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I agreed to be an organ donor when I die, hopefully my shins serve as a good example of what hitting coffee tables in the dark look like!

I was ten years old in the summer of 1974 and my favorite movie was “The Planet Of The Apes”. I was thrilled to learn that in September of that year a Planet of the Apes t.v. series would arrive on CBS. I was fascinated by the special effects make-up of the apes by the master John Chambers. After enjoying a couple months of the new t.v. series, CBS aired a documentary called “Monsters! Mystery or Myth” about the Loch Ness and Bigfoot legends (at that point, I had never heard of either). I cannot tell you just how I felt watching the Patterson Gimlin beast march across that dry creek bed. I was amazed and dumbfounded. The sasquatch was so large and muscular, something that I had not seen in any of the Planet of the Apes movies. It felt to me, at that moment, that what I was seeing on the television was a real, living creature. For days I could not shake the images from my mind, and I walked away with the thoughts that the creature was some hulking deformed human that lived in solitude away from civilization that had shunned him (I thought of Patty as a male at the time as the documentary didn’t focus on or mention the breasts). Weeks later I bought a small paperback book from the school bookmobile entitled “Bigfoot: The Legend” and read it from cover to cover. Then, in 1976, Andre the Giant played a Bigfoot on the Six Million Dollar Man t.v. series and I remember being disappointed at the Hollywood sasquatch. Although tall and hairy, it didn’t look anything like the bulky, muscular Patty from the documentary, but did further my beliefs that this is a lone, freak of nature, that lived in solitude and hid from people. In 1977, Mr. Spock told me tales of the legend from the Pacific Northwest on the t.v. series “In Search Of”. So from 1974 to 1978 my interest was piqued in the Bigfoot legend until, in 1978, my family moved from the city and into the deep woods of rural North Florida. By eighth grade thoughts of Bigfoot waned as I became interested in the woods around me and the wildlife that surrounded our new home. Whitetail deer, Black bear, boar, racoons, opossum, rabbits, fox squirrels, bobcats were everywhere to be found and after a summer of mowing grass I was able to afford a Fred Bear Whitetail Hunter compound bow and aluminum arrows with razor sharp broadhead points for hunting. Bigfoot began to fade from my thoughts as I now had begun my own adventures stalking and hunting game with my bow and arrow in the woods and swamps of Northeast Florida. Now in junior high and on my way towards high school my interests where now completely occupied with girls and music and girls, and on the very few times that I heard mention of a Bigfoot, well, I had decided that the beast that Patterson filmed back in 1967 had to have died by now, and that would be the last of the “bigfoot” legend. Besides, that was in the Pacific Northwest and if any more creatures existed, they were not going to be found in my neck of the woods. I spent hundreds of hours walking through the woods stalking hogs and bucks, finding bobcat tracks (my brother eventually killed one), never, ever thinking about a sasquatch. Ever. I actually began to (because of lack of stories, sightings, and evidence) not believe in the legend of a hairy man-ape anymore. Leaving high school to start my life and family I never ever thought about Bigfoot again. Then, on a spring night in 1994, at 29 years old, my wife and I, with two small children in the back seat asleep, were traveling north on A1A which is a coastal, two laned road winding along the coast near numerous beaches, at around midnight. There was no moon out but it was a clear night. I had the music playing and I thought that my wife was asleep as well. There were no other cars around, and I had just rounded the bend near the Big Talbot State park, which was a full beach access with camping areas, grills, picnic tables and dumpsters. A1A was about 200 yards west of the Atlantic Ocean. Then, in the distance, I see what at first glance is a Park Ranger standing in the grass about 4 feet off the road to my left, his tan-brown uniform lit up by my high beams. Instantly, the form began to walk across the road toward the ocean. As I was driving about 70 mph I was closing on the subject rapidly. As I got closer, my mind went through a series of thoughts in about 4 seconds. It was as follows; “what is that park ranger (very tall park ranger) doing at this time of night?!” to “why is someone out here in the middle of nowhere with a Chewbacca suit on?” to “oh my God, what is that?!”. I had to slow down just so I wouldn’t hit it with my car. As it walked across the road (never looking at me, almost not even mindful of me), I got within 40 yards of it and came to a complete stop as I watched it cross me and walk right into the scrubby brush of the sand dunes (DuneBeast) and disappear. At that moment my wife (which I had assumed had been asleep) said “What was that?”. I said very slowly “I…don’t….know.” Then, she said “Was that a Bigfoot?”. And then at that moment, reality hit me and I was stunned. I answered to her “I guess so.” It was all surreal. I was almost in shock. I backed up the car and turned my headlights into the spot that it went into the dunes and pulled up as close to that spot as I could get. My car was now literally blocking the right lane of the road facing the bushes and dunes. I got out of the car and looked for footprints. My wife screamed “What are you doing? Get back in the car”. I started to walk up into the woods to see where it went when a cold chill hit me and I realized that I don’t want to come face to face with that huge thing in the dark…what would I do? I jumped back in the car, backed up and drove off. Looking in my rear view mirror it was pitch black…no streetlights at all. I drove home the rest of the way in complete silence….probably in shock. My wife and I never told anyone. I couldn’t believe that there was a Bigfoot type creature on the east coast, and in the south! The sighting haunted me for ten years until in 2004 someone told me about the BFRO. I made a report. My interest was now overflowing with the Bigfoot phenomenon. I started researching like crazy. The BFRO investigator told me about this site, and I joined here in 2004. I moved quickly up the rankings and enjoyed the forums every day. Eventually around 2008 I once again put the Bigfoot experience on the back burner as telling people only made me seem crazy. If my wife had not seen it also, I would think that I was hallucinating. But I wasn’t. The sighting still haunts me. I’ve been back to the site on many occasions, in the daytime, looking for clues. Nothing. This Bigfoot that we saw, it was very tall and very muscular, but lean, not bulky like Patty. Like a very large muscular basketball player covered in 4-6 inch light brown to tan hair. Anyway, after not being here in over ten years, I decided to rejoin (my profile had been deleted at some point I guess). So now I’m a Newbie again and look forward to hearing all I can about this legendary beast. Thanks for listening…here is the link to the BFRO report: bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=8514

For what it's worth, https://orhistory.com/archives/5658

The average person who gets involved with all things sasquatch probably has no idea what DNA testing costs. I admit I haven't any idea. You could tell me it would cost $15,000 to test something and I'd probably say, "Ok, sounds a little expensive." Who, and why, would anyone have an idea what something like that costs. The only cost comparison we might have seen involving technology is if we've had a procedure done in the hospital and gotten a copy of what was billed to the insurance company. That's both instructive and enlightening. I think it would profoundly helpful if we could put together a list of DNA labs out there and the estimated cost for various DNA testing procedures. Many of us, myself included, have no idea where to send something or what it might cost....so we don't. If those were known, it would encourage people to take samples and send them for testing. It's not even on my radar right now even though it should be. If I found it to be affordable, I'd pack a DNA kit in my backpack every time I go out.

Probably, Norse. They get really sticky about that kind of thing. It took me several attempts to get the permit at all, as I made the mistake of telling him that I was a part time, not full time prospector. I finally convinced him that I was just as much at risk as a full timer, just not quite as often. His take on the caliber was that anything lighter would just **** a bear off, rather than stop it. Once I got the permit, I used a chest rig over my jacket while carrying, as that kept the S&W handy without inhibiting movement while working. I was fortunate to not have to use it on a bear, as all my encounters with blacks just ended with them running off, rather than at me. My only attack was from a grizzly while hunting, so I had an '06 in my hands, which just barely did the trick. After that encounter, I upgraded to a 300 mag for hunting in grizz country.

He was running rescue/recovery missions, that should say enough. He was describing the problems of flying helicopters around and through ash as I remember. This was not fair weather flying according to him. The Lahar was one thing and hummocks moved up and over many ridges and mtns which would have moved things, was initially plastic but then hardened and buried them too. https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Imgs/Jpg/MSH/30410914-047_caption.html If you were hit by a 300 mph pyroclastic flow or even a 50 mph hot lahar there would not be much left of you, even the hummocks produced their own high wind events that was problematic. Hard to believe the bark stripped off of old growth trees like in a EF-4 tornado. If they weren't picked up or laid over proper. https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Imgs/Jpg/MSH/19820721-24_SRB_caption.html In this case as much as 8 km movement of a hummock/landslide event; sources say they can travel a dozen miles. In between when I was on the lip of the crater in 2013 and 2016 this domed vent increased in size by almost double from what I remember, granted differing perspective so it is still dangerous.

I am not convinced that is true. As a community, we seem to ASSUME gov't knows but is not telling. Because a conspiracy on the scale necessary to suppress information effectively across thousands of years, cultures, and continents that were not even discovered 'til comparatively recently would be essentially impossible to hide ... harder than hiding bigfoot ... and we have no evidence for it, I think it is more logical to assume that governments are as in the dark about bigfoot as we are. I suspect they are watching us not to suppress, but to learn the things we might know that they do not. MIB

The more I read the more I change my mind. The debate over what Bigfoot could be is a lot like the game clue. What was present in the past, that was at the right place and the right time to make the jump to North America? I’ve often argued against Homo Erectus as being too advanced to be a candidate....maybe not. 1) Topography Homo Erectus was the most wide spread species of human to ever roam the Earth before modern Homo Sapiens left Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. They were as Far East as China and Indonesia and even built rafts and sailed to Flores Island. We have no evidence of them in North America, other than a recent mastodon butcher site in California 130,000 years old. Along with other controversial sites like Calico site. 2) Technology It would seem that how good your technology was as a Erectus was based on where you lived in the world. Oldowan technology was the beginning technology that was replaced in Africa by Acheulean technology. But not in Eurasia. So it would seem this new technology was developed after part of the population left Africa. The farther away Erectus got from Africa it seems the more primitive tools became. Hobbit tools on Flores Is are very primitive by comparison. The Hobbit lived on Flores Island from 1 mya to 50k ya. Fire making too seemed to have fits and starts concerning Erectus. Evidence goes back 600,000 ya that Peking man a eastern variant of Homo Erectus used fire. So for almost 500,000 years Homo Erectus in Asia did not use fire. Or at least we see no evidence for it. Is it possible that if Homo Erectus made it to North America that it arrived without the knowledge of fire? And only the most rudimentary knowledge of stone tools? And if separated from others of its kind for 1 million years? It could have even regressed further? 3) Morphology Homo Erectus for the most part was roughly the same size and shape as modern humans. Although it seems they had a faster growth than modern humans as shown in the Turkana boy. But there was vast variances between sub species of Homo Erectus with the most glaring one being the hobbit on Flores Island that had evolved within 300,000 years much smaller known as “Island dwarfism”. Is there a possibility that this may have had an opposite affect for Homo Erectus going North over the Berengia land bridge? Bergmann’s rule is observed in many species including modern humans. 4) Evidence in North America The best evidence we have is a partial brow ridge found in Chapala lake area in Mexico. Although it’s largely been ignored. Other evidence includes the mastodon butcher site and various controversial tool sites claimed to be 200,000 years old or more. 5) Cannibalism We know Erectus practiced cannibalism. We know that legends about the Ebu Gogo on Flores Island claimed they would steal and eat human babies. I was recently reading Indian accounts in the premium section of the BFF written by Kathy Strain in which she documented Indian legends of Sasquatch stealing and eating children. It’s an uncanny parallel. 6) Gigantopethicus vs. Homo Erectus It would appear that Gigantopethicus was mostly a vegetarian, and primarily ate bamboo. It was also very very large. And there is some controversy as to whether it was bipedal or not? Is it the best fit to make such a trek to North America? Or would Homo Erectus be the better fit? The “Ebu Gogo” literally means the “Grandmother who eats anything”. Again the Yakima tribe has similar tales about Bigfoot eating things they would not touch. 7) Hammer and anvil Just like the mastodon butcher site, I found a Elk femur that had been cracked open to get to the bone marrow. And while I cannot rule a hunter messing around I find it unlikely. It was found in NE Washington very close to Canada and Idaho in the Selkirk mtns. 8 ) Not too hot, not too cold. Homo Erectus had a brain case about half the size of a modern human. So while they are not putting rockets on the moon? They would be considered a brainiac in the animal world. As a modern Chimp is much smaller braincase than Erectus is. And I would consider Chimps to be very smart. Is this why we cannot find one? Do they attempt to cover the evidence of their passing? Do they ritualistically eat their dead and bury the rest? Can they pick and choose when to start a fire or flake stone? Or have they evolved to not longer need them. A regression? Resources: http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/monster-week/monster-articles/the-legend-of-the-ebu-gogo/ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-oct-03-adfg-bones3-story.html http://calicoarchaeology.com/ https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-americas-first-humans-20170426-story.html http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub360/entry-2754.html https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann's_rule

ShadowBorn where did you hear all this? Do you have a link to this so I can read it?

A fine piece of fiction.

This is really sad and sorry this happened. My brother did the same thing and asked if we took some drug.

The East side of the mountain is active. I have found footprints in the lahar. Reports of people leaving the Ape Canyon area late in the day are of vocalizations from nearby. Ape canyon was spared the blast because a ridge up the mountain diverted the pyroclastic flow around the Ape Canyon area. If a BF was in that area it would have survived the blast. However ash would still have been a big problem. I cannot imagine a live bigfoot climbing into a helicopter unless it was drugged. Adults would really be a center of gravity and a weight problem. You would have to assume that the bigfoot understood English enough to know you were trying to help it by transporting it. I think it unlikely that a live one flew.

As always, it's about money. Specifically, mine. Or the lack thereof, lol! I can't even afford to fix my truck, much less pay for DNA testing, probably repeatedly. Because no one i know or have heard of reports sightings to the BFRO or anyone else. There are too many interesting people to contact and collaborate with! Why would I want to post on an anonymous data page when I could chat with an experienced researcher after a bit of networking? Really, I could name almost a dozen reports right off the top of my head, seriously, and I would bet real money that they aren't reported anywhere. I'm researching four of them currently!

Where did you stay there? How did you get to know this pilot? Do you think he was sworn to keep his mouth shut? What was your job there? Was the pilot hauling out animal corpses like deer, elk, and bear? I read a report written by another person that was hired to be there, and he that discussed bigfoot bodies being hauled out. Probably more fake news. If bigfoots lived on Mt. St. Helens it makes little sense. Their search for food up there might yield a few ground squirrels. If true, it may have been just one family up there living in a cave. Nice warm cave at that. So maybe this bigfoot family was being studied by the DOI and they had to evacuate them by helo. The pilot freaked out when he saw the passengers and remained freaked out with PTSD. This reads like a good novel.

Since it is private land of course the production crew was involved in renting the property or getting permission to be there. The screen characters likely never saw the place until they arrived. What really surprises me is that Dr Mayor is not showing more skepticism when the other two declare something is bigfoot. I have yet to see anything on the show that did not have alternative explanations. Their footprint finds are not clear either. The FLIR image does look like the back end of a cow. Bipedalist "Wow illegal for that G3 jet to have taken back off then. " We see that sort of thing all the time in corporate flying. The boss wants the pilot to fly him close to where he wants to be. The pilot knows he can land and if he ignores the refusal speed criteria for the runway he can takeoff too. After all how often do you loose an engine on takeoff? Not very often unless you fly B-52's. So he begins takeoff and either loses an engine or has something else force an abort and typically the airplane runs off the end of the runway. I think that very scenario happened about a week ago with a small jet.

The current show wouldn't be the first to see a member of the Community "sell out".

Some people just want to be on TV and are willing to almost anything to accomplish that goal. Agreed. They had to have scouted the area before filming. Either they already knew and are acting surprised when they 'discover' certain features of the areA, or they were purposely kept in the dark by the production team.

That's a great encounter. Thanks for sharing your story.

Am I seeing 4 toes there? Nevermind. I see that it is the cripplefoot cast.

Not sure what you asking about. I'm referring to the John Green database which was active until 2000, the BFRO database, and the Bigfoot Forums SSR Database, which is classifies other databases to make them searchable. I'm suggesting that the BFRO populated their database with older reports from John Green and others. But John Green did the same, adding BFRO reports to his database. It went both ways. In the SSR, there are 363 entries that are in Both the John Green and BFRO databases. (note that that number is up a few since 01/04 when I made the post that you quoted) I am a BFRO "member" but not an investigator. I don't have access to their non-public data.

The guys that break elephant bones in Africa say that it’s the real deal.

The comedian, Bob Newhart, once said he was half Irish and half German and all it did was make him a very meticulous drunk, LOL. I have always enjoyed his brand of comedy. **And now, back to your regularly scheduled program**

Something was caught on thermal. Can anyone prove it was fake? Something was also caught on camera that had eyeshine, a hair was found with no medulla, and something wood knocked and howled. Were all of those fake too? If you say yes, kindly explain the hair please. In my opinion, the show produced evidence we all endeavor to achieve. To the extent it had entertainment value...so be it. It gets two thumbs from me.

Exactly what I carried for several years when prospecting in bear country. In fact, the RCMP Firearms Officer who approved my permit told me that he would not have approved anything smaller.

As a non spokesman for the DOI ,USGS, and having worked for this agency for 20+ years. I can honestly say, it's all about funding. We would study algae in Antarctica if the funding was there. To give an example. When the Ivory BIlled Woodpecker(IBWO) was supposedly rediscovered......the funding coming from FWS was on the scale of the budget of most countries. Why? Because the IBWO was the poster child of Ecology and within the Ornithologists circles due to the debate of old growth forests versus the first inhabitants and arrival of Europeans as far as practice of forestry. Old growth versus slash and burn versus slowly culling forests and moving on, to allow the IBWO to thrive on slowing dying trees (grubs to eat). To give an example of amount of funding involved for just one aspect of the funding we received. We purchased 1950's aerial imagery in stereo at approx 1:18k scale for all of Tensas parish, Louisiana (641 square miles ) at around 40$ per frame for me, just me to map the whole parish for potential IBWO habitat (second growth versus newer harvests, and basic habitat mapping). Then scan and rectify this imagery. Crazy $$$ We even sent teams to the parish courthouse in Tensas to look up property records dating back to the civil war ( fyi, all parish courthouses in Louisiana have period data on property records and lay of the land b/c generals would send teams to every court house). Here is the kicker of it all. I gave a presentation in front of a group of Cornell scientists (very nervous) and at the end some guy in the audience invited anyone to come see his footage of a supposed IBWO....he set up shop in our office ( just because of the room available) and NOT ONE... NOT ONE person showed up to see his footage, only us who work in that office. It was blobpecker to be sure, but with all that money on the line, you would think any proof at all would be worth a look, but not one. Scientists are a hard nut to crack. To scientists within DOI, it will take more than a body on a slab, it will take a real to life Ecological concern, across a lot of disciplines to move the needle. I am a believer, but I am small potatoes within DOI. I just do habitat mapping. Give one final example. A lady in the next building who is head of the FWS here sent out a Request for Funding. To study potential bigfoot habitat in Big Thicket NP, Texas, and it didn't go well. And our office was perfectally set up to do this work and my supervisors just laughed at it.......It was funding.....FUNDING, food on the table and they still turned it down. Sorry can't find the link. In summary, it will take a lot of approaches from multiple disciplines to stir interest within DOI. We are all about guaranteed funding, we shake at questionable research and funding. *****We operate on reimbursable funds, which mean we rely on other agencies for funds, we don't just get money from the treasury, we have to go out and sell our research, it has to be on sound footing to sell and to receive multiple years of funding. And BIAS.........put a IBWO on a slab and we could fund the Army for a year. Sad

Oh my you've exposed me I was sent by JREF high command to topple BFF, its really my own fault for using our secret password "sciency", the antithesis of our founding principles. Which leads to the real question here......how do you know the password? LOL I hope you can appreciate my attempt at humor! If it helps Norse I've been following this subject matter for way longer than most and its based on my own personal experiences which includes every type of encounter/experience other than a point blank face to face encounter. As I've stated in my intro I'm a skeptic, obviously I've been satisfied with my own explanations for these experiences. I'd love for Bigfoot to be discovered. But hey back to the subject at hand Area X, what do you find compelling about the "data" and procedures?

Wolfjewel, thanks for raising the question about newbies with "experiences". I must admit that this one is second/third hand, but it helped to launch my insatiable interest in bigfoot many years ago. So here is the story: It was summer time, and my sister (only sibling, older than me) and I were in the kitchen doing the dishes. (Yes, my parents got a dishwasher when we both went to college.) We had guests, all adults, who were gathered in the dining room around the corner from the kitchen. My sister and I were arguing about whether or not the dishes I was washing were clean (they were) when all of a sudden we realized the adults were whispering. If you have been in a situation where you hear a whisper, especially when it is unexpected, you know that hearing the sound seems to heighten your senses and tune your ears - you can't help but lean in and listen. The subject of the whispers was an unusual and upsetting event that had taken place east of Mead Nebraska. Apparently a farmer went out into his field in the morning to call in his dogs who were going crazy behind his barn. After calling and getting no response, he went around his barn, and found both of the dogs next to a dead cow. The cow had been gutted, the entails were missing, and there was no blood to be found. The kill had happened over night, as the farmer had brought all of the cows into the barn for some reason the night before. The adults were speculating about what sort of perpetrator could be responsible, and one of the men said he had heard at the barber shop that it was a bigfoot. One track was found near where the animal was found. The site was in a waterway, a 10-15 ft wide section of grass/weeds/whatever usually in a low spot or a transition area between crops. The one track was found at the edge of a cornfield. One of the craziest parts of the story was the dogs - loud enough to call the farmer behind the barn early in the morning, had been silent the night before. My dad and his best buddy owned a dairy distributorship. As luck would have it, the farmer with the dead cow was a neighbor of one of my dad's customers. Of course the weekly stop at that customer's farm was extra long because of the need to discuss what/who could have been the cow's killer. The customer reported that folks all around the countryside near Mead were looking for more tracks, and there was all kinds of speculation about what might be the cause - aliens, cult members, and all sorts of other things, including our friend the hairy man. Dad's customer had heard from another neighbor that a family living on the river bluff had purportedly seen a very tall, very hairy creature running across the field below the bluff the week before. All of this information was very exciting to my sister and me, and I remember going to the library in town so we could do some "research". Interestingly, when I became aware of the BFRO site (I don't remember when, frankly, several years ago?) I looked up sightings in Nebraska, not expecting much. I didn't find many reports, especially not anything exciting...except there was one report from Saunders County that involved a potential sighting east of Mead in Saunders County. Not sure that the dates match up, but it sure was interesting to read in light of the whispered story that I can still sort of hear in my head! I hope some day to have a sighting of my own. In the mean time, I really appreciate the chance to learn from all of you. It would be inappropriate for me to say this explains the weird cow event. I can't explain that. Anyway, thanks for the chance to type my story.

I'll pass if I wanted to argue about a dude in a suit you'd see me in those threads, if your going to base any theory on PGF sorry its a fail. But I do appreciated your thoughtful responses. Do you just take stuff out of context or just can't keep up with the conversation? Again no doubt its not a snowshoe, but it most certainly could be fake or a misinterpretation. The only thing marvelous about it is they had time to waste reporting it or faking it LOL!

The lives ones came out for help and were escorted by a special team with a specialist who knew how to communicate with them. This is how it was told by whom it was seen by a national guardsman who was on the seen. Now it was not just seen by a guardsman but by fireman as well. So there are more witnesses who saw these events and were sworn to secrecy by the officials on the scene. It is up to them if they are willing to come out with the truth. I am pretty sure that it would have to be a death bed confession . I am surprised that they have not come out and actually told their stories and what they have seen. It has been well over the limit of what ever paper or NDA they have signed from the military. The only question is locating where these helo's were extracting these creatures from after the eruption of Mount St Helens . Once you find that info you be able to find the witnesses that saw these creatures being escorted out of the woods by these special teams. The one place that I heard was a bridge that was close to St Helens eruption. They had tents that were set up and this is where these creatures were escorted into and kept hidden. From there they would be transported to some other area . We are doing it so that we can let the world know that they are real. That we are not crazy and that it is not in our heads or a imagination. That those who have seen them is what they seen and it is flesh and blood. That they are not loosing their minds with what is happening to them. That there is some thing out there that we might not fully understand . But that there are entities within our Gov that do. We really need to push this issue with which ever department of the gov that will give up the details. There are other scientist that we do not even know about that know a whole a lot about these creatures then the ones who going around on conferences. These are the ones who were willing to keep the secrets of the key holders. Do you really believe that this would be kept with out being studied all these years.