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Alex, in your estimation are the bigfoot corporeal, physical creatures? If so, how then to explain the utter lack of physical remains? Per you and Coonbo, it seems one couldn't swing a dead cat without striking one of the creatures.

I guess you missed the discussion of the Powell Doctrine adopted by the Smithsonian after the Civil War. Read Powell's first annual report after he was installed as the first Director of the newly formed Bureau of Ethnology. With it he initiates a policy of minimalizing research into mound excavations in specific and Native American culture in general, because he did not like the conclusions researchers were developing that there was significant pre-Columbian intercourse between Europe and the indigenous tribes. This thread will get you started. The Powell Doctrine is discussed on Page 9. http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/42772-possibility-of-large-bones-being-found-in-north-america/

I ran across a couple of them in the early nineties in Northeastern Alabama and Northwestern Georgia. That was back when I was hunting Civil War artifacts with a metal detector. Both times I was hunting up a draw with a stream running down it. The kind of place a dozen men and horses could conceal themselves if they were behind enemy lines on a cavalry raid or scouting (we were following the 72nd Indiana Regiment, which was part of Wilder's Mounted Infantry Brigade. They were easy to track because they were equipped with Spencer repeating rifles, which used cased ammunition, and they would open up a couple of rounds to use the gunpowder to start fires). in both cases I found a large level area with packed earth on a side of the draw. They were below the rim of the draw, but well above the stream. It would have been easy to place lookouts to watch both up and down the draw, and to watch over the rims on each side of the draw. Each level area was at least ten yards square, and in both cases there was a tangle of logs and branches that had been thrown down the slope below. The tangles weren't from any thicket within immediate sight. They had been brought there from somewhere else, and not by flooding. I figured someone had used the material to build a shelter on the flat area and simply torn it apart and thrown the logs down the slope toward the stream when they were done. The area in both locations was hard packed earth without ground cover, as if several people had used it for an extended period of time, but there was no evidence of any fire pits, which I would have expected, even in the summer months for cooking, if someone were to stay there for any length of time. At the back of where each shelter had been there was a hole dug into the slope where it came down to meet the flat area. The holes were actually not obvious because the decaying leaves and other material filled it right up to the opening of the hole. At first glance it simply appeared to be a collection of dead leaves that had accumulated in a small impression. If I hadn't have been actively searching with the metal detector I wouldn't have noticed them. There was no metal in either hole, which turned out to be between two and three feet deep. They were, however, apparently trash pits of some sort, so I dug them out. Both contained dead rotting leaves, rotting leafy branches from bushes and small trees, and the remains of several small animals. So, I was looking for concealed locations with water where Civil War units that wanted to remain hidden might have used, and ended up finding two campsites that had been used within the last several months. Judging from the packed earth, each had been used for an extended time, and possibly on a semi-regular basis. There were the remains of small animals in the midden along with decaying vegetable matter, and I got the impression that the hole had also been used for defecation from the odor, though there were no recognizable feces remaining. One thing that bothered me was that the animal remains showed no sign of cooking and, as I mentioned, there was no evident fire pit. I spent some time trying to figure out why multiple people would have camped there eating uncooked animals and decided that, whoever they were, I didn't particularly want to meet them. Even though I'd had encounters in Nevada, California, and Washington, it didn't occur to me at the time that there might be bigfoot in that area of the country.

^I don't buy the conspiracy theories at all. There is no hard evidence for any of it, just old newspaper articles based on he said/she said, stories of written letters, assumptions, speculation, etc. The reasons for these conspiracy theories are always about a threat or prevention of the rewriting of history or beliefs. Yet things like the Heavener Runestones in Oklahoma, Kennewick Man, Dead Sea Scrolls, all of which are highly controversial, are available for anybody to see. Do a Google search for "Smithsonian controversy" and you'll see that they have been under fire for controversial displays and content many times over the years, hardly some Men In Black institute of controversial cover ups. People want to believe there's some Indiana Jones giant warehouse full of secrets run by the Smithsonian or the Vatican, but really they're just people that need that mystery in their lives. Even our own Government can't keep it's secrets nowadays because it only takes one single employee to think something is so important that the people should know.

(1) There were no "apes" in North America to compare to so a "human, not ape" comparison was outside the paradigm. (2) The First Nations' peoples generally considered BF to be another tribe of people because that's all they had within their paradigm. So ... what's your point? MIB

georgerm - I'm not identifying the location 'cause it's my casual but prime research spot. In general, though, it's in the north eastern part of the Siskiyous north of the OR/CA state line and just under 6000 feet elevation. The lower elevations of the mountain dry out a lot in summer. This is occurring along a 100-150 yard long stretch of a now-blocked jeep trail where it crosses from one ridge, goes fairly steeply uphill and around a small canyon, and back onto the next ridge. The ridges are fairly heavily timbered with a good bit of underbrush. The canyons are long "gashes" down the steep mountainside which only have coarse sedges and some willows, no big trees. I'm not sure if they are just too wet for firs to grow in or if they are avalanche chutes in winter. This particular one has very rocky soil and ground water running down it but not really a concentrated stream. I've been running into this smell there for probably somewhere between 10 and 15 years. The first time I became aware of the repetitive nature of it I had a real deja vu moment as I leaned against the end of a log with a stick in one hand thinking, based on the smell, that I was going to be scraping dog crap off my shoe, saw none on either shoe, and realized I'd done that a couple times before in the same place when I was passing by there to go deer hunting (another reason I'm not sharing the location specifics) in previous years. I don't get there every year, maybe 7 out of 10, but the years I get there I generally make multiple trips. The smell is present only from about mid September to mid October with one exception when I smelled it there one day in July or August when we were in the midst of a few days of bad summer lightning. Every time, in that location, it is after 3:00 in the afternoon. I've hunted there and hiked there morning, noon, and afternoon. It's never there 'til after 3:00 and gets both more likely and stronger towards dusk. It doesn't matter which way the wind is blowing, so the source is **moving**. I can usually take a step or two across the wind and be out of it, go back and be in it, so the source is so close the air has not mixed despite swirling through timber. The first time it occurred was at the lower end of that short section of road. The times where it was stronger, where I was in and out of the air that smelled in a couple steps was at the upper end. The past about 5 years, it's always in one spot about 25 yards above the lower end and generally requires standing in about a 4 foot circle on the mountain-ward edge of the road. A good friend, investigator, knew I was familiar with the general area and asked for my input on a (still unpublished) report he was following up on. It was not merely close, it was EXACTLY the same spot. It involved a hunter having rocks bounced off a tree by his head. We went up to look at it one day and saw ... something. I can't be sure it was not a bear. We were on our way back out, below that section of road. The shoulder of the road is brushed a bit and had grass 2 feet tall or more. Just a split second flash, but whatever it was seemed to be laying with its upper part in the grass on the road, back half over he edge. When it bolted, it seemed to push itself backwards over the edge of the road. We ran down to where it'd been and looked over the side. there was something hairy protruding around the side of a tree or snag a little above our head height about 60-75 yards downhill. It moved clear behind the tree and disappeared. Could have been a bear. I didn't see enough to be sure one way or the other. Despite having a bear tag and a .44 magnum, and him packing a 1911, neither of us had no real urge to go look closer. That's unusual / out of place ... something I look out for. I encountered a family hunting there one year. 3 generations: grandma/grandpa (not much older than me), mid 20s son, and his step-son. The son smelled what I smelled. It had seemingly followed him around the mountain above the road. His mom was jamming every flower she could find up her nose smelling for a rational explanation. (fall flowers ... not many but some) He was trying to herd the family back to the truck to get the HECK out of there. He said it was bigfoot, no uncertain terms. (Heh heh. "reeeeally* ?? ) I have torn that place apart looking for a normal answer. No luck so far. Years ago I was up on Marys Peak out of Corvallis in the snow, got some dog crap on my shoe, and cooked it with the car heater when I was warming my feet on the drive home. It was not just "dog poo" smell, it was INTENSE dog poo smell. That's the closest similarity I can think of. It has an additional slightly chemical, acrid component, though, that lacked. I'll be a little less vague about the others. Other than that, until about 4 years ago I'd never smelled anything similar. 3-4 summers back we were having a heat wave, 105+ during the day, so I went for a night hike on the PCT above the head of the Applegate River not too far from Dutchman Peak. Full moon so no flashlight. About 3:30 am I ran into that same smell. Unlike the very wet, near boggy conditions of the first location, this was out on a bone dry, near barren, rocky ridge. I couldn't see any explanation. This last summer I ran into it two more places. One was along a ridge separating the North and upper South Umpqua river in an area burned by forest fire somewhere in the 2008-2009 range.. One was not too far from Pelican Butte near Klamath Falls back in a high elevation fir forest. I think there was another but I can't remember where it was. I don't have a solution. The fact that I was that close to the source without being able to see it causes one eyebrow to lift. I guess the only relevance to this thread is the smell ... it is clearly, each time, a fecal smell, not a urine smell. MIB