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I've talked about the subject to friends mainly because they all know I'm an outdoors guy and have been since I was young. Since I've never seen anything out of the ordinary I just tell folks I hope they are real and in my experience camping in California and Oregon there is a whole lot of country out there. Hard to comprehend really. Vast areas where these guys could live. Just the other day I discussed the Patterson film with a buddy. I gave him some things to think about, he wants to rewatch that clip now.

Been there, and I was lucky. I was shot in the head in a winter hunting accident in 2001. We were 43 miles by snowmobile from the Richardson Highway, then 80 miles to the clinic in Glennallen. Luckily, a lodge was just a mile or so away from the accident site, they were open for that winter (the first such winter they operated in years), and they had a radio-phone. They called the Troopers, and based upon the description of the accident, the Life Flight operators were dispatched by the Troopers. My Blue Cross medical insurance (along with my wife's secondary medical coverage) covered the $11K extraction cost..........as well as the many thousands of dollars of specialist medical care for the next year afterwards. My deductibles probably totaled $1K to $1200. It would be interesting to know how Medicare can screw all that up.......... A few years later a friend fell off a bridge with his snowmobile onto rocks below. It broke his back. People in a cabin nearby had a radio capable of contacting the state emergency operations center at Camp Denali on Ft. Rich. A Pavehawk helicopter was already in the air, and it diverted and picked him up. No charge. Unfortunately, and just a few years after his early retirement at 52 years of age (due to base realignment), he died of liver failure. He was not a heavy drinker. I think that the fall probably damaged his liver, and it came back and took him.

I know for a fact that my wife is afraid of the remote possibility of a bigfoot encounter, and I'm pretty sure my daughters are, too. And a man discouraged me from telling bigfoot stories to his kids (even though that's exactly what they repeatedly asked me for) because he didn't want them to be afraid in the woods. I've also read multiple admissions from grown, armed men on outdoor hunting forums that a bigfoot encounter would scare them. I agree that many ridicule sasquatchery based upon the official rejection of the phenomenon by the science industry, and I agree that hoaxes are extremely counter productive and add to the ridicule, but that is clearly not the only reason. "Only reasons" are more rare than sasquatches. Actually, sasquatchery has high acceptance among the dreamer crowd. We've seen overwhelming evidence of that right here on this forum. Harry and the Hendersons created an entirely new class of sasquatch acceptance among the ignorant, and much of that was by eliminating the fear. Make sasquatches friendly, non-violent, fun, and loving, and the dreamers will climb aboard. At least for those who haven't had a sasquatch in their face. There are differing levels of acceptance, doubt, rejection, and denial. Those who had close encounters with a sasquatch go well beyond "belief".

I’ve never been a believer in the idea of people being afraid of BF. I only hear fear being a reason for non belief or reason for conspiracy on the BF boards as a default excuse. I believe BF is laughed at and ridiculed based on the lack of any solid proof provided in umpteen years and the silly hoaxes and shows that have made mainstream media. Bigfoot has zero credibility outside the community.

I don't bring the subject up. If somebody else does, I'll admit my confidence in their existence. If there is further discussion, I go along with simple, effective counter points, but I don't push it. Bears. lions, wolves, and snakes are bad enough. Most people don't want another monster out there to be afraid of, even most mature, armed men. I'll let them enjoy the comfort they find in denial and ignorance.

I caught this video this morning and was overwhelmed with the similarity of the story with sasquatchery. First, this is a classic industrial Hollywood environmental docu-drama. The last words of the show tell it all: "Will we discover the truth about them before it's too late?" Same old, same old. Second, and like usual, the industrial science guys were the last folks to get in on the act, despite the action taking place right under their noses, then when they did get involved, they spent BIG money (of course, we weren't told where they got that money, Mr. Taxpayer) to figure out that their front yard is a shark nursery. Thirdly, the first folks to know were private adventure divers who enjoyed their experiences quietly. Think "habbers". Fourthly, It was only when a single fisherman (among many fishing on the dock essentially in front of the scientists offices at the Seattle Aquarium) figured out that these things were there and how to catch them, and the divers raised Cain about this guy killing sharks, that the Science Guys got involved. Then the scientists (trying to figure out what was going on) used the fisherman's tactics (bait) to lure the sharks right up to their viewing windows where they then sold admission for folks to see them, just like a carnival operator. Fifthly, when the sharks disappeared, the Science Guys close out their show with their expected lines of mystery (justifying their everlasting plea for more study money), and their fears of mean, old fishermen killing them all off before they can study them to death (implying that the guy on the dock is as dangerous as Asian fin hunters killing sharks by the millions on the high seas). Kinda' makes me want to shoot a sasquatch as close to downtown Seattle as possible instead of southeast Alaska...........

I also failed to point out that the Washington fish and game department was also MIA.........until that lone fisherman killed a few sharks, the diving community got pissed off about the fisherman killing "their" sharks, and ugliness started. Then the department put a no-kill regulatory blanket on the sharks, then went MIA again. The exact same pattern occurred here in Alaska with salmon sharks about 20 years ago. Commercial fishermen have been killing salmon sharks en masse as accidental bycatch for over a century, but when a single sport charter operation started advertising to target them as a big game sport fishery, well Hell, Oh Dear, ADFG couldn't regulate it fast enough. Then they lobbied for Big Bucks to "study" the situation. They "found" schools of thousands of these sharks chasing the gargantuan pink salmon hordes that they`ve hatchery raised and released in the ocean for the financial benefit of the commercial fishing industry. After they found so many sharks, do you think they lifted the regs on sport fishermen? Of course not. Their answer when I asked why? "How many sharks do you need to kill?" Why not? Who else do you have in mind? He`s a scientist, he's taken plenty of heat from his useless peers on the subject, and I can't think of a better guy to be the scientific face of the subject, now that Krantz and Bindernagel are gone. In all honesty, I posted the shark story as a suggestion that there may be "divers" out there swimming with sasquatches right now, and as soon as Norseman shoots one with his trusty 500 caliber lever action elephant gun and drags it in to Meldrum, his peers and government will be forced to act as the war between Norse and rhe habbers become public.

Hmmm, why do I suddenly hear waves crashing onto a beach? Or the overhead view display a train entering a tunnel?