Out of the wilderness

Flower and barrack at Warner Robins AFB, Ga.

    It has been a hot, sweaty, wet, and at times, perilous eight days in the woods of North Georgia, but I am very pleased to announce that I am now back and ready to surge forward with new and (hopefully) interesting content! I was only run over by one raft while riding the white waters of the Nantahala and stung just once by a scorpion who decided my sheet was a comfortable place to spend the night. Now I'm back at my laptop, so here we go!

    For the past few weeks I have been in contact with the The Sasquatch Hunters, a Florida based research organization. I am very pleased to announce that I will be attending their Central Florida expedition this August, which will be my first experience with bigfoot field research. I am interested in the ideas this group brings to the table when out in the field. Their ability to mobilize a decent sized team of bigfooters as well as a large amount of expensive equipment has really caught my interest. The amount of money this group has put into purchasing gear is quite staggering considering they do not charge for attendance on their expeditions. If anything, this increases my faith in their genuine desire to work towards answering the question of an undiscovered North American great ape's existence. Conversing with the group's founder, Stacy Brown Jr., I am reassured that the group is serious about what they do. In the past they have traveled throughout Florida and Georgia, with occasional trips to Mississippi and Tennessee, in search of the big guy. Their team consists of interested bigfooters from all background and walks of life. A recent addition is the esteemed Tim Whitfield:

"Tim has been an adjunct professor at Saint Petersburg College and St. Leo University where he was instrumental in helping to establish both forensic science programs, having authored all 6 forensic courses at St. Leo University. Tim has also been an adjunct instructor in Forensic Investigation Classes at the Institute of Police Technology and Management out of the University of North Florida since 1987, having taught classes internationally and in over 40 states."

    Mr. Whitfield will be working as an evidence consultant for the team and has already attended one expedition. On the Central Florida expedition he will be teaching a lesson on how to properly collect and analyze DNA evidence in the field, something he has done for many years. As well, other members of the team will be teaching classes in various areas, depending upon their expertise. With a line up like this and the dedication I have witnessed, I feel my experience with The Sasquatch Hunters will be a good one. Here's to a hopeful tomorrow!

    Interested in joining The Sasquatch Hunters on an expedition or as a member? Click here.

    Thanks for reading!

 - A.Z.

Outsider's Perspective

Guest Post

   

    Before I met A.Z. I had never even heard of the possibility of bigfoots being real.  I thought it was on the same level as mermaids, ghosts and the Loch Ness monster.  In fact, I thought that it was just one mystical creature -- Bigfoot -- not an entire species, making it even harder for me to consider the idea since it would have had to been living for hundreds of years.

     

    However, now that I have been exposed to the whole world of bigfooting I am learning some of the finer points of what people believe the species may be like. From its suspected calls and whoops to its walking patterns and habits, I am being exposed to it all. Nevertheless, I must admit I am not a believer. I am not someone who completely dismisses the idea though. 

     

    There are major trust issues between the rest of the world and the bigfoot community and I think I have fallen victim to that. Another blurry video of “bigfoot”, a grouping of sightings in the same area, or a new footprint draws hardly any attention from the media and is not given any credence from the outside world because of the stigma that is against the whole idea of believing in something that the majority think to be mystical and has no chance of existing. 

      

   On the other hand, back in 2004 when blurry video was caught of a thought-to-be-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker and there were eight sightings in one area over the course of a year, there was loads of media coverage. People were much more willing to believe in, and admit that they believed in, the reemergence of a bird than the emergence of bigfoot. For more information on this mysterious bird, check out the video to the right from Texas Parks and Wildlife. The 2004 video can be seen at 0:58.

     

    Therefore I am left wanting to be able to convince myself that there are bigfoots out there, but not being able to. I am just not able to overcome the need for extremely definitive evidence and the societal dismissal of the idea. Despite this, I admire those greatly who do believe in bigfoots and I hope one day that crucial piece of evidence you need will come and you do get the coverage you deserve.

Thanks for reading!

-E.R.

Bigfoot Around the World

Orang photo by Sandro_Lacarbona - Flickr.com

    Yowie, Yeti, Orang Pendak, Bigfoot, Yeren, Sasquatch, Windigo, Skunk Ape, Mapinguary, Maricoxi, etc, are all names for various alleged undiscovered hominins around the world. Bigfoot is not just a phenomenon limited to North America. Peoples the world over have reported sightings of creatures that fit the description of sasquatch for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

    This article from Crystalinks.com hosts a very comprehensive listing of bigfoot sightings from all around the world. I've been a follower of bigfoot research for most of my life, and yet, this article taught me a thing or two.

"Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is a figure in North American folklore alleged to inhabit remote forests, mainly in the Pacific northwest region of the United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia. In northern Wisconsin, Lakota Indians know the creature by the name Chiye-tanka, a Lakota name for "Big Elder Brother".
Bigfoot is sometimes described as a large, hairy bipedal hominoid, and many believe that this animal, or its close relatives, may be found around the world under different regional names, such as the Yeti of Tibet and Nepal and the Yowie of Australia.
Bigfoot is one of the more famous examples of cryptozoology, a subject that the scientific community tend to dismiss as pseudoscience because of unreliable eyewitness accounts, lack of scientific and physical evidence, and over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation. Most experts on the matter consider the Bigfoot legend to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes."

    Considering the incomplete fossil record and all it has taught us about previous hominins to inhabit this planet, it seems to me that most of these alleged bi-peds are entirely possible. Nothing highlights this fact better than the 2003 discovery of Homo Floresiensis, as touched upon in this post.

    Whether you're looking to brush up on your global bigfoot knowledge, or just interested in learning more about other cultures' versions of the big guy, this article is definitely worth your time. The same site also hosts other information on Cryptozoological matters that explores other cryptids ranging from believable to outright weird.

    Thanks for reading!

 - A.Z.

Out of town

Underwear on the flag pole - Summer camp 09'

    Well it's that time of the year again folks -- time for A-frame tents and mosquitos, woodcrafts and pranks, scouting and learning -- time for summer camp! As you may or may not know, when I'm not blogging about the big guy I am also an Eagle scout and adult leader in my local Boy Scout troop. Each year we take a seven to eight day camping trip to one of the BSA's esteemed summer camps around the country. This year we're headed to Camp Sidney Dew in Northwestern Georgia.

    I'll be in the woods from the 9th to the 17th, but have no fear, I have prepared some posts to be published during the duration of my time away. If everything falls into place, I may even have a post from a guest writer!

    I'm not expecting to get any legitimate bigfoot research done while at camp (helping to manage a troop of hyperactive scouts hinders investigation), however, I will keep my eyes open and hope to find some time to do a bit of hiking. The BFRO reports four sightings near Rome, GA. The most recent of which occurred in June of 2011. All of the reports come from the general area surrounding the Chattahoochee National Forest, which camp Sidney Dew borders to the south. I'm sure having 200+ scouts running about causing an uproar will not lend itself well to attracting any encounters, but who knows.

    So keep your fingers crossed for me! It's gonna be a hot, but exciting eight days!

    See y'all soon!

 - A.Z.

Response to "Milwaukee River rock throwing."

    A while back, Bigfoot Evidence ran an article about the video to the right. The user who uploaded the video, Russter1000, claims this is the second time rock throwing has occurred while he has been kayaking on the Milwaukee river. The full story can be found here. Another story Bigfoot Evidence ran some time ago was an opinion piece on how common sense can help determine the authenticity of alleged videos of the North American great ape. In my opinion, we can readily apply this idea to this video.

    Commonsense aids in debunking this video in many fashions. Foremost, jumping to the conclusion that something that splashed into a river was a rock thrown by bigfoot, with no other circumstantial evidence, is absurd. There are a ton of ways to explain this splash. The most common of which being a fish jumping. I've lived with a large river in my backyard all of my life and have had plenty of experiences like this. A small fish jumping creates a splash very similar to the one seen in the video. The camera quality, though very good, is not such that one would be able to see if a fish had jumped. This is a much more plausible occurrence. When dealing with bigfoot reports it is always best to rule out any other possible factors that could have led to a misleading encounter.

    Continuing the theme of ruling out natural occurrences, an apple falling from a tree could have made that splash. Or a large acorn. Heck, even a bird egg could have fallen out of a nest in the tree. All of these seem more probable to me than rock throwing. As a Bigfoot Evidence commentor pointed out, the splash from the rock is vertical, there is virtually no horizontal movement. This leads us to believe whatever hit the water did so from nearly straight up. Who throws rocks straight up when aiming at a target? If anything, other videos of rock throwing show the rocks to be quite accurate, landing very near the people in the vicinity. Some researchers go so far as to speculate that sasquatches hunt by throwing rocks. The rock in this video is anything from close to the subjects.

    The factor that most dismisses this video in my mind is the witness's reaction. "Was that bigfoot?" Really? That's the first thought that crosses your mind? Do you realize how fishy that sounds to everyone watching the clip? Even if that was your true, default response, it would be suspect. The line oozes with suspicion.

    From behind my laptop screen, I'm in no place to claim that this video is fake, but from what I've seen, lets just say I won't be putting much trust in it.

    Thanks for reading!

 - A.Z.

The persistence of fascination

Photos by Axel-D - Flickr.com

    Stories of bigfoot, or sasquatch, have existed for thousands of years. The Native Americans had encounters with the big guy, as well as did early American settlers, French trappers, and your average joe from down the street. The persistence of bigfoot stories seems, to me, one of the strongest cases for the existence of some sort of undiscovered North American great ape.

    If every bigfoot footprint was a hoax, every audio recording some other animal, and every reported sighting a lie or misidentification, would the interest of the public continue to lie with the story of bigfoot? Wouldn't the search have lost momentum by now? I just don't see how stories of such a creature can persist for so many years if there isn't anything to back them up. Every year thousands of people around the world report sightings of bipedal, mysterious hominins. Every year, large footprints are found, photographed and cast by researchers. Every year, pictures of some sort of unidentifiable animal are captured. Given, none of this is conclusive proof, how could it all continuously occur if there really was no undiscovered great ape? I highly doubt that everyone who has some sort of evidence of bigfoot is fooling themselves into a "blind belief" of the existence of this animal. All these sightings have to mean something strange is going on in the woods of North America. I'm not saying this evidence warrants the conclusion that bigfoot is real, but I am saying that it calls for more research. Remember, "Close-mindedness is the death of progress."

    Thanks for reading!

 - A.Z.

Difficulties of photographing bigfoot pt.3

**This is a companion piece to The difficulties of photographing bigfoot pt.1 and pt.2**

Subject approx. 100 ft. from photographer
    

    This conclusion post to The difficulties of photographing bigfoot parts one and two is a short conclusion to the set.

    One of the many advantages of trying to hide in a forested environment is the natural advantages of shadow and glare. Due to breaks in the canopy, sunlight shines down to the forest floor at random, disjointed intervals. As well, thick spots in the canopy create darker areas. This varied atmosphere makes for great hiding spots. Glare, caused by reflective, lighter surfaces contrasted with other darker surfaces on the forest floor, results in the lessened ability of an observer to see into shadowy areas. Take the photo to the left as an example. There is a six foot tall person, wearing a bright green shirt, standing in the treeline. The subject is approximately one-hundred feet from the camera, standing straight up.

    To the right is the same photo, but zoomed in on the subject. Even with this edit applied, it is not easy to see the subject. Thank goodness for that bright green shirt and those white-tipped converse! The glare in the photo (caused by sunlight reflecting off of the lighter colored grass) obscures the ability of the observer to peer into the shadows of the treeline. An animal fitting the description of "bigfoot" or "sasquatch" would have dark fur, lending it even more of an advantage when hiding in deep shadows.

    Environmental factors such as this are just some of the reasons that forests and woodlands make for great hiding spots for such a large animal as the sasquatch.

    Thanks for reading!

 - A.Z.