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What the gentlemen claim they observed also makes it anecdotal evidence. Not to be pedantic, but any inferences one makes are again based on anecdotal evidence. Your use of the unqualified "somebody" implies that you believe that everyone here who is critical of Wes and Woody's story has been incapable of taking all the known evidence into account and making a judgment without jumping to unwarranted conclusions. That is both presumptuous and condescending. With such a philosophy, how on earth did you perform your job as a law enforcement officer? How many crimes did you investigate which you were a direct eyewitness to vs. the number where you were dependent on weighing the testimony of a suspect or witness? Was it your practice in the latter cases to take them at their word (especially when you were aware of evidence which directly contradicted their testimony) since you weren't present for the event in question?

Have you met Wag yet? You guys would hit it right off. At the very least, your debating styles are similar.

And eye witness testimony is highly scrutinized in a court of law....e.g., cross-examination that can offer prior inconsistent statements to impeach witness testimony....you're correct in saying that eyewitness testimony is direct evidence in a court of law.. But that direct evidence in some circumstances has been the exact opposite of the truth and the court frowns upon perjury.... But their story is not involved in the legal system.....This isn't a question of guilt or innocence....This is a BF forum where stories should be put under the microscope... IMHO....There is no passing of judgment let alone intent to harm or destroy someone by simply stating that I don't >50 % buy into a story that isn't exactly "airtight"....

The only ones showing ego on this thread are the "knowers"

In the attached link, David Donlon provides an interesting analysis on the Ape Canyon tale (written back in 2007). http://dapht.blogspot.com/2007/10/incredible-tales-trouble-with-ape-canyon.html Although, I believe that Marc Myrsell has taken the analysis to a much higher level and depth. I am looking forward for Marc's DVD or book to come out to get the in depth story and analysis.

BigTreeWalker has it all right. On the Y Boys and the cabin. The color cabin photo is from the famed 1977 production "Sasquatch, The Lengend of Bigoot", the movie that, in part inspired me on this project and that had the famed re-creation of the 1924 incident. On the "youth" issue. A small point of confusion, and a very, very small point of fact. Some chat and, perhaps some NFS publication note that the Boy Scouts performed the attack. I think that they meant to say that the YMCA Boys camp did it. Harry Reese, of Cougar was a retired local logger and ran a grocery store, "Reese's Store" (the building still stands on Lewis River Road). Harry was the Boy Scout leader in the 1950's and the troupe named themselves the "St. Helen's Apes", after the 1924 incident. Having known Ole Peterson and just the hills in general, Harry knew a lot about the lava tubes in the area and made it a focal point of his troupe, giving the name to Ape Cave. However, this Boy Scout troupe had nothing to do with the attack in 1924. The origin of the youths being the rock throwers, came from a letter to the editor in the Oregonian, July 22, 1924. It was written by the father of one of the YMCA boys. His son had confessed to the incident. The young man and a couple of his buddies "stumbled" on to the miners cabin. The miners, quite perturbed, ran them off with threats and rifle brandishing. The boys returned that night and threw rocks at the cabin. The rest is history. Here's what I found. The YMCA boys camp at Spirit Lake held an annual hike up to Pummice Butte every year. The hike from the lake to the butte is about 6-7 miles. They do the hike, camp at the base of the butte. The next morning they pack up and head back to the lake. Please put yourself in to the seat of the average news reader in 1924. Longview was not and, by no means, Portland not a small, podunk town. It was easy to get hot news. Nonetheless, small reports were published regularly of, seemingly, banal events. Like, "Mr. and Mrs. so and so returned from Coos Bay yesterday. The roads were reported to be good and a fine time was had by all". This was not an uncommon type of article. By chance, while researching this, I found an article July 13, 1924, The Oregonian. "YMCA Boys Stage Hike". It noted that about 70 hikers made the trip from the lake to the butte on Wednesday, July 9th. They spent the night and returned the next day, Thursday, July 10th. This article was buried on quite a remote page on the back of the Sunday edition. The night of Thursday, July 10 was the night of the attack. My point is that, if these young guys did pull this off, they would have had to sneak out of camp after bed check, hike the return 7 miles to Pummice Butte, go up and over the butte, throw rocks for 5-6 hours, while dodging bullets from miners, return to camp, all this without getting caught as missing. I know that this is argumentative. But I find it unlikely, given the article of the 13th at verification that they returned to camp Thursday, during the day. My last thing that I like to think about is this. If in fact, the YMCA boys did it, the REAL NEWS of the day would have been that 5 miners were arrested for taking pot shots at unarmed campers. Instead, we got the news of Mountain Devils, that make up the Ape Canyon incident of 1924. Marc

Hi Clownboy, And thanks for the question. There has been a pervasive "chat" about Beck's re-telling of the incident. Beck's interviews and 1967 book has been the source of much of the "rehashed" accounts that we'll find in many, many books. The "talk" has been of many discrepancies in Beck's story. However, I have found in comparing them with the many published accounts; which included interviews with all 5 miners, that the discrepancies were slight (as in this topic, was the "cliff" shot on Friday morning or Thursday afternoon). For the most part, the versions, at different times has been highly congruent with one another and have not changed much from what was published in 1924. There have been some problems. As Beck told Byrne, around 1961 or so that the entrance to the mine was through a trap door directly beneath the cabin. While visiting reporters to the site in '24 clearly noted the mine location as being "below and to the right of the cabin" I have no idea why Beck told Peter this. The "prank" notation with the headline is facinating. I found it interesting how, much like today, society was very, very quick to arrive at "explain it away" theories as to the incident. They were spiritualists, they were drunk, the YMCA boys did it, the Indians did it, etc. etc. I've explored most of this. However, one thing that was well noted in the '24 reports is that the miners, Beck and Smith, the elder, in particular had sterling reputations in their community. When they said that something happened, you could bank on it. So, for those who knew them, it was a problem that such "straight" guys were coming off the mountain with such a fantastic story. The two things that get me the most about the story are these. There has been a "deathbed confession" rumor with this story that one miner confessed as to this all being a prank. I have never found a source for this or found any lead to a source on this. I think this "confession" to be fictional. Maybe I'll find it later. But, most impotantly, two. A second, and only, document was filed in the mining record, related to the Venderwhite Mine. It was the "Proof of Labor" record, filed by Beck, witnessed by Smith. After working the mine for two years and after building a pretty strong cabin 6-8 weeks before, they noted that all work was completed July 10, 1924. They had a good 3-4 more months of good weather left for working the mine. But they were done. Thursday, July 10th was the purported night of the attack. Gene W. has been somewhat of a guru for me in this project. In his 85 years, Gene has done some incredible stuff in his life. He's not a "bigfoot dude" or a "paranormal wierdo". He's an inventor, a scientist, a researcher. He's a very level guy. So, I report in to Gene once in a while. When I told him about the proof of labor note, Gene said, "SOMETHING sure MUST of scared them up there". Golly, you guys have good questions, Marc

SweetSusiq! The initial shooting, before July 4th was with Marion Smith and Beck. In the 1924 newspapers, it was said to be about 300 feet away. In the 1967 Beck book, he noted it at 300 yards. Having identified the spring location, where this first shot took place, it had to be 300 feet. The narrative cited that the creature was shot "across a draw". The draw near the spring is about 300 feet across. So I go with feet and not yards. The shootings on the subsequent days were quite close, 50 to 75 feet away. This makes sense as in the immediate vicinity of the cabin, there's not a whole lots of level (ish) ground. The final shot at the cliff would of have to have been within the "very-near" to 50 foot range. The '24 paper accounts tells us that the cabin was about 10 feet from the top of the drop. The evidence we found of the cabin jibes with that quite well. The cliff in question is that which drops down in to Ape Canyon proper. In 1967, Beck noted it as 400 feet down. I think it's more like 200 feet, but I didn't measure it. We did accidentally dislodge a couple small rocks while on site and the ensuing sounds of the rock tumbling in to the canyon was enough to wrench your stomach horribly. It's really dangerous and its a long ways down there. I'm trying to figure out how to post pics with my post, but I'm a blogging imbecile and have asked our pal VAfooter for help. A picture is worth a thousand. So I'll try to get our rough site diagram and original cabin pics up as soon as I can. Marc

No I just don't believe in facilities like that museum run by people with a particular belief or agenda. Fake evidence isn't the same as no evidence or real evidence. I would be much more impressed if a legit museum presented an unknown bone for examination without making any particular claims about what it had to be a sign of. Note also that the example in this particular "museum" seems to be just a large (and probably plaster) model of a standard human femur. I seriously doubt a bigfoot would have exactly the same shape or proportioned femur as a modern day man. This particular museum is also reported to sell fake castings of foot prints that showed dinosaurs and people walking together. The problem that I have with a lot of purported bigfoot "evidence" is that it is fake or at the least misidentified.

Because BF is something that the government can't control, tax, or herd into reservations. Kinda like UFO/Aliens. If they refuse to acknowledge them, they don't have to explain their powerlessness in dealing with them.