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Those involved and area residents took it seriously. If you ever want to actually get into the field and see one yourself, anywhere within a 50 mile radius of that location would be your best bet in Mid-America. But it would not be a good area to go and tell folks their tales of encounters are "folklore". They are a little touchy about being called liars, and that's exactly what you did.

You sure are getting testy for someone who is quoting "Gone With The Wind". I'm not playing Scarlett no matter how much you might want to be Rhett Butler. Don't forget what Mammy said about a "mule in horse harness". :lol:

I think one of the main reasons for on going hoaxing comes from the fact that publicity and being the centre of attention for a while does strange things to some people. There have been so many over the last 30 years or so, I have noticed a pattern in many. The person starts out as a witness to something, IE a footprint finding or a sighting of the creature its self. Researchers show up. sometimes the media gets wind of it and they show up. The witness becomes intrigued with being the centre of attention for awhile than it starts to peter off. The witness whom may have indeed seen or found something of merit than takes up researching them selves. Time gos by and nothing else is found but the memory of the attention is a heavy draw on their mind. So they start pulling a few stunts to get the attention back. Hoping to come across something real, or the attention is what they crave in the first place and it gets to the point they can't go out their back door with out finding Sasquatch evidence. Every sound in the dark is Sasquatch, every tree branch formation Sasquatch did it. Every noise is a Sasquatch vocalization. etc, etc. Then this person starts taking photos of blobs in the distance or blurry closeups open to interpretation with wild amassing stories how this all came about. Works great for them until they get caught, then they are spending all of their time on damage control. The stories about the encounters change to adjust to questions they didn't think off etc, etc. And they just carry on in a non ending circle. I have seen so much of this type of behavior that I gave it my own pet name. (Ivan Marks Syndrome) Ivan was the first real sample of this so I used his name. I have seen this time and time again. They even become addicted to the behavior and continue even though most realize that it is all nonsense. They can always find a few individuals whom will follow their every word. The sad thing is this type of person will always be there. All researchers can do is expose what they know so only a few will follow the hoaxer on his or her on going snipe hunt. Thomas Steenburg