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The oldest story in this English language is Beowulf. Grendel the Monster attacks at night. He steals humans away to his lair to eat. He is of great size and strength. He can also be stealthy and cunning. He reeks of rotten flesh. Any of this sounding familiar?

Welcome back to the BFF Grandcherokee. Funny you say that because I'm on vacation in Florida and we met a couple from WV, after a few beers, I showed them the picture of the track cast @Skinwalker13 posted. They laughed and would not accept the possibility that Sasquatch exists. Just wanna point out you can't prove a negative, so that will never happen

Sasquatch/Bigfoot is a 'morality' play like Greek or Roman gods. I think that is why Sasquatch lore has stood the test of time. American Indians of every tribe; Eastern, North, West, South, woodland, or high plains, all profess a belief in Sasquatch. This creature was a messenger, an omen, a hostile member of a band of hairy giants. The creature was a representative of the Great Mother. He was a boogeyman! A stealer of children. A debaucher of females! For the whites. Maybe sighting the creature was little more than false identification of more obvious woodland creatures. A tall tail for campfires. False stories to keep people away from certain areas. But thousands of people have seen Sasquatch/Bigfoot over the centuries! Have they really? Or does it just seem like that? It probably does for those of us who are on the inside looking out! But not so much for those who are looking in. Go down any street and question people about Sasquatch/Bigfoot. Most of your replies would be based on what they have seen in beer commercials! Oh look! There is a tourist from Florida! "Excuse me sir! What do you think about all of the 'Skunk Ape' reports from your state?" "Skunk what?" he responds, as he takes his wife's arm and hustles her away! My point being, that those who entertain the possibility of such a creature's existence are far and few in between. The majority of the world has never Heard of Sasquatch. And have no need to ever want to. So the number of 'believers' (God! How I hate that word! )is a very finite number, Indeed! The psychological underlying reason for belief? Most of us have been listening to, and reading of, stories about Bigfoot a good portion of our lives. We go to places and read material, that reaffirm our belief in this creature. A lack of evidence supporting the existence of such a creature does not carry the weight of books, tv shows, documentaries, stories, forums, websites, face book pages. So even without evidence the human need for justification of a long term belief must win out! If Sasquatch is proven not to exist! There will still be a number of people who refuse to believe it. They will still need their justification for past beliefs! Or, I could be wrong!;)

Not quite. You know I’m a pro kill proponent. But no body parts ever? That’s simply not true. There are tons and tons of bones in the fossil record that could represent a Sasquatch. And I don’t think the debate is over in North America either. http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2019/12/more-on-erectus-calvaria-from-chapala.html https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/mastodons-americas-peopling-migrations-archaeology-science We still need a body. But there is no question Hairy ape men came before us. And some supposedly became extinct very recently. So it makes it fun to read reports and get out and look.

Mike, Thanks for sharing this 4-part documentary on the field research that James Spink did on SW of Florida in the 70's. I never heard of him, but am not surprised that some eccentric and smart person in south Florida would pursue that research back then. Jim was born 50 years too early. Nowadays, he would be in YouTube showing his videos/research and probably getting some money (via Patreon, GoFundMe, etc.) to fund this research effort. It was sad to hear him state that after 20 years of field research, he did not have much to show and ended up in poverty (by choice according to him). Doubt he made much money selling those tapes. He never identified the island where he started his field research. But based on hints from his audio tape and the newspaper clippings that were posted on the documentary, it appears that it was on one of the barrier islands west of Cape Haze Aquatic Preserve. (see attached map extract). He mentioned that to go to this island he launched his small boat at the Placida fisherman village. He was quoted in other newspapers as saying that it was west of Englewood. Another time it was quoted that it was west of Punta Gorda. One article in the 80's said that he wanted to do his research in Charlotte Harbor. A likely island where he started his field research is Boca Grande (SW of Placida) and south of Englewood. This is not the Everglades; so not sure why several papers wrote that he was doing research in the Everglades. Maybe he moved location later?

If there were, they were extremely rare and expensive.

Could be a lot of reasons for them to not want to touch us. Everything from a learned behavior that doing so will bring more humans to an area either in the form of hunters, onlookers, or whatnot. Could be because humans tend to react poorly, spook, and go into fight or flight mode. Could possibly be that something in our shared past caused damage to their numbers. It is well documented that Europeans brought new diseases with them to the Americas which devastated the population of indigenous people. Humans and chimps are known to share diseases. What if that event brought an illness to the Bigfoot population and killed off enough that it was deemed worthwhile to avoid humans? We don't know, we just know that they tend to avoid touching us and realistically considering their size that might be for the best.

2020 was cancelled and rescheduled for this October.

+1 to you, I remember your encounters from way back, classic audio stuff. Now you know a LOT more for sure. Enjoy hearing your adventures!

Hello everyone, my name is Joseph and I’m from Oklahoma. I’ve been interested in Bigfoot for as long as I can remember. I enjoy reading about Bigfoot encounters and learning more about them. I have browsed this forum for years and finally decided to become a member.

I'm not prepared to accept this theory in this case, but I did find it interesting that California Fish and Wildlife officials shadowed Smeja like Cold War spies throughout the event until Sykes announced his results. THEN they charge him, as if they couldn't have done that difficult investigation themselves. It's almost as if they wanted the whole thing to go away, but when it didn't, they charged Smeja when Sykes almost forced the issue with his announcement. California Fish and Wildlife really like to tippy-toe around this issue. They like to keep really quiet about it. I wonder why?

I recall a similar episode of Monster Quest called Sasquatch Attacks. It was regarding an alleged Sasquatch that attacked a remote Ontario fishing cabin for several nights in a row. A DNA sample was collected and it came back as "not quite ape and not quite human." That was in fact the very documentary that got me interested in the Bigfoot phenomenon to begin with. That was back in the Summer of 2008. Regarding your question, Chimpanzee DNA is 99% the same as human DNA. There is no reason why a bipedal primate wouldn't have a similar DNA profile. In fact, Bigfoot DNA is possibly even closer to human than chimpanzee DNA. That seems to me the most likely explanation.

If Bigfoot is a real animal, which the evidence suggests, then psychology will have little to no place as a research methodology. If Bigfoot is a spectre, a figment of man's collective imagination then psychology will have a great deal of relevancy. But spectres do not leave trackways and DNA evidence.