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SFR-Bigfoot among us?

12K views 104 replies 66 participants last post by  KerryS 
#1 ·
I recently watched a program on the History channel called "Monster Quest" in which they explore whether or not a particular "monster" is real or fake. One of the episodes focused on Sasquatch, and although there have been sightings of a large, hairy ape-like creature for centuries from places all over the world, a great many of the reports have come from the Northwest. The Monster Quest episode featured witnesses from Vancouver Island, the Skagit River, Nothern California on the Klamath River, as well as many other lesser known areas of the PNW.

When I was a boy, my stepfather related a story to me of when he believes he did encounter a Sasquatch near Boise, Idaho. I am and have always been skeptical and tend to believe that someone, somewhere would have found a body, remnants of a body part, or an actual live Sasquatch somewhere by now. However, a part of me really wants to believe that something like a Sasquatch exists (except when night fishing by myselfbawling:).

Since we all fish and spend a great deal of time in the outdoors, one of us must have had an encounter or heard of an encounter with "Sasquatch". Are you willing to relay your stories?
Jeff
 
#32 ·
When I was camping by myself at Trapper lake I heard these heavy thumping footsteps come through my camp- I was certain it was bigfoot. So I grabbed my flashlight and knife and jumped out of the tent, and it was a deer.

The ground there is kind of hollowed out underneath from the lake and I guess that made the deers footsteps echo or something and sound loud and boomy.

It's pretty funny, but I was scared to death at the time.
 
#38 ·
I remember when the bigfoot movie came out in the 70's. There were so many sightings in the Puget Sound region it wasn't funny. Remember someone seeing one going through Fife Heights. Even damaged a stop sign going through. But funny how when the hype of the movie was over, so were the sightings.

Is there a bigfoot? Probably. I doubt it'll smell. Sure it cleans itself like any other animal out in the wild.

Would be interesting if you ran into one. I have this feeling it'll be the type to turn and run then confront you. If they were the type to confront you, I think we'd have seen one by now.
 
#39 ·
Bear stink, deer stink, a bigfoot has got to stink. I'd doubt a close encouter report if they never describe their stink.

Imagine this. Wet PNW air hangs low and all the salal along the trail is moist. Your dawn walk through the woods is gray and serene. Your pace is quick because you're excited to get to the river. The coffee has kicked in, and so has your other vices. It's all good.

You come to a lower point in the trail. Root balls of doug fir visible on the sides of the trail, and puddles collect here on the forest floor. You begin to realize a smell that you can't quite pinpoint, something that catches your attention because of it's unfamiliar nature. It's not quite that dank, sweet soil smell that you smell just before you walk into a bear. Your pace slows because your sense tells you to be concerned. You abruptly stop, and look around and think to yourself, "What the hell is that smell?"

You slowly step forward along the trail, keeping all your senses alert, and scanning all around. Within the first ten feet of your heightened state, the brush to the right of the trail explodes with movement. You catch your breath and jump back, suddenly frozen. Something is busting brush at an alarming rate as it moves rapidly up the slope to your right and away from you. It's large, and hairy, and moving fast. As it alomst crests the hill it suddenly stops and wheels around on hind legs. It's human-like, and ape-like. Amid the thin trunks of the evergreens, the knee high brush, and the morning mist, you swear that at seventy yards there is an animal staring at you. Through the thin trunks, at the one and only spot you think anything can see you amid the maze of vegetation, you catch your breath. There's something, it's something... and it's eyes are focused directly on you. You think you see it smile and guffaw at the same time, and then it does something that you can't believe. It raises an arm, and raises a digit in your direction. It's not beckoning you to come closer. No, you gasp as you realize what it was doing just before it suddenly disappears. Nothing. Gone.

You think it must have crested the hill and disappeared over the other side. You start stumbling, running, thinking in a panicked state. "Don't run, don't run... you'll be prey. Slow down. Jesus, oh man." Before you know it you burst out of the woods and almost land headlong on the dry river rock. You scramble to your feet clanking around on the rocks a scared clumsy oaf. You continue on your way hurriedly, and noisely moving across the rocks some fifty yards more until get to a washed down tree trunk, weathered by the river. You turn around to face the direction you came from, and sit down on the river swept tree. You reach inside your jacket for your flask. You realize and actually voice out loud as you keep your gaze on the direction you just came, "That SOB was flippin' me off!"

Imagine that.
 
#41 ·
I know two brothers who swear they saw a Bigfoot by Mt. Lassen around 1960. I first heard the story in about 1970 when I was a kid. I've asked them separately about it multiple times over the years, the last time was about a year ago. Their stories have never changed or wavered. I'd think that if it was BS there'd be variations and changes over the years.

Well there was one change; as one of the brothers got older he finally admitted that he screamed like a little girl.
 
#44 ·
People are always sayin we would have found remains by now... but you don't hear any stories about people finding bear skeletons out in the woods either... nature kinda takes care of itself. I believe in sasquatch.. actually have a wierd theory about Kane and Abel I completely forgot about. Kane was doomed to walk the earth forever after killin Abel.. lotta time for evolution to do it's thing. I think maybe Kane adapted to his suroundings after several hundred years and became the first bigfoot ;) I'm a nut, I'll admit it; but it sure is fun!
 
#48 ·
I've heard about the Kane theory as well....How did Kane survive the Flood?
 
#45 ·
Can't/won't say yes or no. There are lots of critters out there that the majority of folks have never seen or seldom see . . . cougars, lynx, fishers, grizzlies in the lower 48, & wolverines for example. Similarly, there are vast tracts of rugged country in which humans rarely set foot. I heard a gawdawful scream years ago back home in Montana . . . always attributed it to a coug, but who knows? I will admit that it was an attention-getter at the time & made the .22 I was carrying as I checked my trap line seem a tad insignificant. Know of 2 folks who have claimed a sighting, one so shaken by his encounter that he refused to go hunting in that particular area ever again and I've heard other stories second-hand. I'll say that their existence is within the realm of possibility based on the fact that new species are still being discovered to this day. Heck, if I were a bigfoot with some semblance of intelligence/rational thought & heightened senses, I'd likely not be too keen on meeting people either.
 
#46 ·
What a coincidence! Just last night I watched a program about Bigfoots.
One guy has been recording reports on sightings in his area and had several hundred sightings all filed away.

The next guy they interviewed was a skeptical biologist. One of his main points was, "Where are they? Why aren't we seeing them? If there is a breeding population there should be numerous sightings - but we are not seeing them."

Obviously the bio and the first guy have never hooked up and compared notes. Why can't these program producers ever get these guys all in the same room?

The other question that skeptics always raise has to do with the discovery of skeletons, or lack thereof. I have seen lots of bears and a few cougars. But in 50+ years of stomping around in the mountains I have never seen a bear skeleton, cougar skeleton, or any trace of a Bigfoot dead or alive. Two out of three are known to exist. Others swear the third one does too. Until I hit one with my truck and bring him home I'll be skeptical, but open minded.
 
#49 ·
It's easy to judge from an urban/suburban internet forum. And yes, there are nuts and hoaxes. "Bigfoot sighted cruising Hollywood Blvd." etc etc.

I've been lucky enough to spend a bit of time in some real backwoods locations. One perspective that stood out was told to me by an Ojibwe Indian guide in Ontario. This guy is a friend and for many years my dad and I had requested him as our guide when we visited Eagle Lake lodge.

Their reservation borders the lake and there are hugh expanses of forest bordering the lake without roads or inhabitants.

This guy is also a lives off the land and guides hunters in the fall. He'd been through a lot, having guided since he was in his teens.

You knew when he was serious about something - his tone was different. Like when he talked about being hit by lightning as he was urging his fishermen to get out of the boat before the stomr hit. He was knocked out and one of the two fishermen he was guiding was killed. He quit guiding for 5 years after that, and even now will haul ass for shore whenever he senses a storm is imminent.

He was a bit buzzed late one afternoon (he helped us finished our daily allotment of LaBatts) when I asked him if there was anything in the woods that scared him. He got a serious look and said something to the effect of "You don't know everything that lives in the woods" and described some things that had happened to him while hunting. Meat stolen from 7' hight racks known to be black bear-proof that were knocked over, sounds at night, and fleeting shadowy images that had convinced him something like what is described as Bigfoot exists. Didn't seem like he was trying to scare me, just communicating that he had a very healthy respect for what was out there.

I'm a guarded skeptic, but I also know I'll never match his time in the woods or practical familiarity with it's creatures.

Just my .02,

Brian
 
#52 ·
Heres my story. dont know if it was bigfoot but its kind of a good story i think

My buddy and I hiked back to a lake to see if we could catch some fish. It was around 7:30 on a somewhat rainy night.
As we arrived at the lake, Marshall looked at me and asked if I just heard something. He explained that it sounded like something had been thrown in the water like a log or a large rock. I assumed it had just been a big fish as we inflated our float tubes to go out in the lake. We made our way down the lake, and as I got to the far side something was thrown into the water about seventy feet away from me, about ten from shore. This splash was from a large log that floated back to the surface. The log seemed too big for any person to throw that far into the water so it left me confused. I met up with Marshall in the middle of the lake and explained what happened and right after I finished explaining what had happened there were a series of howls at the other side of the lake from where we were. There is a beaver dam at the other side where the hoots and howls came from but these sounds sounded like nothing I have ever heard.
About half an hour later from the howls my phone rang from the front pocket of my waders. I looked at my phone and saw that it was Marshall that was on the other side of the lake by now. I answered the phone and he whispered to me
“Dude there is something in the woods in front of me so when we get off the phone listen and tell me what you think it is”
I hung up the phone and listened to the forest in front of me. There was crashing of bushes and brush by something that sounded enormous. I don’t think this could have been a person because it was moving through the brush very quickly. It sounded about twenty feet away from the lake shore and it was making a ton of noise as it trudged through forest for about two hundred yards. When the crashing had stopped there was no noise. The woods went silent and it was around 9:00 when this happened, so it was starting to get dark at that point. That’s when we decided we had to get out of here and proceeded to the lake shore. We quickly packed up our things and I got the knife out of my pocket to walk back with because we felt uneasy about the trek back.
After walking for about ten minutes my friend told me to stop walking and listen for something he heard moments earlier. There was crashing in the bushes off to the left of the trail and it stopped a couple seconds after we stopped. We quickened our pace and started walking fast on the trail back. Every three minutes or so we would stop and listen. The crashing in the bushes off the trail would stop after we stopped. We thought we were safe then so we talked over what had just happened. We didn’t talk very much the walk back because we were listening closely to the crashing and trying not to make each other panic. We both talked about how the thing had seemed to be following us out of the forest and if the sounds were the same creature that was whooping.
About a month later, my friends Jon sent ma a link to some Bigfoot recordings and they sounded exactly the same as the howls we heard. I then played the sound for Marshall that was with me and he freaked out and said we found Bigfoot. He said it was the same sound we heard that day on the lake. It’s not a big deal or anything but I’m pretty sure Marshall and I are friends with Bigfoot now.
 
#56 ·
There are several different translations of the Bible but they all say essentially the same thing...Cain was forced to wander the earth moving from place to place. It never says that he was doomed to walk the earth for eternity. So that may shoot down your theory of Cain trying to get on the ark and turning in bigfoot. Wow!
 
#58 ·
I feel like "scientist skeptics" get written off too easily sometimes, and on those few times I've talked to biologists about this, they make really good cases against the possibility of a bigfoot existing.

Now, in spite of that plug for the skeptics, I'd certainly like to believe in it, and in fact was fortunate enough to see a friends home video from early 90's when his dad was filming a scenic shot of a river where they were camping, and picked up almost a minute of what looked to be a bigfoot. Personally knowing the family that took the video and thus having more faith in the authenticity is good proof to me, but I doubt it'd be convincing if I'd seen it without the personal connection to them.
 
#64 ·
If you believe in Bigfoot, I suggest that you also gear up and try your luck for the Loch Ness monster. I hear that a friend of a friend was told that they like marshmallow flies......

Sadly, you cannot prove a negative (the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). I'm always astonished that with all the amazing wildlife that WE KNOW does exist, people put such energy in chasing phantoms. Perhaps the quest provides more insight into the motivations of the human psyche than it does into cryptozoology, as this obscure corner of the biological world is called.

Steve
 
#68 ·
Sadly, you cannot prove a negative (the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). I'm always astonished that with all the amazing wildlife that WE KNOW does exist, people put such energy in chasing phantoms. Perhaps the quest provides more insight into the motivations of the human psyche than it does into cryptozoology, as this obscure corner of the biological world is called.

Steve
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/03/17/nearly_extinct_rhinos_found_in_malaysia/

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20081223/javan-rhino-found-extinct-species-found-indonesia.htm

http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0717-rhino.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/photogalleries/antarctica-new-species/

http://www.livescience.com/animals/080429-brazil-species.html

Just because there has not been any trace or evidence so far dosn't mean that one does not exist.
 
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