Ogopogo Lake Monster Caught On Film?

Footage of the Ogopogo at Lake Okanagan

Ogopogo or Naitaka (Salish: n'ha-a-itk, "lake demon") is the name given to a cryptid lake monster reported to live in Okanagan Lake, in British Columbia, Canada. Ogopogo has been allegedly seen by First Nations people since the 19th century. The most common description of Ogopogo is a forty- to fifty-foot-long (12 to 15 m) sea serpent. It has supposedly been photographed and even been caught on tape.

Uploaded by isaacbalson on Jun 29, 2011

Actual footage of what we think IS the Ogopogo lake monster, filmed just outside of Kelowna BC.

This reconstruction of the Jim Reiger sighting resembles a plesiosaur

From Director Tim Fasano: Florida Skunk Ape Hunt - The Movie

Interesting film from director Tim Fasano, a Skunk Ape researcher from Florida. In the film, you can see him and Tom Biscardi at a "secret" swampy location looking for the elusive Florida Skunk Ape. It's probably not as exciting to watch as Finding Bigfoot, but at least you'll learn a thing or two from these experts.

Did they catch anything on tape? You'll have to watch and find out! Enjoy.

Fossilized Eyes Reveal a Predator's Sharp Vision

Palaeontologists have uncovered half-a-billion-year-old fossils demonstrating that primitive animals had excellent vision.

Below is an article by LiveScience:

Ancient animals saw the world through multi-faceted compound eyes, a new fossil discovery reveals. The ancient eyes, which date back half a billion years, probably belonged to a predator, likely a giant shrimplike creature.

Like a modern fly, the ancient creature relied on compound eyes consisting of thousands of separate lenses to see the world. Each lens provides a pixel of vision. The more lenses, the better the creature could see. The mysterious ancient shrimp saw better than any other animal yet discovered from its era: Its eyes contained 3,000 lenses.

The fossil eyes were found by Australian researchers on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. They're 515 million years old, meaning the animal lived just after the "Cambrian Explosion," a sudden burst of life and diversity that began 540 million years ago.


"The new fossils reveal that some of the earliest arthropods had already acquired visual systems similar to those of living forms, underscoring the speed and magnitude of the evolutionary innovation that occurred during the Cambrian Explosion," the authors wrote in the Nature article.
Because the eyes were found isolated, researchers can't say with certainty what sort of animal carried them. But the fossils were found in the same rock as an array of ancient marine animals, suggesting a creature something like what the world would have looked like to the ancient animal.

Other animals from this timeframe had a mere 100 pixels of vision, the researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature. With 3,000 pixels, the newly discovered ancient animals would have seen three times better than the modern horseshoe crab. But its eyesight would have paled in comparison to the modern dragonfly, which has 28,000 lenses in each eye.

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience

Peter Hudson (South Australian Museum)

Modern insects, like this robber fly, sport compound eyes with hundreds or even thousands of individual lenses, so that they see the world in pixels; more lenses mean more pixels and better visual resolution.

John Paterson (University of New England)

A half-billion-year-old fossil compound eye, showing exquisite detail of the visual surface (the individual lenses can be seen as darker spots).

FB/FB Talks About The Existence of Bigfoot In Florida

Bigfoot In Florida

Uploaded by SasquatchWatcher on Jun 29, 2011

Is Bigfoot in Florida? This video discusses and shows the evidence for Bigfoot (Skunk Ape) in Florida. If it is in Florida then it certainly is not rare. There must be a self sustaining breeding population that has likely been there for Millions of years.

Finding Sea Monsters is What The New Deadliest Catch Spin-off Special Is About

The Hillstrands Hunt for a Sea Monster

Bigfoot isn't the only monster known to be lurking near Alaska. Witnesses recently caught on film a prehistoric sea animal long thought to be extinct. The Discovery Channel has a new special that's going to start airing called "Alaskan Monster Hunt". Featuring Deadliest Catch's the Hillstrand brothers, it's probably going to be an action packed adventure. The special will premiere Tuesday, July 19, at 10 p.m. after a new episode of Deadliest Catch.

Read the TV Guide Exclusive News below:

Two of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch captains are trading crab fishing for a different kind of prey: Sea monsters. Brothers Johnathan Hillstrand and Andy Hillstrand have signed on to star in the special Alaskan Monster Hunt, which airs next month.

Alaskan Monster Hunt will follow the Hillstrand brothers as they search for clues to the mystery of Alaska's own version of the Loch Ness Monster. The brothers — normally the captains of the Time Bandit, as seen on Deadliest Catch — travel to sea after viewing footage of an unusually shaped eel-like creature dipping in and out of the water.

Cameras will follow the Hillstrands as they hunt the sea monster, which cryptozoologist Dr. Paul LeBlond of the University of British Columbia says could be a prehistoric sea animal long thought to be extinct.

Alaskan Monster Hunt will premiere Tuesday, July 19, at 10 p.m. after a new episode of Deadliest Catch.

Source: www.tvguide.com

Finding Bigfoot: Cliff Barackman "Frozen Bigfoot" (Washington) Silver Star Mountain Commentary

Every week, Cliff gives us a little debriefing of the show Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet. This week, he talks about the Silver Star Mountain photos of Bigfoot and how he believe it to be a real sasquatch. You can read the full commentary by clicking here. Below is what he thought about the episode:

[...] Overall, I don't have any real complaints about this episode. What you see is what you get, and all of it pretty much happened the way it was shown. The howls were real. The mumbling voices at the base of Silver Star really were heard by Matt and Bobo, but time didn't allow us to investigate the area for two nights. Southwest Washington still has bigfoots in it, and not far at all from Vancouver, WA. That's why I live a stone's throw away.

- Cliff Barackman

Canoe blind "Death Trap"
Used to sneak up on Bigfoot

Recent Sighting Report: Sawyer County, Wisconsin Man Claims to Have Witnessed Two Bigfoot, an Adult and Juvenile

Date: June 26, 2011
Persons: Young man who works for the state
Location: Nelson Lake, Wisconsin
Context: While fishing from his canoe, the young man spots a child sasquatch with "very thick brown hair all over it's body" and saw a large ape-like head rising above the lower tree boughs.
Source: naturalplane.blogspot.com

I received this email last evening from a young man in Sawyer County, Wisconsin who claims to have witnessed two Bigfoot, an adult and juvenile, while fishing:

Sir - I am writing about a sighting I had on June 26th around 8:00 pm at Nelson Lake, Wisconsin. I was fishing from my canoe about 30 yds. from the shore near Tannings Point when I noticed a whimpering sound. It was coming from the woods at the shoreline. It sounded like a dog whining, so I stopped what I was doing to watch the woods to see if anything appeared. After a few seconds I saw a child scampering from the woods. I didn't get a very good look but the child had very thick brown hair all over it's body and was very small (human toddler size). It quickly showed itself then bolted back towards the woods.

I sat there in shock. But within seconds I heard three distinct and angry 'grunts'. I then saw a large ape-like head rise above the lower tree boughs. The eyes were barely visible but I could tell that it didn't want me there. That was enough for me so I started to paddle towards the north show when all of a sudden I heard a loud 'plop' then 'splash' from behind the boat. I turned around in time to see another rock heading in my direction. It was many yds. from me but I got the message.

I was shaking from the time I witnessed these beasts up until a few hours later when I was in my home office pondering what I had seen. I think it may have been Bigfoot. I Googled 'Wisconsin Bigfoot' and your blog came up. Was this a Bigfoot? I'm not an outdoorsman though I enjoy canoeing and fishing. Have there been other sightings in this area? Is there a danger? I appreciate your help.

I am a state employee so I would prefer my identify remain confidential. Thank you.

Robert Lindsay: Bear Hunter's Tale of Bigfoots Forcing a Man to Mate with Female Sasquatch

Albert Ostman talking about how he was kidnapped in 1924 by a family of Bigfoot on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there is a part two of the Bear Hunter's tale. This is a great follow up by Robert Lindsay. Whether you believe Bear Hunter or not, he tells a very intriguing story.

Here's more from Bear Hunter:

Bear Hunter Interview Part 2: More Outrageous Bigfoot Allegations and Revelations
Here is the second part of my interview with a fellow I will call Bear Hunter. The widely read first part is here.

It deals with a wide range of subjects, including why we have a hard time getting good trailcam videos of Bigfoots, Bigfoots burying their dead in peat bogs, Bigfoot gravediggers who dug up a Bigfoot grave and found a skeleton of a Bigfoot hand, a trapper who is more or less living with a group of Bigfoots, an wilderness area with a huge number of disappearances that may be Bigfoot-related, and most outrageously of all, a man who claims that he was kidnapped by Bigfoots and taken to their lair where they tried to force him to mate with a female Bigfoot a la the famous Albert Ostman story.

I think we ought to send someone up to Canada to try to find the guy who is reporting the Albert Ostman Redux story. At the very least, it deserves to be investigated.

RL: Do you think Bigfoots avoid trailcams? Some people say that they avoid those cameras.

BH: They do avoid them as a matter of fact. They can hear the cams. The cams give off a lot of noise. It’s at a low frequency that humans can’t hear, but the Bigfoots can hear it. Other animals can hear it too, but they are not as wary as Bigfoots. For instance, some of your great big trophy deer won’t go near one. Bigfoots can hear them for quite a ways away, and they just stay away from them. The manufacturers know that the cams give off a lot of noise, and they are working now to reduce the noise that they give off.

RL: What do you think Bigfoots do with their dead? I say they bury them.

BH: They do bury their dead. In Canada, they bury their dead in peat bogs. These bogs are funny places, sort of like swamps, but they are almost like quicksand. You can sink down and get trapped and die in them if you are not careful. I know some guys who dug up a bog and found some Bigfoot bones. They put all the bones together and ended up with a Bigfoot hand skeleton.

RL: Why don’t they go public with it?

BH: You have to understand the way these guys are. These types…they just don’t care. They don’t care about getting famous or going public or anything like that. They are outside of all of that. These guys who found the skeleton have a cabin way back in the woods that they use for recreation. The Bigfoot hand skeleton is there, mounted on a piece of wood. They have a few beers, get drunk, bring this thing out and laugh about it and make jokes. That’s all they want to do with it.

RL: Are you aware of any habituation stories we haven’t heard about yet?

BH: There is a guy in British Colombia, a trapper who lives way out in the woods. He’s supposedly totally habituated some Bigfoots. He’s more or less living with them in a sense. He sees them every single day.

RL: What do you think of the Albert Ostman story? Is it true?

BH: It’s a true story. What’s even more strange is that there is a fellow up in British Colombia, a trapper, who has a similar story. He was talking to a friend of mine, telling him about Bigfoots, and then the trapper mentions that he got kidnapped by Bigfoots once! My friend said that at that point, he stopped listening to the guy, forget it.

The guy said a Bigfoot kidnapped him and took him back to a cave where the Bigfoots were living and tried to force the guy to have sex with a female Bigfoot! Just like the Albert Ostman story, no? So it looks like maybe Bigfoots do kidnap humans sometimes for breeding purposes.

RL: Is this guy who got kidnapped by the Bigfoots for breeding the same as the guy who is living in a habituation situation with the Bigfoots?

BH: He may well be. They are both trappers in British Colombia living way out in the woods.

You know, we also have people in Canada who disappear on a regular basis. There is one area of British Colombia where 21 people have vanished without a trace over many years. It’s also an area with many Bigfoot sightings. A lot of people are scared to go in there. I know a lot of outdoorsmen who refuse to go anywhere near that area. It seems like there is something creepy going on there. I am wondering if the Bigfoots are behind the disappearances, and if any of this involves kidnapping humans for breeding purposes.

Related:

• Erickson Project: Two Bigfoots Shot Dead, Legal Wrangling Over DNA and Death of Subjects
• Erickson-Lindsay Project: Bigfoot is a man, an ancient man, a blast from our ancient past, a subhuman, a human ancestor

Listen to Cliff Barackman Finding Bigfoot Interview on 98Rock Baltimore

The guys at 98Rock Baltimore are big fans of Finding Bigfoot. They were lucky enough to have Cliff Barackman on the radio show to do an interview. Cliff had some great questions thrown at him. Questions like, what does a sasquatch poop look like, why can't we find these creatures, where are the bones, and some questions about the show. Since it's Cliff, this interview is full of useful information.

Click here to listen on 98Rock

Finding Bigfoot Making Matt Moneymaker Quite Popular With the Ladies Nowadays

We always knew Matt Moneymaker was a ladies man. Just look at his tweet messages, all girls!... Just joking with you Matt.

Did you know the BFRO has a custom Ford Roadster? The last time it was spotted in public was in Las Vegas, Nevada when a couple of FindingBigfoot fangirls borrowed it for a photo shoot. Hot damn!

We've been following Matt on Twitter and he's been answering some interesting questions lately:

Duh!

Look, there's only one way to spell my last name, and that's with a capital M!

Strange Mud on the Side of Truck and Sasquatch Footprint Found in Umatilla National Forest

Strange mud on the side of the pickup.

Update: NWBigfoot said this place is in the Umatilla National Forest. Forest road 6235. Nearest town would probably be Troy Oregon or Elgin, Oregon.

Interesting videos from an unknown Bigfoot research group who goes by the name of NWBigfoot. These clips look really recent and they were just uploaded on June 28. The witness encountered two types of Bigfoot activity in the Umatilla National Forest.

Overall, it's a great find by the team. We hope to post more of their videos as they come along.

Here's a description of the first activity (mud on side of truck):

Took a walk in the woods, heard a weird wailing sound. When we returned to the truck there were strange mud swirls at the door handles on the driver's side. They were only on that side and only at the door handles. Bigfoot tried to steal my truck!!! They need to put a bait car in the Umatilla National Forest.

Description of second activity (large footprints):

The night before, one of our group saw something large moving out in the woods. Two of us saw reflective eyes of something hiding behind the branches of a fallen tree. The next day we went back and found several large footprints. This one being the most clear.

Sasquatch footprint

New Messin' with Sasquatch Commercial - Sprinklers

Brand spanking new Jack Link's Commercial. This one is labeled Sprinklers. If Sasquatch want bath, me rub body with porcupine in river like me always do.

Enjoy!

Extended Version

Prank Alert!: N.O.B.S. Group Claims 'Bigfoot' Sighting In New Orleans' City Park

Alleged Home Video Catches Suspicious Creature

Update: Wow! These guys even came out with a press release of their own, how professional. Click here to read.

This just in from WDSU.com, New Orleans. Looks like an amateur prank to us, but we'll let you decide:

NEW ORLEANS -- In what appears to be a wink and a nod to the recent sightings of wildlife around New Orleans, a group calling itself the New Orleans Bigfoot Society has taken to the web to share a video of what they claim is bigfoot spotted in City Park.

The video, posted Monday on YouTube, is introduced by a man claiming to be biology doctorate Xavier Jenks. But Jenks appears more likely to be an actor, and the video a well-produced prank.

The "home video" Jenks obtained shows a man catching a fish in a pond at the park, and in the background -- when the video is slowed and zoomed -- something bigfoot-esque can be seen on the opposite shore.

In a news release, the group claims to have taken hair and fecal samples from the location of the sighting, and it sent those samples to a lab for analysis.

"The New Orleans Bigfoot Society (N.O.B.S.) was founded in 2001 by a group of Sasquatch researchers and enthusiasts in the Greater New Orleans area," the news release says. "It's a little known fact that there are more Bigfoot encounters in Louisiana than in any other region of the USA (other than the Pacific Northwest)."

Take a look at the video and judge for yourself: serious bigfoot believers or slick pranksters?

Read more: www.wdsu.com

From Now On, I'm Only Using Bear Paw Forks to Eat

Bear Paw Meat Handler Forks

How cool is this?

Handling meat like a pansy is so 2010. With these Bear Paw Meat Handler Forks, you can lift and carve hot food while still keeping the swagger of a bear. Shred meat and chicken without a second thought and switching between kitchen tools, and apparently works great for outdoor grilling as well. The handles stay cool during your cooking adventures, and the paws are dishwasher safe.

Available at Amazon.com: Bear Paw Meat Handler Forks

Source: foodbeast.com

Tim Fasano Compares Finding Bigfoot to His Best Bud Tom Biscardi

Tim Fasano has grown pretty bitter lately after not getting picked up by the Animal Planet Finding Bigfoot show. A few months ago, when the producers of the new show started scouting for Finding Bigfoot team members, Fasano actually received a phone call. The producer of the show asked him important questions about Skunk Apes and Native Americans, but we're not sure how that interview went.

Unfortunately, Fasano didn't get the job, and his life has been consumed with bitterness. Watch his latest break down video labeled: "Finding Bigfoot: BFRO Florida Expedition Compared To Fasano and Biscardi Expedition"

If you think we're picking on Tim for no reason, we're not. We admire the man for what he does. The only thing we're trying to do is to get him to realize that he could be hurting his chances of getting his own TV show if he keeps bashing Matt Moneymaker and the Finding Bigfoot show.

We do it because we care.

Uploaded by fasanotampa on Jun 28, 2011

One team worked their area the 'old fashion way' while the other tried to dazzle us with toys and editing. Early on in my research, I got my ass ripped by people who thought I was faking things up. Now, they are after MM for either b eing complicent or, at least, cashing the paycheck. This is the same guy that said Biscardi was a hoaxer. Oh, how the worm turns.

Click here to see how Tim Fasano didn't get the Finding Bigfoot job.

Erickson Project: Clarification on the Two Dead Bigfoot Bodies, Friend of Shooter Responds

On Monday, Robert Lindsay sent me a link to his article about an extraordinary claim by a man known as "Bear Hunter". This man tells a tale of another hunter who during an illegal bear hunting season shot and killed two Bigfoots. He said the man knew the larger creature he shot wasn't a bear because it was standing upright and waving it's arms. As we read the story, it became more intriguing and started to sound like the National Inquirer magazine interviews. It went into great details about how this man has killed over a 1000 bears in his lifetime, and how he might have chopped up the bodies and threw it into his freezer for safekeeping.

One Bigfoot he shot was just a juvenile and actually died in the shooter's arms. "The hunter said that two small creatures, 'half-bear and half-ape,' appeared sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four legs. They got aggressive with him and moved very close to him. At one point, one got on a ledge above him and seemed to be threatening it. He shot it out of fear it was going to attack him," said Bear Hunter.

On the same day Lindsay's article was posted, Cryptomundo picked it up and re-posted it on their website. A reader named Derek Randles, founder of the Olympic Project decided to comment and gave some clarity to this story:

RWRidley responds:

June 28th, 2011 at 8:41 am

The discussion on BF Forum about this is interesting and intense. There’s a poster named “Derekfoot” who claims to know the shooter. Apparently, the existence of bodies is overstated a bit. He writes:

“It’s also very important to note, he never gave Sasquatch a second thought. He was a complete skeptic. Because of his unfamiliarity with the Bigfoot subject he had no idea of what he was looking at through his riffle site. He assumed that it was a very strange looking bear that was standing on it’s hind legs. In his mind that’s all it could have been, a bear. When the bullet hit its mark, it started to become apparent that it wasn’t a bear. It did not drop right there, it ran off. They thought they heard it crash in the brush but did not see it go down. Things started getting very weird at this point. Two smaller creatures appeared from the brush, sometimes on two feet, and sometimes on all fours. In his description they looked like a cross between an ape and a bear. They got very close to him and at one point one positioned itself above him on a outcrop. He shot it out of fear of being attacked. Probably the same thing I would have done in the given circumstance. When I’m in the wilderness I always pack a gun to protect my self from wild, sometimes unpredictable animals. There are a few times I thanked God I had it. This was starting to feel like a nightmare to him and he quickly left trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened.

It’s very important to note that he doesn’t feel good about this incident. As a matter of fact he felt terrible. This was a case of miss-identification plane and simple.

At a later date a search was carried out at the site and a piece of flesh was recovered. NOT A BODY, only a small piece of flesh witch was later cut in two pieces, hence the cut line. I’ll say it one more time, no body’s were found or recovered.”

Related:

• Erickson Project: Two Bigfoots Shot Dead, Legal Wrangling Over DNA and Death of Subjects
• Erickson-Lindsay Project: Bigfoot is a man, an ancient man, a blast from our ancient past, a subhuman, a human ancestor
• Erickson Project: Two Dead Bigfoot Bodies Being Used For DNA Test, Whereabouts Caused Matt Moneymaker to be "hopping mad"

FB/FB: White Bigfoot Filmed in Pennsylvania Break Down

Break Down of White bigfoot filmed in Pennsylvania

TeamYin breaks down a video posted last year by YouTube user Bobywade. It's an interesting breakdown, but they didn't include the recently enhanced version of the footage we discovered on June 26. In any case, watch them try to prove it's a "real" albino Bigfoot in the footage.

Uploaded by TeamYin on Jun 27, 2011

Man films White Bigfoot in Backyard Posted 2/3/10 by Anonymous poster Bobywade. We spent a great deal of time on this authentication. It shows a White Sasquatch twice, once for 1.4 seconds at maybe 50 feet and again at maybe 20 feet. The second clip is unobstructed by branch, so it is very clear. It appears that two people are walking toward it. One with a flashlight and one with a camera. The coned head, brow ridge, tree peeking, high shoulders, nose to nape, long upper lip, hooded nose confirm this very quick but very good video.

The Enhanced version that was posted on June 26 by user cxd4 (not shown in TeamYin's Break Down):

Animals Compared to Humans: Meerkats attend scorpion-hunting kindergarten

Researchers are finding out that although meerkats are good teachers, they're not that smart.

Teaching

We may be the only animals to go to school, but we are not the only ones that can teach. Meerkats, for example, are taught the most important life skills they need by their elders. It might seem that intelligence is the key to being a good teacher, but researchers believe this is not necessarily true for these animals. Meerkats rely on instinct when they are teaching their young how to kill scorpions.

Finding Bigfoot: MrMayDX08 Review of "Frozen Bigfoot"

The show just keeps getting better and better for MrMayDX08. Last week, he gave the Finding Bigfoot "Fishing for Bigfoot in Oregon" episode a B, but this episode was so much better. He gives this one an A- or 8.5 out of 10 stars, which is spectacular. Watch his review.

This is BIG! The "Jurassic Park" trilogy is coming to Blu-ray on October 25

This is what you've been waiting for. Jurassic Park the trilogy is coming to Blu-ray in October of this year. Here's what the press said about this news:

"It was one of Hollywood's first modern CGI marvels, but it's taken quite a while for Universal to say the magic word on a Blu-ray release for the Jurassic Park (for now still a) Trilogy. No more—it's out this October 25th. Nature found a way." - Kyle Wagner, Gizmodo

"We've had to wait quite a while, but after Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg signed up with Universal three years ago, the Jurassic Park Trilogy will finally be available on Blu-ray this fall. All three flicks have been restored and remastered and John Williams' orchestral score will come home in a 7.1 DTS-HD MA encoding. Also included are over two hours of new special features with a six part Return to Jurassic Park documentary focusing on the cast and crew of the films. If that's not enough, there's also a plan for a "Limited Special Edition" with a custom T-Rex statue. No word yet on any pricing info but you can check the press release after the break for the long list of extras and all other details, plus a brand new trailer." - Richard Lawler, Engadget

Did you know?

JURASSIC PARK - The Facts

In Michael Crichton's novel, John Hammond proudly says that the narrator on the prerecorded park tour is Richard Kiley. Later, Kiley was hired to play himself in that role for the movie; possibly the only instance of a celebrity "appearing" in a book, and then later cast as him or herself in the film version.

The glass of water sitting on the dash of the Jeep was made to ripple using a guitar string that was attached to the underside of the dash beneath the glass.

William Hurt was offered the role of Dr. Grant, but turned it down without reading the book or the script.

The park software is written in Pascal; a program is clearly visible in one of the monitor close-ups on the UNIX system. The graphical interface recognized as a UNIX system is Silicon Graphics' "3D File System Navigator".

Director Steven Spielberg was worried that "computer graphics" meant "Nintendo" type cartoon quality. He originally only wanted the herd of gallimimus dinosaurs to be computer-generated, but upon seeing ILM's demo animation of a T-rex chasing a herd of galamides across his ranch, he decided to shoot nearly all the dinosaur scenes using this method. The animation was first plotted on an Amiga Video Toaster, and rendered for the film by Silicon Graphics' Indigo workstations.

Generally speaking, any shot of a full dinosaur was computer-generated, but shots of parts of dinosaurs were of animatronics.

The full-sized animatron of the tyrannosaurus rex weighed about 13,000 to 15,000 pounds. During the shooting of the initial T-rex attack scene, which took place in a downpour and was shot on a soundstage, the latex that covered the T-rex puppet absorbed great amounts of water, making it much heavier and harder to control. Technicians worked throughout the night with blow driers trying to dry the latex out. Eventually, they suspended a platform above the T-rex, out of camera range, to keep the water off it during filming.

A baby triceratops was built for a scene where one of the kids rides it. Special effects technicians worked on this effect for a year but the scene was cut at the last minute as Spielberg thought it would ruin the pacing of the film.

"Dennis Nedry" is an anagram of "Nerdy Sinned".

Ellie Sattler says, "Something went wrong" to Dr. Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). In The Fly 1986, Veronica Quaife said this to Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum).

In the egg-hatching scene, a newborn baby triceratops was originally supposed to come out of the egg, but it was changed to a velociraptor.

The first draft of the screenplay had Hammond left behind on the island.

Scenes of the T-rex attacking Grant and the kids while they ride down a river and through a running waterfall were cut before filming.

There were so many wires and rigging to control the velociraptor animatrons in the kitchen-stalking scene that the child actors had to literally step over and around them while the scene was being filmed. The kitchen set was greatly expanded from the original design to accommodate the velociraptors. Some reports say that all of the dinosaurs in the kitchen scene were computer-generated.

Many errors were corrected digitally: some stunt people were made to look like the actors, and in one scene an entire Ford Explorer jeep was digitally generated.

Steven Spielberg wanted the velociraptors to be about 10 feet tall, which was taller than they were known to be. During filming, paleontologists uncovered 10-foot-tall specimens of raptors called Utahraptors.

The ending where the T-rex saves the day was added when the production team and John Williams decided that it was the hero of the film.

A scene of Ellie pulling the leaf off an extinct plant appeared in the film trailers but not the film itself.

Fred Sorenson was the pilot who flew the crew off Kauai when the hurricane hit during production. He played "Jock", the pilot who flew Indiana Jones away in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), also directed by Spielberg.

Spielberg was so confident with this film that he started making his next film (Schindler's List (1993)), placing post-production in the hands of George Lucas.

In the novel, the characteristics of the children are reversed: Tim is the oldest and a computer nerd, Lex is the youngest and a tomboy.

In The Hunt for Red October (1990), Sam Neill's character's dying words are, "I would like to have seen Montana." He gets his wish during the opening scene in Jurassic Park when his character is working at a dig in Montana.

The first film to use DTS digital surround sound.

To study the movement of the Gallimimus herd, the film's digital artists were ordered to run along a stretch of road with some obstacles, their hands next to their chest.

Source: www.sciflicks.com

Is Bigfoot Real?

A website was setup to answer just that question: Does Bigfoot Exist?

Earlier today, a reader sent me the following website address:

http://www.isbigfootreal.com/

Proof that Bigfoot is real? Hardly.

Bigfoot 'Exists' in New Film

'Exists', a new Bigfoot thriller by "Blair Witch Project" director Eduardo Sanchez begins shooting outside Austin, Texas in October this year. "The film is the first in a trilogy exploring and reinventing the Bigfoot myth," Sanchez said. "We all remember the terror of watching such classics as 'The Legend of Boggy Creek,' and I look forward to making Bigfoot scary again."

Considering all the hype and interest surrounding Bigfoot nowadays, this is a great move by the famed movie director.

From www.darkhorizons.com

"Blair Witch Project" director Eduardo Sanchez is set to helm the sasquatch thriller "Exists" for Haxan Films and Amber Entertainment reports Variety.

Jamie Nash and Sanchez penned the script about a group of twentysomethings who take a trip to a cabin deep in the wooded wilderness and are methodically hunted by a Bigfoot-like beast.

Sanchez says it's the first in a trilogy exploring and reinventing the Bigfoot myth. Robin Cowie, Gregg Hale, Andy Jenkins, Jane Fleming and Mark Ordesky are producing.

Weta Workshop and Spectral Motion are collaborating on the design and build of the monster. Shooting kicks off just outside Austin, Texas in October.

For those of you who were too young to see the film in 1999 when it was released, it's budget was estimated to be around $60,000 and grossed $248,639,099 (Worldwide).

The Blair Witch Project was about three film students who traveled to Maryland to make a student film about a local urban legend... The Blair Witch. The three went into the woods on a two day hike to find the Blair Witch, and never came back. One year later, the students film and video was found in the woods. The footage was compiled and made into a movie. The Blair Witch Project.

The Blair Witch Project trailer (1999)

Erickson Project: Two Dead Bigfoot Bodies Being Used For DNA Test, Whereabouts Caused Matt Moneymaker to be "hopping mad"

Update: Click here to read Erickson Project: Clarification on the Two Dead Bigfoot Bodies, Friend of Shooter Responds
Update: Click here to read Erickson-Lindsay Project DNA Update: Bigfoot is a man, an ancient man, a blast from our ancient past, a subhuman, a human ancestor
Update: Erickson Project: Leader of Bigfoot DNA research group responds to "leaked" results

Breakings news from Robert Lindsay's blog about the Erickson Project, two dead Bigfoots, Matt Moneymaker, DNA samples, National Geographic, and many more.

We don't know how Robert gets people to spill the beans about the Erickson Project, but I bet you it's either money or drugs. First the Richard Stubstat Erickson Project Bigfoot DNA leak, and now this. How do you do it Robert? Did you slip a pill into their drinks without them noticing? Whatever you do, keep it up, because we all deserve to know!

Here's the article taken from Robert's blog:

New Erickson Project News: Bigfoot DNA Project Using Two Dead Bigfoot Bodies for Samples

Note: Long, runs to 24 pages.

I was recently put into touch with a hunter from Western North America who is quite well known in his field. You might even say that he is famous. He and others were the subject of a recent book, and he often gives talks at various forums. He was formerly employed at America’s foremost science museum but is no longer working there.

He is considered to be at the top of his field, which I will not reveal here. He is also a hunter and travels around North America hunting. He especially likes to hunt bears. This puts him in touch with many other hunters. He is also active on taxidermy boards. He has deep ties to the Erickson Project and the Olympic Project.

He will be known anonymously as Bear Hunter in this article, as he only talked to me on the grounds that his identity was kept secret.

Robert Lindsay: Hi, what made you decide to get in touch with me?

Bear Hunter: Well, I read your article where you interviewed Richard Stubstad, and I thought, “Wow! This guy is hot on the trial! He’s really close. He’s closing in. So I decided to fill in some blanks for you.”

RL: Is there a reason why you decided to spill the beans on this hot news to me just now?

BH: Yes, I am getting very impatient with the pace of this project. You know, it’s always coming out this year, then next year, then this year again, then next year again, then this spring. I’m getting tired of it. I want to jumpstart this project and tell them to get going and finish it up.

RL: You say you have some blockbuster news regarding the Erickson Project Bigfoot DNA study, right?

BH: Yes I do. This all started from a thread on Taxidermy.net, a website where I hang out. There are sometimes threads on Bigfoots, and in this one thread, in November 2010, a guy said that he had just shot two Bigfoots! The guy is a trapper, a taxidermist and a hunter. This was huge news of course, and pretty soon there were lots of followup posts. Somehow the guy’s name and number got out, and there were reports of people bothering him and harassing him. He asked the webmaster, George Ruff, to shut down the thread. George shut it down.

Well, afterward, I got in touch with the guy and talked to him for a while. Adrian Erickson, Matt Moneymaker and Tyler Huggins all got involved. Moneymaker and Huggins are with the BFRO (Bigfoot Field Research Organization). Erickson had heard of Bigfoots getting shot; actually, he has lots a number of stories from Canada where they get shot pretty regularly. But, as he put it, “I’ve never been two weeks behind a shooting before.” Everybody was scrambling after this guy!

RL: How was it that the Bigfoots came to be shot, and were they killed?

BH: In November 2010, [name withheld] was hunting on the border between Nevada and California, inside California, near a game refuge. (RL: Based on my investigation, it took place in or near the Dixie Mountain Game Refuge west of Frenchman Lake on the Plumas National Forest in Plumas County. It borders Washoe County in Nevada. See a map here).

On one side of the game refuge, there was this single road in a canyon leading into and out of the refuge. Bigfoots were apparently using the game refuge, since they are safe from hunters there.

The guy was on this road when he came upon a large dirty-white (RL: supposedly female) Bigfoot standing in the road. Since the narrow road was the only route in and out of the place, the Bigfoots were forced to use this road whether they wanted to or not. The Bigfoot was standing there waving her arms at him. I thought maybe she was telling the hunter to back up so the Bigfoot could move through, since the Bigfoot was stuck on the road, no?

The guy stopped his truck and jumped out. He knew it was a Bigfoot, but he thought she was threatening him. The Bigfoot knew his intentions by now, and she started to run away. He shot her with a 25.06. He shot her through the side of her chest, piercing her lungs. The Bigfoot took off into the brush, but he heard her crash down soon afterward.

Next thing he knew, he heard barking sounds coming from the side of the road. There were two young Bigfoots there that popped up out of nowhere. They were brown-colored. The hunter shot one of the young Bigfoots dead! He’s an idiot, right?

It died in his arms. 4 feet tall, 80 pounds. He said it had a huge head, and then I knew it was a young Bigfoot, because the young ones have gigantic heads while they are still young. The head is more normal sized as they get older. Remember that “Pancake Video” from the Kentucky Project, where the young Bigfoot has a huge head that everyone was saying was a human with some birth defect? Well, that is what they look like when they are young.

Have you seen the Jacobs footage that they say is a mangy bear? The shooter told me the juvenile he shot looked just like the Jacobs creature.

RL: Yes, what is it? A bear?

BH: No way. It’s a juvenile Bigfoot. You can tell by the hips. And the neck. The thing has no neck. I know bears. I love bears. No way is that a bear.

RL: Why did he shoot the adult Bigfoot? He says he thought it was a bear.

BH: No. He knew what it was. Because of the color. Bears don’t come in off-white. Anyone knows that. He shot it because he thought it was threatening him.

RL: Why did he shoot the juvenile Bigfoot? He says it got up on an outcrop and was threatening him.

BH: No, that’s not true. Why did he shoot it? He’s that kind of guy. I know a lot of hunters. Most are good people, but some are not. There are a lot of guys like him out there hunting. People shoot things just because they can, just to kill them. That’s why he did it. He did it because that’s what kind of person he is.

RL: What did he do with the Bigfoots?

BH: He told us that he left them lying there. There was snow on the ground, so we figured that there might still be enough time to go in and get the bodies. Pretty soon, we decided that the guy was probably lying. We thought he probably took the bodies, because taxidermists are hoarders – they never leave anything they shoot in the field.

RL: The Olympic Project says they went back to the site over two weeks later and found a bit of flesh on the ground, left over from the shooting. They used this bit of flesh to slice up and submit to the DNA project.

BH: No, they told me they never went back there.

RL: What happened to the dead Bigfoots?

BH: Well, we put the hunter in contact with the Olympic Project that is working on Bigfoots in Washington State. We didn’t hear much for a while, only that the OP folks kept saying, “We are just trying to keep [name withheld] out of jail.” The hunter was convinced that if California figured out he shot these two Bigfoots, he was going to jail. He was really afraid of going to jail.

RL: Ok, then?

BH: Moneymaker and the BFRO were in on this too. It was a mad rush for those bodies!

We didn’t hear much more for a while until the Olympic Project starting sending samples to Melba Ketchum for her DNA project as part of the Erickson Project. Some of the samples that the EP was getting were of tissue, and they looked like they were carved off a dead body!

(RL: One sample appeared to be carved off of the thigh of a human or hominid cadaver. Dr. Ketchum was so freaked out by the sample that she called people up asking them to hold it for her in case the police came to her lab, because she was afraid of going to jail.)

The samples had two different colors of hair. Obviously, the Olympic Project was sending Ketchum samples carved from the bodies of the two dead Bigfoots? Isn’t that incredible?

RL: Who has the Bigfoots, the hunter or the Olympic Project?

BH: I think that the hunter still has the bodies or he has parts of the bodies. Maybe he cut parts off them before he left. If he has the bodies, he has probably cut them up, cut off the heads and has them on ice. They can last a long time like that. I don’t think the Olympic Project has the bodies.

We did a lot more digging, and we found that now the hunter is associated deeply with the OP. He’s part of their project. The OP is not admitting to anything. They deny it all, they say they have no dead Bigfoots, and they don’t have access to any.

RL: Incredible news!

BH: Yes, there’s more too. Notice how the Olympic Project is all over the Internet boards talking about how they have enough Bigfoot samples to last for years? Guess why they say that? Probably because they have access to two dead Bigfoot bodies! Think about it.

RL: Too much…Do you know about any leaks from the Erickson Project DNA study?

BH: Yes, I do. They are very close to humans. Say if chimpanzees are 2 clicks away from humans, these things are maybe 3/4 of a click away.

RL: Ok, and they are in the Homo line?

BH: Yes, I am sure of that. Recall that say 50,000 YBP, there were maybe five different hominids on the planet. Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo Floresiensis, Denisova, Homo heidelbergensis and Neandertal Man. All of these other hominids are gone. What happened to them?

RL: We killed them all.

BH: Yes, we killed them all. So the only thing that could survive was something that was huge, very stealthy and wary, hated humans, favored the most remote areas, had the use of bad smell to ward off enemies, used an intense EMF field to paralyze and disorient enemies, was very strong and had a very thick skin that was hard to penetrate. They’re the ultimate survivors of our genocidal wars.

RL: Do you think they are humans or apes?

BH: I don’t know. You know Bindernagel wrote that book, America’s Great Ape, but then after he saw the Bigfoots in Kentucky, he changed his mind. Now he thinks that they are hominids. But I know one fellow who saw one face to face on a trail. He said it’s ape-like; it’s an ape-man. So who knows?

RL: Do you have any info on the Kentucky Project?

BH: I do. Erickson bought that place, and he got a lot of great video out of there. He installed Dennis Pfohl and Leila Hadj-Chikh there, and they shot quite a bit of Bigfoot video. Erickson said he had so much good Bigfoot video that he was getting tired of taking pictures of them. At one point, he brought Bindernagel down there to see the Bigfoots. Bindernagel was able to see them. He also wanted to bring John Green down there, but he was very sick with prostate cancer and could not make it.

A friend of mine saw the famous video of the young female Bigfoot walking in the forest. She walks towards the camera, then sees the camerawoman, growls and turns away. He said there is no way that this could be a costume. They also shot video of a huge male at that site, but everyone is keeping very quiet about that.

RL: Do you believe that Erickson is in it for the money?

BH: I get tired of hearing this. Erickson has sunk $3 million of his own money into this thing. $3 million! He hasn’t made one nickel back.

RL: Do you have any information about Erickson’s movie about Bigfoot?

BH: Yes, it’s finished! 100% completed. They are just waiting for the DNA study to finish up, and I have no word on that yet.

RL: Do you know if Dr. Ketchum has any TV or film interests in the works?

BH: Yes, she is involved with National Geographic. They want to do a special on Bigfoot, and she is involved in that.

RL: What’s the relationship between Bigfoots and trappers?

BH: Bigfoots hang out along traplines and raid them. I heard of one case where a Bigfoot got caught in a trap. The Bigfoot got himself out of the trap by bending the solid steel! Unbelievable!

RL: You say you hear a lot of stories of Bigfoots getting killed?

BH: Yes, I get a story about every 2 months. They range from recent to pretty far back in time. There are many stories coming out of Canada too. Erickson also has many stories. It’s the same story every time. People kill it, and it looks so much like a human being that they leave it in the field because they are afraid they are going to be prosecuted for murder.

RL: I say that if you believe in Bigfoot, you must also believe in a few things. 1) People are shooting at and killing these things fairly regularly. 2) There must be a government coverup. 3) We are photographing and videotaping Bigfoots on a fairly regular basis.

BH: I agree. As far as a government coverup, of course the government must know about these things. And I know that the timber industry knows about them. And people shoot them all the time.

There was a recent case in Alberta where the Fish and Wildlife people were poisoning wolves. They are supposed to tell trappers about this, but they didn’t in this case. A trapper found a dead wolf partly eaten and huge tracks leading away from it. The tracks were of a Bigfoot that had been poisoned by eating the wolf. The guy tracked it for a while but then lost the trail.

He reported it to the Game people, but they paid him $20,000 to shut him up. They kept saying, “So, you lost 5 cougar dogs tracking that thing. That’s worth about $20,000.” He hadn’t lost any cougar dogs. He finally figured out they were offering him money to shut him up, so he took the money.

RL: What’s the motivation for the coverup?

BH: In Canada, they are worried about resource lockup. They are afraid it will shut down logging. I know that up there, as soon as there is a Bigfoot sighting, the timber people get word of it and come in and clearcut the area. They do that to drive the Bigfoot off, because they don’t want the Bigfoot on their logging land. They’re afraid it will keep them from logging the land.

RL: Do you think Bigfoots are getting habituated to humans in any way?

BH: Yes, a friend of mine in Alberta told me about a Bigfoot that was living on the outskirts of the Nordegg dump, living off the garbage, foraging food out of the trash. People tracked the thing way back into a remote area and found its nest. All sorts of stuff from the dump had been hung in trees 8-10 feet up, bicycles, chairs, you name it. The Bigfoot was decorating its home with that stuff.

RL: Wow!

BH: Yes, I have so many stories. When I go to give my talks, I always say if you have any Bigfoot stories, come up and talk to me afterward. Every time, people come up to talk to me. All sorts of people. They haven’t told many others about their sightings, and every case, they have not reported it to any private or public agency.

One guy told me how he was hunting in a swamp in the Southeast US, and he passed out from the swamp gas. The stuff can overwhelm you and make you pass out.

He woke up, and he was next to a spring. There was a huge 8-foot Bigfoot crouched down next to him, offering a cup of water from the spring. The cup had been hanging from the spring. People sometimes hang metal cups from springs. He took a drink, passed out again, and then woke up again later on. The Bigfoot was still there, and it offered him another drink. He drank it and passed out again. He woke up the third time, and the Bigfoot was gone.

RL: Do you think that tracking dogs are good for tracking Bigfoots, say in order to capture one? Jeff Meldrum has been talking about that a lot lately.

BH: I think dogs are useless when it comes to tracking these things. You know, I am a hunter, and I use tracking dogs all the time. We take people out on guided hunts, and I hunt myself all the time using guides. Dogs will track anything, but they won’t track these things. The meanest dog on Earth will be left pissing, shivering and whimpering by his master’s legs.

I knew one guy who sent six dogs after a Bigfoot. Only five of them came back; the sixth was torn up. The other five dogs were so traumatized that they were useless as trackers. They would never track another animal again. And these were good tracking dogs.

RL: What do you think of Bigfoots’ use of infrasound?

BH: I am not sure that they use infrasound. You see, all animals have an EMF field that they give off, and these things do too. One of my theories is that these things have a very strong EMF field that they give off, and they may be able to manipulate it. One thing you notice is that when these things are around, everything goes quiet, and most of the animals around take off. That’s because of the strong EMF field that the Bigfoots give off. It scares the crap out of other animals.

I know that they use this field to disorient people. Erickson said he was being chased out of the forest in Canada by one once, and he was so disoriented and delirious that he had to keep looking at the moss on the trees, because you know, moss only grows on the north? That’s because the Bigfoot was disorienting him so much that he kept getting lost.

I am going to test this theory out by buying an outfit that they sell for $100. It neutralizes your own EMF field. Supposedly, you can wear it and walk right up to animals and touch them.

RL: Were you always a Bigfoot believer?

BH: Not at all. I was a skeptic until five years ago. Then I started looking into this thing, and all of these people started coming forward, including people I had known for years and trusted completely. I started getting swamped with these stories, even people I had known a long time had stories, but they had never told me! I dove into it, started doing a lot of research, and soon it became completely obvious that these things exist. People can ridicule me all they want to, and they do, believe me. But I don’t care; I know they are real.

RL: Have you met any skeptics who saw one?

BH: Many times. And a lot of them were hardcore skeptics. But then they saw a Bigfoot, and they all changed over to believers. They said that their lives were changed completely.

Related:

• Erickson Project: Leader of Bigfoot DNA research group responds to "leaked" results
• Erickson Project: Two Bigfoots Shot Dead, Legal Wrangling Over DNA and Death of Subjects
• Erickson-Lindsay Project: Bigfoot is a man, an ancient man, a blast from our ancient past, a subhuman, a human ancestor
• Erickson Project: Clarification on the Two Dead Bigfoot Bodies, Friend of Shooter Responds
• Leaked Erickson Project Bigfoot DNA Study: 97% chance that sasquatch in fact does exist
• Richard Stubstad: Sasquatch DNA Update, DNA Samples May Indicate 100% Human Race

Dr. Anna Nekaris Lecture - Searching for the Yeti

Dr. Anna Nekaris of Oxford Brooks University in Great Britain, presents her views on the possibility of the existence of a Yeti, or Bigfoot. She provides an academic perspective on the possible existence of an unknown, extremely large, hominid.

Dr. Anna Nekaris describes herself as:

a member of the IUCN Primates Specialist Group, Conservation Working Party of the Primate Society of Great Britain, and on the editorial board of Endangered Species Research and Folia Primatologica. I have been studying the behaviour, ecology, conservation and taxonomy of Asian mammals since 1994, although my research has also taken me to Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, Costa Rica, and Trinidad. My primary interests lie with Asia’s slow and slender lorises.

Finding Bigfoot Ratings Through the Roof, Now #1 Show on Animal Planet

Finding Bigfoot's future is looking bright. They are going to start filming Season 2, and probably many more afterwards.

Cryptomundo posted this comment by Matt Moneymaker on Friday, June 24th:

The ratings have been growing steadily, especially for the repeats. We’re now the number one show on Animal Planet.

I found out yesterday there will be a Season 2 and they want to get going with that immediately. As a matter of fact, we’ve leaving tomorrow to head up to Oregon to shoot another episode …

The series started off strong in the numbers and its getting more popular. You can be(t) it will go on for multiple seasons.

Matt Moneymaker

Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot at Ike's Pizza Filming Q&A Episode

Bigfoot Lunch Club uploaded a photo from Ike's pizza. Animal Planet is filming Bonus Q&A episode of Finding Bigfoot!

And yes, you can bet there will be a Season 2 of Finding Bigfoot. Matt Moneymaker said it himself:

The ratings have been growing steadily, especially for the repeats. We’re now the number one show on Animal Planet.

I found out yesterday there will be a Season 2 and they want to get going with that immediately. As a matter of fact, we’ve leaving tomorrow to head up to Oregon to shoot another episode …

The series started off strong in the numbers and its getting more popular. You can be(t) it will go on for multiple seasons.

Matt Moneymaker

Rabbit's Bigfoot Hunting Experience, You'll Enjoy This Story...

This was originally posted on OCCULT SKEPTIC, a skeptic blog "fascinated by the occult". The story is well written, and hopefully you'll get a kick out of it. The author said it was a true story from a friend's Facebook note.

Enjoy!

Originally posted on OCCULT SKEPTIC:

True Bigfoot Story by guest writer Robert Owen-Miller
Posted: June 26, 2011 by mindcore

*My friend Robert, who is known to me as Rabbit is a fun loving guy who tends to be a life loving party animal. He is very intelligent and was basicaly raised in the field by his field biologist father. He has been known to do kayaking and canoing tours, and all manner of jobs that involve teaching city folk how to be hardcore in the woods. This is his bigfoot story, which he posted as a facebook note. I noticed it was exceptionally well written and that it fits in nicely with this blog. Enjoy!

I’m going to tell you about my Bigfoot experience. I live in a town called Arcata which is up in Northern California and I used to work at an outdoor store there downtown. We sold all kinds of things there like snowboards, mtn bikes, surfboards, kayaks, backpacks, shoes, etc.

I was actually working in the shoes dept. the day that a guy by the name of John Frippo walked in. He was looking for a pair of hiking boots. Now, as a salesman it was my job to ask him all sorts of questions to make sure he got exactly what he needed without spending too much on something he would never use, but in this case what he needed was our most expensive pair of boots. They were like $220 or something like that. Anyway, I asked him what he was going to be doing with these uber-boots and he told me that he was a graduate student at the University of Southern Pennsylvania and that he was part of their star Bigfoot research team.

Northern California is famous for its Bigfoot sightings. The town of Willow Creek (which is about an hour inland from Arcata) is home to the only Bigfoot Museum in America, and probably the world. In fact, that famous video of the Bigfoot walking through the woods was filmed out just near Willow Creek, so Bigfoot isn’t news to us up there but I had never met any Bigfoot research teams. It was pretty cool, I thought, although John seemed kind of hesitant at first to divulge his true purpose there.

There are those who wish to protect the Bigfoot population, like the Hoopa who are an indigenous people native to the area. Their reservation, or “Rancheria,” is well known to have Bigfoot, and in fact the Bigfoot is a sacred animal to them and they have a corner of their land cordoned off just for the Bigfoot. No one’s allowed to go there, except for medicine men and women, and they’re very serious about that rule! There are also plenty of eco-nazis in the area who are also very serious about their Bigfoot.

After John realized that I wasn’t serious at all about Bigfoot but that I seriously believed in the possibility of Bigfoot, he opened up a little more and we talked about what he does and what-not. Whenever anyone comes in and wants to buy a kayak because they’re going to kayak from Vancouver to Mexico or whatever, I’m always like, “oh take me with you!” And in this case I was no different. I know, of course, that no one’s going to take the guy that they bought shoes from, but it’s still funny to say. Anyway I told him my father was a field biologist and that if they needed, I would Sherpa for them. Hahaha, blah blah blah, whatever. He bought the shoes, I thanked him and shook his hand and that was that. Or so I thought…

The next day John came back and asked me if I was serious about Sherpa-ing for them! I was like, “Hell yeah!” and then I turned to my manager and said, “Hey Ryan, I quit!” Haha, I was just kidding of course. So their plan was to drive out to the trail head that night, hike in the next day which was Friday, hang out all day Saturday, and then hike back to the car Sunday and drive back Sunday evening. I had Saturday and Sunday off but I had to find someone to cover my shift for Friday.

The reason they needed a Sherpa was because they do this thing called “Call-Blasting,” where they take this super powerful tape-deck and loud-speaker and they blare Bigfoot sounds into the woods and wait for one to respond. Its an old hunter’s trick. But the tape-deck was as big as a back-pack and the loud-speaker was big and heavy too. So I had to carry all my stuff, including sleeping bag, sleeping pad, a change of clothes, toiletries, and all my food; and I had to carry all the tape-deck guy’s stuff as well! But not only that, I also had to carry half of the loud-speaker guy’s stuff too, because he could only carry a day-pack along with his loud-speaker. Oh and I had to carry a three-person tent on top of all that! Luckily, someone else carried the water filter and camp stove and what-not, but I was still pretty loaded down to say the least.

The hike-in was exhausting because it was all up-hill in the Trinities which, if you’ve ever been there you’ll know, is just way too vertical! Now, John’s thesis was on the Bigfoot’s diet. He studied what the Bigfoot ate. “How do you know what they eat if you’ve never even seen one?” you might ask. Well apparently he studied their scat! Yes SCAT! BIGFOOT POOP! Which, to me, looked an awful lot like regular-ass bear poop, but what do I know right? I mean, I just sell shoes! Anyway, we kept on stopping every five minutes to study “Bigfoot” tracks and take samples of “Bigfoot” scat, and that took all freakin’ day! So when we got to camp, I was exhausted. We set up camp and, oh yeah, I was also the cook too, so I made dinner and then a few of the guys went out to do some call basting but the rest of us went bed. I didn’t even sleep in the tent because it was so beautiful and warm out. I was pretty stoked to be out there with these guys, and I was wondering if I was going to get to see a Bigfoot.

That night, as I lay there out in the middle of god-damn nowhere, out in the open, I thought of all the Bigfoot stories I had heard. A friend of mine, Mike, had told me about one when he worked as wilderness patrol out there in the Trinities. He had set up camp like I did, out in the open under the stars, and he was just about to get to sleep when he heard something. He was really silent and listened and then realized that it was just a deer or something, not a bear as he had feared. But then he heard it freeze, which was a little un-nerving because Mike had already felt like something had been watching him for a while. He just laid there and listened and the deer stayed absolutely still for a long time. Then suddenly it tore off straight down the very steep hill-side and straight at Mike! Mike had actually laid his sleeping pad and bag out next to a lake, and the deer, who must have already been aware of Mike, chose to run in his direction rather than hang around for whatever it was that was going to eat it! It ran straight down that hill, straight towards Mike, then when it got to him it jumped over him and into the lake, then swam straight across to the exact opposite bank, then got out and kept running straight in the same direction through the woods and off into the hills!

You can imagine how terrified Mike was at that point! He said he felt like a kid, too afraid to move, he literally hid his head under his sleeping bag. Then, a big rock came flying down the hill in his direction but it missed him. Then another, even bigger rock came crashing down the hill and flew past him. Then a huge boulder, too enormous for any man to move, came flying down and past him, and it was at this point that Mike realized that these rocks were being thrown at him!

That’s when he heard it: the howl! He said it was completely unlike anything he had ever heard! He knows what bears sound like, he knows what mountain lions sound like, he knows what wolves and dogs and even foxes sound like, but this was something altogether different! Mike was petrified!

A few more rocks were thrown at him, but he realized that whatever this was that was throwing the rocks and howling seemed to be missing him on purpose. It didn’t want to kill him, it just wanted him gone. Eventually it stopped and Mike stayed perfectly still until first light at which point he got up, broke camp, and got the hell out of there! When he got home he looked up the Bigfoot research website and documented his experience. Then he read up on others’ experiences and found out that the rock-throwing is actually fairly common.

They also have recordings on the website of the Bigfoot’s howl. He said when he listened to them, the first one was obviously a mountain lion. The second one was obviously hound-dogs howling in the distance and these people just didn’t know what that sounded like. But then he clicked on the third one and it was exactly what he had heard! The hair on his arms stood up, and the hair on his neck stood up, and he had to just get up and leave the room immediately! A few hours later, he tried again, same result! His hair stood up and he had to leave the room. To this day, he can’t listen to that recording.

After Mike told me that story, I had to get on the website myself and check out the recordings. He’s not kidding, it’s eerie! Anyway, it was stories like these that filled my head as I laid there in the middle of god-damn nowhere, out in the open!

The next morning I woke up and made breakfast, and I was told that four of them were going to go out and look for more tracks and scat and that I was to stay behind with this guy named Alistair, who had drank too much the night before while out call-blasting and was still sleeping. Someone had to stay behind and make sure that our camp wasn’t raided by raccoons or bears or Bigfoot or eco-nazis or whatever, so that guy was me. I was beginning to regret this trip!

They were gone all day and Alistair slept the whole time so it was just me, bored as hell and paranoid too! I kept getting freaked out and every time I heard a noise, I just knew it was Bigfoot! My thoughts kept going to negative places. When it was nearing five o’clock, I thought that they had been killed by a Bigfoot or eco-nazis or bears or something, and that they would never return. Eventually they did return, and just in time for dinner. Coincidentally, Alistair was also just in time for dinner.

John said that they had a lot of luck finding tracks and scat but the trail led onto the Hoopa Rancheria and so they could go no further. However, when it got dark they were going to go back and follow the tracks into Hoopa land and do some call-blasting. “Great,” I thought, “now I’m going to be left all alone in the dark!” But to my surprise, they told me that since Alistair had slept all day, he was the one who got stay behind and watch camp, and I was going to get to go with them! Cool! Now things were starting to look up!

We finished dinner and left Alistair in charge of cleaning up while we got our things together for the night patrol. I was pretty nervous about trekking onto Hoopa land without permission. I was also feeling a little guilty about it too. But anyway I guess I just talked myself into it somehow because I was so excited about seeing a Bigfoot! All I had to carry was my own little day-pack. The tape-deck and loud-speaker weren’t to be handled by anyone other than SPU staff and students. This was really getting better!

We set out and soon found the tracks that they had found earlier. I should say that these weren’t the kind of Bigfoot tracks that I had expected when I first signed up with these guys. They weren’t footprints, there would be a broken twig or a smooshed leaf or a tiny little hair on a tree, but these guys really had the eye for it, and they would point things out to me (we had to remain completely silent) that I would sometimes see and other times I would completely miss. Take the smooshed leaves, for example. When they were pointing them out to me all I could see was a leaf on a rock. It wasn’t until later that they explained to me that something had stepped on it, flattening out its texture and turning it a little lighter shade of green. It occurred to me that these guys were professional trackers! John, Alistair, and the professor were all big-time hunters, one of the other guys was ex special forces and had done two tours in Afghanistan, and the last guy was a super-avid outdoorsman who had done backpacking trips all over the world. They were all as right at home in the woods as I was, but they had a lot more experience with tracking than I did, because it was their job. This is what they do!

Before long it was dark and we were crossing over onto Hoopa land. The moon was almost full so we went along by its light as best we could, but eventually we lost the trail of the Bigfoot, so that’s where we started the call-blasting. The “Prof.” wore the tape-deck on his chest, and “Avid Outdoorsman” carried the loud-speaker. That was the first time I had heard their recording, and it sent chills up my spine! It was just like the recording on the website! It was the same howl that Mike had heard out in these very same hills all those years ago! It was spooky, and that loud-speaker was really, really loud too!

We blasted calls in all directions and then moved a little further in the direction that we believed the tracks had led, and then blasted some calls again. We did that for about two hours. It was getting close to midnight, and I was getting pretty tired. The guys were getting ready to call it quits when…

The Howl!

It started soft and low and then grew into a loud, high-pitched, full-bodied shriek! It was way off in the distance but that sound carried! We were stunned! The hairs on my arm stood up! The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up! My heart, after not beating for what seemed like forever, started beating in my chest like the double kick-drum in a “Cannibal Corpse” song! Boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom! I was sure that everyone else could have heard my heart from where they stood if their hearts hadn’t been doing the same thing! We probably sounded like an off-tempo marching band!

No one moved. The howl died off and was replaced by silence, still no one moved. Finally the professor blasted a howl in return. Everyone just about shat themselves when he did that! We were all so fixated on the silence that none of us were expecting the call-blast! I think I may have even let out an audible yelp! My heart almost gave up entirely! I don’t care how tough you think you are, when you’re out in the wild and you hear that howl, you feel as frightened and as helpless as a child!

We waited in silence again. Then, the howl! We waited, not knowing what to do. All of us were looking around at each other wondering if anyone was going to do something. Finally, the professor started forward toward the direction of the beast and we followed. We would stop and blast a call every once in a while, and every once in a while the call would be returned. Soon, the fear turned into excitement, but after a while we all started to notice that as we were moving towards the howl, the howl was also moving towards us!

This went on for about an hour and a half; moving, call-blasting, moving, howling, moving, and we started to get real close to it. We seemed to be converging on to a saddle in the landscape. It was sort of a triple-crowned saddle that left a huge wooded flat area in the middle. We knew that if it smelled us it might shy away so we had to move downwind of it. Thankfully, downwind also happened to be slightly uphill too! So that was nice, because we definitely didn’t want to be downhill of this monster! But as we were trying to get uphill/downwind of it, it was simultaneously moving uphill/downwind of us! So we were actually moving closer to each other at ever-increasing acute angles. In the middle of the flat area in the saddle was a large outcropping and on the other side of the outcropping was a clearing. It became clear that if we both continued on our respective courses, we would reach opposite sides of the outcropping, and that’s exactly how it happened.

When we reached the outcropping we let out a call-blast then moved around towards the clearing. By this point, the excitement had turned back into fear, and our movement had become painfully slow! My psychological health was truly taking a beating! About half way to the clearing our call was answered and we froze. It was just on the other side of the outcropping from us!

I have never been so scared in all my life! At this point I was going, “Where the hell is my gun? Why didn’t I bring a gun? What was I fucking thinking?” I didn’t actually own a gun at the time, but at that moment I truly wished I had! It didn’t matter that I had a big knife. It didn’t matter that I was with four big, mean dudes who also had knives. It just didn’t matter. I might as well have been alone and naked! Why hadn’t I brought a gun?

We stayed frozen for about five minutes and then started to move around towards the clearing again. Those last few steps were the hardest steps I’ve ever taken. I had to fight my screaming instinct to run for my life with every single step.

As we rounded the outcropping and came into the clearing we stopped dead in our tracks for a final time! Because there, in the clearing right in front of me, right in front of all of us, not ten feet away, was Austria’s premier Bigfoot research team with a tape-deck and a loud-speaker!

-Rabbit