they found the treeand part of it was missing. Theyhave Bobo pick up the tree and

stage a re-creation. Bobo is big-ger than the figure in the video.Bobo thinks it’s a person. Ranaedoubts, but this is her job. I won-der why, if the man was merelysledding with his son, did he pullout a camera when he heard anoise. It sounded like he was Big-foot hunting. The date of thisvideo isn’t mentioned, but the

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son is still quite young.There are claims that the

video is an admitted hoax, andamong those making this claimis Tim Stover from story 3,below.[19] Cliff discusses the is-sue on his site.[3]

Five brief stories from thetown hall meeting are shown.They selected three for follow-up.

Story 1 was told by ChiefLittle Soldier,6 who lives at theMunsee-Delaware Indian Reser-vation. He said he had heard ofBigfoot encounters as far abackas 1998, and that they hear in-dications of Bigfoots a coupleof times a month there. Hisstory was that he was puttingin trail markers when he hearda branch break, looked around,saw an enormously huge crea-ture looking back at him. It thentook off down a ravine, reach-ing the bottom in only five orsix steps. No re-enactment is at-tempted, and the witness is notquestioned further. They spec-

ulate that the sound of pound-ing in trail markers may havesounded like “wood knocks” andattracted the creature. The dateof this alleged encounter isn’tmentioned. No opinion of thisreport is expressed.

Story 2 was told my LorenaCunningham of Sharon, Ohio.They characterize this incidentas a stand-off between a femaleBigfoot and the witness, whoevidently was carrying a baby.She was at a playground whereher children had moved from theswings to the merry-go-round.She heard a crashing in thewoods and saw “this big hairything” looking down at her. Shesaid it was at least 7 feet tall, 7-8feet, with huge muscles. Ranaewasn’t convinced, because suchconfrontational behavior is notconsistent with the reclusive na-ture that Bigfoot is supposedto have. The reason for catego-rizing this one as a female didnot make it to the televisionbroadcast; that detail must have

been edited out. The BFRO hasa note about what seems tobe this encounter which differsfrom the story on this episodein a number of ways and whichalso does not mention the sex ofthe Bigfoot.[5]

Story 3 was told by TimStover, who Bobo said is well-known in the Bigfoot field, hav-ing his own internet radio show.The witness was hunting froma tree-stand in 1992 when heheard sticks break. He turnedand saw the creature standingthere. It was silver-gray-white,coyote colored. Their test of thisreport focuses on the questionwhy a Bigfoot would choose towalk so near to a hunter. Theyput the witness in the stand andBobo walks off into the woodsuntil the witness can no longersee him. Bobo reports that thewitness was likewise not visibleand therefore the encounter wasprobably accidental. No opinionof this report is expressed.

Virginia

This was season 2, episode 6. Itwas shot in southwest (Washing-ton County) Virginia.

The Team came to investi-gate a video of a man driving anATV up a creek when the sup-posed Bigfoot crosses fairly close(100 feet?) in front of him. Thewitness was identified as ChuckNewton. Elsewhere it is statedthat the footage was taken in2009 by Eric Cunningham, andthat the creature was around

200 feet from the camera.[10]The witness said that the videowas taken in July, when thecreek was high. At the timethe Team visited the site, thecreek was low, and they re-marked about how different itlooked. The witness said thatthe Bigfoot looked, then turnedand kept walking. They filmeda re-enactment, and Cliff saidhe was convinced, because hecould see Bobo’s hat, but no

clothes at all on the Bigfoot.(However, the Bigfoot footagewas quite blurry and indistinct.)Ranae said she did not believeit was a Bigfoot, because Boboappeared bigger. The witnesssaid that at this point he wasnot sure. Cliff pressed his con-clusion with the argument thatwhat was seen must have been aBigfoot, because a human wouldhave waved, acknowledged thewitness, or at least glanced at

6 More details of the encounter and stories of his other encounters are contained in an “affidavit” posted on theinternet.[17]

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him. This was odd in light ofthe statement by the witnessthat the Bigfoot indeed lookedat him.

The town hall meeting seg-ment presented clips of four sto-ries, of which the Team investi-gated three.

Story 1 was told by 16 yearold Kirsten Jorgensen, who saidthat one morning when she waspicking up the mail, she hap-pened to notice the creatureoff to one side. It was standingthere watching her. It walkedoff slowly. At first she thoughtthat it might be a guy, then shethought it was a Bigfoot. Theirevaluation consisted of Bobo’sre-enactment of the scene. Theconclusion of the re-enactmentwas that she was was claimingto have seen something 8 feettall and a little wider than Bobo.Ranae pointed out that therewas no nearby forest, nor eveninterconnected stands of trees.

She felt the witness had not seena Bigfoot; rather, it was a caseof overactive imagination. Cliffand Bobo felt that she saw one.

Story 2 was told by AnthonyLowe, who was taking a friendto see a small waterfall thatthe friend had never seen before.They looked up and saw thatsomething was there. It let outa whoop that lasted 20 to 30 sec-onds. Then in only three leaps,it ran down into a ravine. Cliffspeculated that perhaps it wasmaking a warning call to otherBigfoots. Their evaluation con-sisted of a simple re-enactment.Ranae went to the rock that theBigfoot was sitting on. The wit-ness said that its feet touchedthe ground and its head wasmuch taller; based on those com-ments, Ranae concluded that hewas reporting an 8 1/2 foot tallBigfoot. She tried to make itdown the ravine and it was clearit would have taken her 30 steps

to do so, not three. Ranae con-cluded he did not see a Bigfoot,in part based on her assump-tion that true Bigfoot behaviorwould be to remain silent andavoid making noise which wouldcall attention to itself. Cliff be-lieved that the witness indeedsaw a Bigfoot.

Story 3 was told by Jeff Bol-ing, a man in active law en-forcement. We were told he wasthe best witness of the bunch.The witness said that in Novem-ber 1993 he was on a ridge(hunting?) well before daylightwhen he heard something com-ing through the tall grass andbreathing with some effort, alow raspy breathing. He saw itabout 30 feet away. Evaluationconsisted of a re-enactment. Thewitness said Bobo was 1 or 1 1/2feet shorter. It looked at him,turned, and walked off out ofearshot and sight.

Kentucky

This was season 2, episode 7,filmed in Kentucky. The ostensi-ble reason for coming here wasto investigate a video, some-times called the “Kentucky Eye-shine Video,” made by a BFROmember. It turns out that thevideo was made in 2008.

On the way to the shoot,Matt talked about how bour-bon whiskey is made from hard-woods and nuts; corn never en-ters into his equation.

They met Charles Boles. Hesaid that in fact a second Big-foot came around from the otherside while he filmed. (The video

does indeed show bright shinyeye reflections, but on Youtubeit looks like someone wearing abelt.) The witness said roughly,“This is the spot. I was stand-ing on this rock. It was rightbefore dark. I was filming thisarea here [points], and when Iturned around, there was eyeshine coming from over there[points].” The encounter lastedabout 5 minutes, until they be-came afraid and left. The onlypossible objection raised is thatthis might have been a misiden-tification with an owl.

Bobo held up two glowing

LEDs to immitate eye-shine. Hecouldn’t hold them high enoughto equal the tree limb they areusing to identify the height. Hemeasured with a tape and theyconcluded that the level of theeyes was 8 3/4 feet. Ranae feltstrongly that it was an owlperched on a branch that, threeyears later, is no longer there.Matt angrily disputed this andsaid there was no sign that thishypothetical perch branch wasever even there. Surprisingly,Bobo thought it was probablyan owl. The possibility that thelight came from boats on a lake

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behind the scene that is visi-ble in the video has also beenraised.[16]

Further details are presentedon Cliff’s site.[3]

The town hall meeting re-sulted in three stories for themto examine.

Story 1 was from a fellowBFRO investigator, Don Ad-kins. He reported seeing oneusing a thermal imager, andCliff was a bit jealous, becauseCliff had tried unsuccessfully foryears to do that. Cliff wanted toknow the reason for Don’s suc-cess. The witness said that afterhe got the imager, he had thethought to come out to that par-ticular ridge to see if he couldspot a Bigfoot peeking out from

behind the tree line. So he droveup to the ridge, looked out, andthere was a Bigfoot. Unfortu-nately the imager had a shortin it and wouldn’t record. Cliffasked how he knew it was a Big-foot, and he replied that he hadbeen doing these Bigfoot inves-tigations for ten years, and hementioned “arm swing.”

Story 2 was from Rosie Cald-well, who saw one on the otherside of the road in front of herhouse while she was standing onthe doorstep talking on the tele-phone. It was 7 to 8 feet tall andit walked bent over a little, andshe noticed it swinging its arms.She ran off to her basement andhad no idea where it went.

Story 3 was told by Sheriff

Fee. He said that while he wasgetting ready for work early onemorning, he heard his dog bark,looked out his window, and sawthe dog chasing after it, saw ithurdle the fence, and saw it clearthe road in three steps, disap-pearing. Bobo could not hurdlethe fence and he pointed outthat there is a ten foot differ-ence of elevation on the otherside of the fence. He would havebroken a leg, and there’s no wayhe could have cleared the road inthree steps. The sheriff says thecreature and Bobo were aboutthe same shoulder breadth. Cliffand Bobo concluded that it hadto have been a Bigfoot.

Indiana

This was season 2, episode 9 ofthe show.

The introduction said thatthey were attracted to Indi-ana by a video. The video issometimes called the “IndianaDunes” footage and it was takennear Chesterton, Indiana.[7]Cliff Barackman tells us the filmwas taken in November, 2008.[3]Their activities were reported inthe local media.[23]

The Team were skeptical ofthe video from the beginning.One thought it looked like aman in a gorilla suit. The gaitdidn’t seem like the notorioussasquatch gait; it looked likea human. And the figure firstcrouched behind a bush, thenwalked out into the open: notthe behavior of an animal thatdoes not want to be seen.

Bobo said, “As Sasquatchresearchers, we go around andlook at evidence. Our job is toinvestigate these controversialfilm clips. I mean, they floataround the internet; Sasquatchresearchers debate it back andforth–so we’re just here toclear it up.” I wanted to readmore about the debate amongSasquatch researchers about theIndiana Dunes video, but I couldfind no debate.

The husband and wife whoshot the cell-phone video did notwant to be identified. The Teamasked how the video happenedto be taken. The couple saidthey were out on a family drive(kids can be heard crying in thebackground when the Bigfoot isseen), and wanted to see a lake.Ranae discussed their desire for

anonymity. She said it seemedlike they weren’t out for fameand fortune, and their only in-terest was to learn for sure whatthey had photographed in theirvideo. In my opinion this com-ment was meant to suggest to usthat these people are ordinarypeople, innocent bystanders ina manner of speaking, other-wise not associated with the Big-foot phenomenon; but when Iexamined the YouTube postingof the video, it was by some-one who has 11 Bigfoot videosposted.[11]

The encounter was filmed inthe winter. The idea that theydrove out in the winter withsmall children to see a lake ona lark bothers me. They didn’tget out of their vehicle. Theydidn’t search for tracks. They

9

saw a dark, hunched figure andcouldn’t provide further details.

Bobo staged a re-enactment.Bobo was bigger than the as-serted Bigfoot. Even Matt be-lieved it was not a Bigfoot. Pos-sibly someone was out there do-ing some hoaxing.

The Team conducted a townhall meeting and selected thefollowing stories to examine fur-ther.

In story 1 Bobo talked toa hunter who said he saw one.He reminded us that hunters aregood at observation. The hunterheard a twig snap and saw thecreature’s head and shoulders. Itwas huge–10 to 12 feet tall–andthen it disappeared into the for-est. Bobo staged a re-enactmentin order to get a sense of howfast the creature moved. Thistime the man mentioned thathe could see the creature allthe way down to its kneecaps.Evidently the Bigfoot jumpedacross a small pond. Bobo wasconvinced that the hunter actu-ally saw one.

For story 2, Matt and Ranaewent to see a site where an-other witness said he saw a Big-

foot breaking open some mus-sel shells. The witness said thatthere were a lot of caves in thearea, and one night when hewas coming back from the caves7

he saw a creature in the water.Later, he went down and foundsome mussel shells. Matt him-self went down to see if therereally were mussels there andreported that he found some.8

The witness said that the Big-foot was around seven feet tall.Alternatively, it was about afoot taller than Matt. Matt wascompletely convinced that theman saw a Bigfoot; Ranae wasdoubtful, but strangely unableto articulate the reasons for herdoubt.

To examine story 3 they vis-ited a man and his daughter attheir cabin deep in the forest.They said that there had beenseveral Bigfoot sightings in thisvicinity from this source (per-son). Bobo was impressed withtheir “squatchy” location. Thelittle girl said that she went outto feed her dog. She didn’t men-tion that the dog was barkingor otherwise acting abnormally;rather, she became aware of the

creature when she heard some-thing that was “really big” thatwas “crushing leaves.” Is thathow she determined its size, bythe sound of crushing leaves?Anyhow, she saw it, and it waswatching her. She ran back inthe house, looked out the win-dow, and it was gone.

Her dad said that he decidedto investigate, went off after it,saw exactly one footprint, andmade a cast of it. (He just hap-pened to have some plaster or ce-ment in his house.) He displayedthe cast. I was completely un-able to see a footprint; I saw along, oval white piece of some-thing that looked mostly likeleaves, sticks, or stones stuckin some plaster. Perhaps if ithad been lit or photographeddifferently I would have beenmore convinced. The footprintwas said to be on the order of12 inches long. The Team exam-ined it. Bobo was convinced thatit was the footprint of a Bigfoot.They didn’t ask if they couldsend it to Meldrum of Idaho oranother scientist for a more ex-pert analysis.

Utah

This was season 2, episode 11.The Team came to Utah to in-vestigate a video taken by someteenagers who had built a bon-fire and thrown a gasoline bombinto it. In the background a fig-ure can be seen getting up and

walking back into the woods.During the arrival sequence theTeam notes that the area is richin deer and elk. The video wastaken in a canyon where localBFRO people say there is activ-ity. Ranae wonders why a sup-

posedly reclusive Bigfoot was sit-ting right next to a campfire.Bobo wondered why nobody no-ticed it sitting there fifteen feetfrom the fire. Cliff noted thatit did have a vaguely Bigfootshape.

7 I find it odd that the man was visiting caves at dusk, and also that there was no follow-up to see if any of thesecaves was where a Bigfoot lived.

8 I noticed that when they filmed their re-creation of a Bigfoot in the water to give us an idea of what the mansaid he saw, the Bigfoot was waist deep in the water, but it turns out that the stream is quite shallow, no more than afoot deep.

10

They met up with the boywho took the film, who is wear-ing a tee-shirt. The boy saidthat he didn’t even know aboutthe possible Bigfoot until thevideo was posted on YouTubeand a comment pointed it out.9

The boy showed them the fire-pit and told them the story. Heyelled, “Stand Back! And ev-erybody stood back, and that’swhen it happened.” At the point,the figure rose and... stood back.How many people were withyou? He says about seven. Howdid you know it wasn’t one ofyour group? Because I remem-ber everyone was back here. Youare sure everyone was behindyou? Yes. Have you talked aboutBigfoots before? (Not as such),but me and my friend have a the-ory that this canyon is haunted.Matt comments that places thathave a reputation for Bigfootsightings often also have a repu-tation for being haunted.

The Team started a smallfire and sent off Bobo for a re-enactment, which they videod.We got to see pretty goodparallel footage on a laptopscreen, and Bobo was clearlybigger than the suspected Big-foot. They mentioned that theirre-enactment video was madewith the exact same camcorder.Ranae: it was probably one of

his friends, or another personcamping nearby who happenedover to see what was happening.They asked the boy again whathe thought it was. He repliedthat he didn’t know, but he didknow it wasn’t one of his friends.Only Matt believed this was Big-foot footage–based on the area’shistory of Bigfoot sightings.

A Youtube hosted debunk-ing video claims to show, using aclearer copy of the original video,that the figure is a young manin a white tee shirt.[14] Cliff hasnot yet posted a guide to thisepisode on his site.

The Team held a town hallmeeting. There were brief storiesfrom five participants.

The Team interviewed Prof.Lynne McNeill at the USU FifeFolklore Archives. She had 53stories of local Bigfoot sight-ings from 1970-2000 and sev-eral other stories that could berelated. This was interesting,but air time being in short sup-ply, they thanked her and left.There is no indication what usethey put this archive to, or evenwhether they mapped the loca-tion of the stories.

Story 1: The teller of the firsttown hall story said he couldclearly see muscle detail. Bobowent with him to the site of hisobservation. This was the sec-

ond time the witness hunted atthis location. He heard branchesbreaking. He looked through hisbinoculars. The (animal) cameout into the clearing and ranacross. Bobo went to the placewhere the witness saw it. Howtall was it? A foot taller thanBobo (so it was seven and one-half feet tall). Bobo: “It had tobe a squatch.”

Story 2 was told by a snow-plow driver who said that onenight he saw a Bigfoot leaningagainst a guardrail. It lookedright at him–he could see rightin its eyes–and he observed thatit had long brown hair. He sawit cross the highway in threeor four steps. Bobo did a re-enactment, and it took him sixsteps. Although we have seenRanae measuring distances be-fore, we do not see them actuallymeasuring the distance acrossthe road. Also, it’s very impor-tant that the starting points areidentical, and we really can’t ver-ify that point. Bobo was “tiny”compared to the Bigfoot. Theconclusion is that he was re-porting having seen a seven anda half foot tall Bigfoot. Ranae:why did it stop in front of a snowplow? Cliff: It was definitely aBigfoot. Someone: half of all Big-foot encounters take place on alonely road at night.

Idaho

This was season 3, episode 1. Weare told that some high schoolstudents on a field project near

the Mink River area, southeast(Pocatello) Idaho got a short,blurry video of a possible Big-

foot. We see a short clip fromKIDK. The actual date of thisfootage is unclear; it was taken

9 More on this back-story is available online in a blog titled “Aggies and the Internet.”which claims the video cameout in 2005.[22]

10 The story was posted on Cryptomundo 13 March 2012, which has a link to a television news story.[21]

11

when there was snow on theground.10 Production of thisepisode had been scheduled forJune, 2012. We are told that thefootage is “several months” old.No information about this sight-ing appears on the Finding Big-foot web site, nor is there anymention of it on the BFRO website; however it is covered onCliff’s episode guide.[3]

The Team convinced the stu-dents to appear on camera with-out names. They said they wereout on a project related to ero-sion testing.11 The students toldtheir story and said that ittook them almost an hour af-ter they filmed to get to the topof the ridge where the Bigfootwas. They didn’t think to photo-graph tracks, they just picked agood footprint. Cliff was skepti-cal about the footprint becauseit didn’t seem to have sunk indeeply enough, and the toeswere too short. Ranae was skep-tical about the circumstances,because it only took her 15 min-utes to climb the ridge. It makesher question the accuracy oftheir perception or memory. Thestudents said the Bigfoot wasbigger than Ranae. Matt was

impressed with the sincerity ofthe students; Bobo didn’t thinkit is likely to be a hoax becauseit would have been a lot of trou-ble to climb that ridge in thewinter. They are both convincedthat the students saw a Bigfoot.

As a result of the town hallmeeting the Team decided to in-vestigate the following stories.

Story 1: Bobo talked to ayoung man who said that sev-eral years ago he and a friend en-countered a Bigfoot with brokenteeth, maybe three broken teeth,including the canine on one side.Bobo was intrigued with this an-gle, in part because he too isnow missing a tooth. The storywas that they were in a pasture,heard a noise, threw a rock, andlater a rock came whizzing back.Bobo raised his hand to get asize estimate and they settle on8 feet. The witness said, “I thinkI saw a Squatch”– and some-thing about his choice of theterm “squatch” instead of “big-foot” or “sasquatch” seemed ar-tificial to me. Possibly he pickedit up during some preliminarydiscussion with the Bobo.

Story 2: Cliff and Matttalked to a man who saw what

he now believes was a juvenile.At first he thought it was abeaver, but then it stood up–itwas about 4-feet tall–and ranfor the Snake River. Cliff wasimpressed and felt that if theman were going to spin a yarn,he would have talked about abig Bigfoot. One of the Teamtalked about how Bigfoots droptheir kids off at a nursery area,and that’s what this must havebeen. Furthermore, they have a“Castle & Moat” theory that Big-foots like to position themselvessuch that they are protected byan escape path impenetrable byhumans; that’s what the SnakeRiver was here. They are bothconvinced this man saw a Big-foot.

They went to see Meldrumof Idaho. Meldrum has alreadyseen the footage and the pho-tograph of the footprint. Mel-drum was impressed that what-ever is on the film looks likewhatever was on the Patterson-Gimlin film. He does not dis-miss the footprint, and says thelength and proportions look likemany of the casts that now clut-ter his lab.

Vermont

This is season 3 episode 2, filmedin Vermont.

The Team visited centralVermont to examine a photo-graph that purports to show afemale Bigfoot bending over andpicking fallen apples while an in-

fant clings to it. The photographwas taken by Frank Siecienski,12

who noticed apples disappearingfrom his tree, even the leaves offthe branches, at about a 5 footradius. He set up a trail cam.One night he saw a photo of a

coyote happily eating his apples.The next photo showed a coy-ote running off obviously fright-ened (hair bushed up and tail be-tween its legs). The base of thefirst photo, where we see a coy-ote peacefully grazing on apples,

11 Additional information can be seen on an internet-published “photographer’s statement.”[20]12 Cliff redacted Frank’s surname in his episode guide, but it is shown on the episode. Basic facts about the

photograph appear in news reports.[12]

12

says 66 degrees F, 08/30/10,11:46 pm. The base of the sec-ond photo that we see, wherethe coyote is frightened (suppos-edly by the Bigfoot), says 68degrees F, 08/31/10, 11:17 pm.The very next photo is the onein question. It reads 78 degreesF, 09/02/10, 5:55 pm. It is ei-ther pitch black outside, or in-fra red. The subject is bent overpicking up apples and you cansee what appears to be a handgrasping one leg. However, to methe anatomy is quite difficult tomake much sense of. What theykeep talking about as muscularshoulders are indeed huge, butdon’t look right. Branches in theforeground are in focus. Stuffin the background is in focus.But the creature in the middleground is not.

This was about 2 yearsago. The witness said he askedaround to see what peoplethought it was, and got answerslike coon, bear, and even ghost.Then he emailed it to “top re-searchers” (he didn’t mentionin what discipline), and one ofthem in B.C. showed it to nativeAmericans who identified it as aSasquatch.

Bobo attempted to re-enact,same spot, same cam. Bobo wasin sharp focus (of course it wasdaylight, but the focus issue stillbothers me). To me they lookedabout the same height, but theywent on and on about how hugethe creature looked compared toBobo. I think they were focusingon what they were interpretingas the shoulders. Bobo asked a

rhetorical question whether evena padded suit would account forits appearance of bulk. They set-tled on a height estimate of 7to 7 1/2 feet. Ranae thought itwas a hoax. Bobo was convincedit was a Bigfoot. Cliff was con-vinced too.

They held a town hall meet-ing and decided to investigatethree of the stories told there.

Story 1 was investigated byBobo. In this story, witness Ja-cob Mashak saw a Bigfoot whenhe was a teenager living on hisfamily farm. He had been sleep-ing upstairs, but rose at 3 amand went to the kitchen to get adrink of water. He saw a figurewalking across the yard. He dis-tinguished it from a human byits size (over 8 feet tall), (compli-ant) gait, arm-swing, and largepointy head (suggesting saggitalcrest). (The witness seemed well-versed in the checklist of pointsand terms of art used in the Big-foot arena.) Based on the wit-ness’s knowledge of the terrainand his careful and detailed ob-servations, Bobo thought he sawa Bigfoot.

Story 2 was investigated byMatt and Ranae. They met withLuke Hawking, who saw a Big-foot crouching on his deck lateone night. He had just let thedog out the side door and it wentover to a small nearby brook, didits business, and returned. Thewitness then noticed the crea-ture squatting on all fours on hisdeck near the window. The wit-ness ran into the house leavingthe dog outside, and shut off all

the lights. We never heard whatif anything happened next, likethe creature walking off. Mattand Ranae try to estimate theheight of the creature’s headwhile it was squatting down, butdo not mention a number; myviewing suggests 4-5 feet. Nomention was made of the dog re-acting in any way, which I findodd. They asked how he couldsee it in the middle of the nightwhen there wasn’t a light shin-ing on it, and he said it was aclear night, good weather, andthere were two floodlights in theyard. Matt believed he saw aBigfoot. Ranae thought it wasjust a story.

Story 3 was investigated bythe whole ensemble. WitnessJanice Hayes said she saw oneearly one morning while deliver-ing newspapers. It stepped outfrom behind a tree, looked ather, and then it was gone. Thewhole incident lasted 2 or 3 sec-onds. Very huge, large shoulderstapering down to its hips andsmall legs. It was 100 yards away.They tested her size estimatewith a Bobo re-enactment. Bobohad to stand in the middle ofthe road with his arm droopingdown a bit from one side. Bobothought she saw a Bigfoot, be-cause he found her credible andwith a clear memory of whatshe saw. Ranae said the lightwas poor, the witness couldn’teven say that what she saw wasfur or not, so it was probably amisidentification. Matt thoughtshe saw one.

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Oklahoma

This is season 3 episode 3, filmedin Oklahoma.

The purpose of this trip wassaid to be to investigate oneman’s report of a dumpster-diving Sasquatch.

They meet private investi-gator Roger Roberts, who wascalled by local residents to in-vestigate reports of Bigfoot ac-tivity in the area. Although thechronology is not crystal clear,it seems that his work was donearound ten years ago. He hasphotographs of tracks, a cast ofone, and a hair sample.

The tracks were made alongthe fence line of a facility. Hemeasured the footprints at 17-18 inches long. The photographsare indistinct. The earth wascrusty, not muddy, when theprints were made. We see thecast, which is indistinct on tele-vision, and Cliff says that thereis no toe detail or much topog-raphy to the prints–but the sizeand shape are generally consis-tent with Bigfoot footprints.

Roberts said he measuredthe step length at 4 1/2 feet,which translates to a stridelength of 9 feet. He mentionedthat the tracks showed littlestraddle and speculated thatwhatever made them may havebeen in the dumpster. This isthe prime story of the show. It

was supposed to disclose the in-vestigation of a dumpster-divingBigfoot. The dumpster issueturns out to be merely an off-hand speculation.

Ranae wanted to see if shecould duplicate the tracks. Shecould duplicate them in part ifshe jogged, and even if she kindof hopped along, but Bobo ob-jected that whatever made thetracks was merely walking. It’snot clear how he knows this;it was an offhand comment byRoberts that this was so. Mattand Cliff, like Bobo, are con-vinced that a Bigfoot made thetracks. Their rationale seems tobe the usual process of elimina-tion: the cast member could notduplicate the evidence, so it hadto have been made by a Bigfoot.

Roberts gave them a hairsample and they took it to DNASolutions to be processed. Thelab later informed them that thehair was not human, but thelab could not identify it, theDNA having degraded over the10 years it had been in custodyunder storage conditions thatwere not ideal.

They investigated two sto-ries.

Story 1 was told by KeithLumpmouth, sometime gamewarden and resident on an in-dian reservation. Keith’s story

was that he and his boss wentout after a pow-wow or party themorning after hallowe’en andthe boss said, “Take my pictureso I can show people I’m work-ing.” As he was taking the pho-tograph, Keith saw somethingin the background. He took asecond photograph. Matt andthe group felt that the first pho-tograph looked posed, staged.They were more open to the sec-ond photo. Keith showed the lo-cation and the point where thecreature stood, about 45 yardsaway. Bobo went over for a re-enactment photograph. The re-sults were that whatever wasin the photograph was abouttwice Bobo’s height and weighedmaybe 800 to 900 pounds. Mattfelt that the photographs to-gether with the re-enactmentwere “compelling” evidence ofa Bigfoot sighting.

Story 2 was told by Ian Mc-Donald, who saw a bigfoot whilekayaking on the river with hiswife. He showed them the spotwhere they made the sighting,but there were no trails or otherindication of any activity there.He said the creature was 6 feet 6inches tall and very broad shoul-dered. His initial impression atthe time was that it was a Big-foot. Matt believes that he sawone.

14

California

This episode was season 3, num-ber 4.

There were two initial storiesto examine.

Story 1 concerns a groupthat heard noises and tookout their camera, but got onlysounds. The sounds are de-scribed as “howling” or “yelling.”Then that night something cameinto camp and brushed past wit-ness Eric Fleming’s tent. Shortlythereafter there were two loudthumps, the vibrations fromwhich they could feel throughthe ground. Bobo was not im-pressed by the howls, but re-lated that the hand brushing thetent was consistent with a num-ber of stories that he had heard,so he is inclined to think thatthere may have been a Bigfoot.Matt addresses the subject ofhowls by reiterating his theorythat Bigfoots are mimics of thesounds of other animals (he men-tions owls and coyotes). Never-theless, Matt is undecided. Bobowas initially excited to investi-gate this tale, because the areahas a history of Bigfoot sounds,having been the site of record-ings made in the 1970’s calledthe “Sierra Sounds.”13

Cliff and Ranae examineStory 2. They talked to witnessAllen Thomas, who had been

in the Sierra Nevada mountainswith a paranormal group14 look-ing for Bigfoots. When it beganto snow, they left their 2wd vehi-cle and continued on. Later theyreturned for it. When they re-turned to it, they found smudgeson the windows. They took someof the marks to be knuckle andthumb marks of a Bigfoot, andmucous smears from its nose onthe window. Cliff was not ableto press his palms on the win-dow in such a way that he couldtouch his thumbs in the man-ner related by the witness. Heand Ranae concluded that thesemarks were not made by a pri-mate; rather it was likely thatthey came from a cougar or bear.The mucous wasn’t sampled.

They decided to investigatetwo more stories.

In Story 1 Cari Cotton tolda story of seeing a Bigfoot whilebabysitting. Dark, wintertime,she had a creepy feeling, thensaw hairy arms on her window.Different hair colors, from verydark brown to very light. Sawit only for a few seconds. Shepointed where on the windowshe saw its arms. They went out-side and Ranae measured theheight: 8 feet. Cliff estimated thebeing at 9 feet.

In Story 2 Dave Raygoza, a

“Bigfoot investigator and highschool principal” was off insearch of Bigfoot with a friend,who asked him, “What doesone look like?” Dave lookedinto the forest and said, “Likethat, there”–and realized he waslooking at an actual Bigfoot.(Dave has evidently seen onebefore.) It was about 300-400yards away. Bobo went off for are-enactment. Dave guessed theBigfoot was a foot taller thanBobo and somewhat broadershouldered.

Next they went to the TuleRiver Indian Reservation to seethe Hairy Man petroglyphs, saidto be early representations ofBigfoot. We’re told variouslythat they’re 1,000 years old ordate to 500 AD. Ranae askedhow they know the dates. Anold lady said the information ishanded down from an elder. It’sobvious nobody had a clue.15 Itwas a bit surprising that Ranaeas cast scientist was unaware ofthe basic facts about the pet-roglyphs, especially when thedating given by the show isexactly that given in Strain’spaper. Kathy Strain also ap-peared in “Bigfoot: The Defini-tive Guide”.16

13Clips of these recordings are on the BF.RO web site. They are recordings from the “Berry-Morehead Expeditions”[Al Berry] of the 1970’s.

14 Sanger Paranormal Society15 Kathy Moskowitz Strain of the U.S. Forest Service wrote an article about the petroglyphs, which included

references to the dating. Relict Hominid Inquiry, Idaho State University (2012).[18]16 For more on Kathy Strain see http://www.bigfootresearch.com/index.php.

15

Arizona

This episode was season 3, num-ber 5. The Team visited Arizonato investigate a video of a Big-foot raiding an ice chest at aremote campsite.

The video that broughtthem to Arizona was shot byMitch Waite, a retired militaryman who started doing Bigfootresearch after seeing one severalyears ago. (Waite has been in-terviewed by the media abouthis story before.[24]) Both Waiteand his friends have seen Big-foots at the site, seemingly onmultiple occasions. He believesthere are 12 in the area.17 Thevideo, which is pixelated and in-distinct, shows a figure approachthe ice chest, open it, take some-thing out of it, and close the lid.

On the occasion when thevideo was made there were threepeople at the site: Waite, his son,and his grandson. Waite saidthat he set the trail cam (anolder model Bushnell trail cam),and then they all adjourned tothe tent and slept. He heardnothing and did not realize whathad happened until he got homeand viewed the footage that wasin the trail cam. He was asked ifhe noticed anything awry whenhe awoke. He responded that inthe morning he asked his sonand grandson, “Did you guys getanything out of the ice chest?”But at this point he seems notto have seen the footage (he sawit when he got home), and the

lid on the ice chest was closed,so why would he have asked thisquestion?

The Team staged a re-enactment, which they pho-tographed with the same trailcam. Bobo was clearly taller andbulkier than the figure in theWaite video. Much speculationfollowed. Waite thought it was a“squatch” and that the area wasa training ground for juvenileBigfoots. Prefacing his conclu-sion, Bobo said, “If you knowsquatches are real and acceptthat they’re here...” Bobo hasseen a Bigfoot and therefore be-lieves that they are real; further-more, on account of habitat andrumored sightings, he believesthey exist around Waite’s site.Bobo concluded therefore thatWaite’s film showed a juvenileBigfoot. Cliff wasn’t convincedone way or the other, but saidthat the video was not “the def-inite proof we need.”

Cliff has posted notes withfurther, more considered anal-ysis of the film. He now says,“These factors weigh in favor ofit being a human in the film.”[2]

They held a town meetingand decided to investigate threestories.

Story 1 took place 29 May2010. A man and his son hadset up camp. The man got upto see if his wife had arrivedyet, and just at this moment a

creature walked by. It did notlook at the man nor at his son.The man saw its arms swing18

and noted the hair on its arms.He alerted his son, who glancedover and possibly saw a sec-ond Bigfoot following the first.They performed a re-enactment.(It’s unclear how they set it up,what the distances were, etc.)They concluded that the wit-nesses saw two Bigfoots. Theirreasons were that the witnesseswere credible, not lying, andthere was no mis-identification.

In story 2, a man whose oc-cupation is given as “cultural an-thropologist” and his wife weredriving along a highway just atthe “dark side of dusk” whenhe saw a creature. It stopped,turned, and dropped down onall fours. He could see the crea-ture’s hands. It was definitelyneither a deer nor an elk. Theydidn’t stop. The creature wasaround 7-feet tall. We are toldthat as an anthropologist, thewitness was a trained observer.(But he was not a physical an-thropologist.) Bobo performeda re-enactment. They drove bythe site with the witness. Theyconcluded that the man was def-initely close enough for him tohave seen the level of detail hereported. The man said thatthe creature was bigger, faster,quicker, and had sharper move-ments than Bobo.

Story 3 came from a young

17 One would think that with this many sightings, this many Bigfoots, and numerous witnesses that there would bephotographic evidence, physical evidence, and further testimony to be examined.

18 Arm-swinging is a characteristic of Bigfoot behavior that is frequently mentioned in accounts of sightings. However,the fact that this witness mentions it makes me wonder about how extensive his exposure to accounts of Bigfootsightings has been.

16

high school student. The boyhad been practicing basketballwhen the ball hit a corner ofthe court and bounced off. Hechased after the ball, looked up,and saw “a big brown thing juststanding there and I swear itwas a Bigfoot.” Bobo went tothe location where the Bigfoot

was supposed to have stood andraised his hand to help get anestimate of the creature’s height.They came up with an estimateof 9-feet. Bobo said, “I thinkthat was a Sasquatch.” The boyreplied, “That’s what I havebeen thinking too.” (My impres-sion of how he said that, of his

diction generally, was that hesounded scripted. Why not “Ithought so too!”) The Team be-lieved him, and in support oftheir conclusion pointed out hownice he was, how articulate, andthat he was an “A” student.

Note: this is my last set of FB reviews, because facts that can be followed up are in terriblyshort supply.

References

[1] Shawn Anonymous. Bigfoot Evidence: “Bigfoot howls, knocks, and whoops from 2009 BFRO Minnesotaexpedition”.http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2012/01/bigfoot-howls-knocks-and-whoops-from.html. Dated 1Jan 2012 ; Accessed 16 Dec 2012.

[2] Cliff Barackman. Dances with bigfoot. http://cliffbarackman.com/finding-bigfoot/finding-bigfoot-

episode-guide/1035-2/finding-bigfoot-season-three-dances-with-bigfoot/. Accessed:20 Dec 2012.

[3] Cliff Barackman. Episode Guide.http://cliffbarackman.com/finding-bigfoot/finding-bigfoot-episode-guide/. Accessed Dec 2012.

[4] Cliff Barackman. Finding Bigfoot Episode Guide.http://cliffbarackman.com/finding-bigfoot/finding-bigfoot-episode-guide/. Accessed 10 Dec 2012.

[5] BFRO. Ohio field research: Eyewitness sketches. http://www.bfro.net/avevid/mjm/ohsket.asp. Accessed 14Dec 2012.

[6] BFRO. Report # 26746. http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=26746. Date 2009; Accessed 15 Dec2012.

[7] Kirsten Clark. Indiana Daily Student: “ ‘Finding Bigfoot’ in southern Ind.”.http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=84017. Dated 8 Nov 2011.

[8] Amanda Cuda. Connecticut Postings: “Beardsley director says zoo didnt give baboon to Animal Planet show”.http://blog.ctnews.com/connecticutpostings/2012/01/05/beardsley-director-says-zoo-didnt-give-

baboon-to-animal-planet-show/. Dated 5 Jan 2012; Accessed 13 Dec 2012.

[9] Neil Genzlinger. New York Times: “Be Wary of Bobo, Sasquatch”. http:

//tv.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/arts/television/finding-bigfoot-on-animal-planet-review.html?_r=0.Dated: 30 Dec 2011; Accessed 13 Dec 2012.

[10] Justin H. Guess. Haunt Masters Club: “The Beast of Gumhill”.http://www.hauntmastersclub.com/editorials/beast_of_gumhill.html. Accessed 14 Dec 2012.

[11] IndianaDuneMan. Cleaned up version–Indiana Dunes Bigfoot?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgcNqDJn-50. Uploaded 13 Dec 2008.

[12] Deanna LeBlanc. WCAX: “Bigfoot sightings bring Vt national attention”.http://www.wcax.com/story/17402034/bigfoot-sightings-bring-vt-national-attention. Dated 12 Apr2012 ; Accessed 15 Dec 2012.

[13] Gene Lomoriello. Hudson Valley Magazine: “Bigfoot Sightings in Upstate NY; Discovery Channels FindingBigfoot”. http://www.hvmag.com/Hudson-Valley-Magazine/June-2012/Searching-for-Bigfoot-Bigfoot-

Sightings-in-Upstate-NY-Discovery-Channels-Finding-Bigfoot/. Accessed 12/12/12.

[14] ParaBreakdown. Youtube: “Northern Utah Sasquatch Debunked”.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJvt2BZdBVU. Dated 18 Nov 2012; Accessed 14 Dec 2012.

[15] Jana Peterson. WDAZ: “Northern MN ‘Bigfoot’ Sighting Draws TV Show”.http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/10307/. Dated: 28 Aug 2011 ; Accessed 16 Dec 2012.

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[16] Bruce Priddy. “Finding Bigfoot and negative stereotypes of Kentucky”.http://www.examiner.com/article/finding-bigfoot-and-negative-stereotypes-of-kentucky. Dated 28Jul 2012; Accessed 13 Dec 2012.

[17] William Little Soldier. “Affidavit: Chief William Little Soldier (AKA Bungard)”.http://www.bigfootencounters.com/stories/Little-Soldier.htm. Dated: ; Accessed 14 Dec 2012.

[18] Kathy Moskowitz Strain. Mayak datat: The hairy man pictographs. The Relict Hominoid Inquiry, 1(1):1–12,2012. Online access: http://www.isu.edu/rhi/research-papers.shtml.

[19] Steven Streufert. Bigfoot’s Blog: “Squatchmaster ‘Tree-Break Video’ Hoax Update”.http://bigfootbooksblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/argosy-1968.html. Dated: Feb 2011 ; Accessed 14 Dec2012.

[20] Lon Strickler. Phantoms & Monsters: “Meldrum: ‘...bears a striking resemblance to descriptions of Sasquatch’ ”.http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2012/05/meldrum-bears-striking-resemblance-to.html. Dated 31May 2012 ; Accessed 10 Dec 2012.

[21] Jake Taylor. Local8news: “High School Students Capture Video of Possible ‘Bigfoot”’.http://www.localnews8.com/news/High-School-Students-Capture-Video-Of-Possible-Bigfoot/-

/308662/14514802/-/6cxpx5z/-/index.html. Dated 30 May 2012.

[22] Unstated. Aggies and the internet: “Viral video puts Cache Valley in Bigfoot spotlight”.http://aggiesandtheinternet.blogspot.com/2012/04/viral-video-puts-cache-valley-in.html. Dated13 April 2012. Accessed 8 December 2012.

[23] Unstated. Chestertown Tribune: “ ‘Finding Bigfoot’ taped at Indiana Dunes State Park, to air Sunday on AnimalPlanet”. http://chestertontribune.com/Environment/227121%20finding_bigfoot_taped_at_indiana.htm.Dated 27 Feb 2012; Accessed December 2012; (moved or removed).

[24] Mitch Waite. Learn about the Mogollon Monster.http://www.azcentral.com/storytellers/video.php?vid=1349203557001&tcat=st-

arizona&tname=Learn%20about%20the%20Mogollon%20Monster. Dated 27 Dec 2011; Accessed 10 Dec 2012.

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