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I am a long time poster and visited for several hours a week and that was at the height of the Finding Bigfoot show so volume of interest is drastically lower today as most other shows are completely faked and fabricated. I personally checked in to see what field research methods, techniques and ideas are being tossed around out in the woods. Couple other points to note. 1 - Forums are dying as human attention spans decrease due to overstimulation by social media. 2 - Video media as a format ( youtube, patreon, tiktok, live streaming ) is eating forums for breakfast, direct commentary and long format video scape covers most of the discussion points and theories. 3 - Field research efforts these days are ultra weak sauce compared to how " the community " use to address the subject, most now sit around and slip into " cant get them on camera, must be paranormal " or they simply do nothing of effort to get out and search for evidence. Bigfoot is a campfire hobby with very little actual pursuit these days. We do have a couple die-hard guys still here but the volume of activity has always been around PGF debate and field research and now post the lockdowns, people are preoccupied and distracted by seahawks games, vacations and what ever other primary hobbies people engage in these days. The vigor and thrill of walking around in the dark and looking for prints is gone for most or waved away by the embrace of weak minded woo " experiences " that are create insulated FaceBook groups for self worship. No red circles required to figure that out if you check in on all these media sites. I now check in like once every other month to see if anything is going on research related and it seems that the spring has dried up and personally, this drives me nuts because we have more tools today than any point in history. This concludes my rant, lol.

A couple of years ago, our group was putting on a conference in north western Wisconsin. We had Dr. Meldrum lined up as the keynote speaker, and I weaseled my way into picking him up from the Minneapolis airport and was to drive him to the venue. I was so excited because I would have him entirely to myself for several hours. I had so many things I wanted to talk about, but alas, Covid hit and the conference was canceled. I never got the opportunity to delve deep into my favorite topic with him. Fast forward to 2023, I got a call 2 weeks ahead of the Minnesota Bigfoot conference asking me if I could be a presenter, as Dr. Meldrum was scheduled to appear, but had the health episode TD-40 mentioned. I said yes, and made sure everyone at the conference knew how much I admired the man and honored him during my presentation. Sad day, all around.

I have. That ain't it. Seems to me it would be useful to move away from Standing's already-demonstrated hoaxes. Find something new to beat each other up over. Hoaxers CAN potentially see / report something real, what he says is not automatically null and void, it is merely that he's dug a hole and whatever he produces has to be of greater verifiability than what a person with a clean reputation has to produce.

One of my best friends lives in the La Grande, OR area and has for many years. He's a former USFS employee and his wife is an emergency room RN. They are prolific outdoorsy people who have spent most of their lives camping, hiking, hunting, horseback riding, and working in the mountains of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington. Super great folks. My friend and his wife have been skeptics of Bigfoot and whenever the subject came up, we would joke and laugh about it. They were both respectful, but just didn't believe. They had spent decades in the woods with no encounters, so couldn't wrap their heads around the concept. That all changed for the wife on Sunday. Her husband and his Navy buddy were with me at my family cabin in Idaho for the weekend, while she stayed in Oregon to take care of their horses. On Sunday, she decided to go on a hike/run in the mountains. What happened and what she saw/experienced is not exactly clear. She messaged me and asked if a firearm was a deterrent to BF. I said it depends. In most cases, a person having one means they are more likely to avoid you, but not in all cases. She then said that something happened and she wasn't sure what, but she is terrified and traumatized, and very confused. I was at work, so couldn't call her, but we messaged back and forth and she left an audio recording explaining why she was being vague about what she saw/heard. This is the location she gave me of the incident: I'll try to share what happened, but it's still unclear. Her husband returned home while we were discussing it and she understandably unloaded everything on him. Hopefully I can get more details after she recovers from the incident. Basically, she was in a pretty remote area doing a hike/jog as she is a fitness fiend and very active. She was wearing brightly colored athletic shorts, and a bright athletic top. She said she suddenly became aware of something large in the nearby trees/brush due to a vocalization that she described as both far away and at the same time, also nearby. She also indicated that there was some brush/trees being disturbed; something large was crashing through the trees. Her first thought was that she had surprised an elk. Whatever it was, it was very large and moved very quickly. Her words... "I think it was an elk crashing and then wolves but everything happened at once and I've been scared before, but never shaking head to toe... I heard grunting/growling but it was a ways away. At first I thought it was an elk, then crashing, then two howls or something. I realized by the second one it wasn't an elk." "I thought it was wolves but knew something wasn't good and I've had cats stalk me and other weird stuff but the fear I felt was weird." She indicated that she got into a stranger's pickup that came along, which she said she would never do unless she was terrified. Then she added this... "The weird part is its all confusing, I just remember crashing, grunting, and 2 howls and total body shaking lol like I don't remember it all which is also weird... all of the noises close and far... the guy that picked me up said I looked not OK." She then left an audio message that went into more detail about the strangeness of the incident due to the emotions she felt and a weird "connection" to whatever was in the woods. She was much more articulate and intelligent sounding in the recording than in the texts. I've known her for 15 years and she is extremely intelligent, rational, calm, and afraid of nothing. Current ER nurse and former rodeo queen who does horseback trips into the wilderness. In the audio file, she describes feeling like whatever was out there knew exactly where she was and what she was thinking. She stated that the sounds she heard were felt in her body, and she felt completely exposed and helpless. She also reiterated that she has had numerous encounters with predators over the years in the woods and has never felt anything as terrifying as this. She also says she may have seen something, but so much of the encounter is "missing" in her mind. Her reaction to anything disturbing in life is to research it. She does a deep dive on a subject until she feels properly educated about it. She was in the middle of this while we were messaging. I told her about infrasound and the effects it has. She said she found references to it and confirmed that's what she felt, but at a deeper and more psychic level. She said she was on the BFRO website and looking for encounters in her area. I encouraged her to make a report. She wanted to be sure it was anonymous. I assured her it was. I showed her pics of the tree I discovered the day before her encounter and she said she had seen the same thing. And she had seen the weird tree stacking and trees shoved into the ground with the roots sticking up. We ended our conversation with her apologizing for not believing me before. She said she believed deep down, but didn't want to acknowledge it because she didn't want to be afraid to run in the woods alone. Now she is. I hope she filed a report and I am planning on going down to visit soon and check out the site. It's great that now I have another friend that also believes, but I feel bad for her and her husband. Her love of the woods and her perception of the wild has been completely changed for the rest of her life.

Hopefully, given some time to process, that change won't be a bad change, just awareness. It was a similar concern .. what's my risk level here? .. that got me into research in the first place some years before I ever heard of BFF. Proving / disproving existence, validating / invalidating the PGF, blah blah blah .. means nothing to me. What matters is living vs dying and from what I've learned, dying is more likely on the highway driving to the trailhead than it is from hairy bipeds in the woods. Good enough. I hope she'll come to a similar conclusion, find peace with sharing the woods, and not be deterred from her regular activities.

Todd Standing =Red Flag.

I agree. I'm thinking the good doctor is truly a "knower" at this point .

I can’t help but imagine him enthusiastically questioning Roger Patterson right now.

I watched it. There is way less “con” going on with the 411 books…. Than trying to convince the Canadian government THIS is a real animal.

Yep. Unless of course one is forgiving the many hoaxes. I believe that is called naive. The Muppets is the most laughable. Of course if one takes the subject serious probably best to move on from any and everything Standing.

I find it interesting to scroll to the bottom of the published report to see who did the investigation. A surprising (to me) number of the recent reports were done by Matt M. himself rather than his investigators. That probably says something though I'm not sure what it is.

Hey Bipedalist, how fortunate that you got to take the course with Jim Halfpenny and Jeff Meldrum. I received the flyer for it, and couldn’t make it— but how I wish I could have. We’ve had dinner with Jim when we were visiting Yellowstone,at an Asian place outside of Gardiner MT. He showed us his museum, which includes lots of track casts including Bigfoot. Anyway, message me if you want to chat about the class.

Totally shocked. Had the honor to eat supper with him in Gardner, Montana one night during a tracking course he presented with Jim Halfpenny. He was such a gracious and humble man. May he rest in peace.

I did a day long Jeep trip over the Freezeout pass in Idaho last week. Dang close to grizzly country on the Montana border. I took a picture of the two guns I brought with me... A Marlin 1894 carbine and a S&W Model 686. Both in .357 Magnum. I did not feel under-gunned at all. I have spent nearly 50 years in the Idaho wilderness camping, fishing, hunting, shooting, exploring, hiking, ATV riding, off-roading, and just plain relaxing and enjoying nature. All of those activities were done while being armed. In all those years, I was threatened with violence, or felt threatened maybe 4-5 times. Twice was by animals/Bigfoot and the others by people. The worst was a few years ago when me and my dog Rowdy camped at a remote spot on Bonami Creek in a pop-up camper, and a pack of wolves came in and surrounded our camp at night. I was blissfully unaware of the threat having downed a couple or a few 7&7s while listening to satellite radio by the fire. Rowdy was a 105lb Lab/Great Dane mix who was afraid of fire and nothing else. He normally stayed away from it and would lay down behind me as I sat near the fire and drank. But that night, he decided to lay very close to the fire and my rifle... The next day, I awoke with the worst hangover I have ever experienced. I thought I had been shot in the head with a .22. I poured out the remaining Seagrams 7. After I drank a bottle of water and downed a few aspirin, I stumbled outside to the camp and observed Rowdy diligently walking the perimeter of camp, sniffing and marking his territory. I got dressed, grabbed my rifle, and headed up the crude trail behind our campsite. Rowdy was busy peeing on everything and sniffing furiously... I followed him about 25yds from camp and suddenly realized why he had acted so strangely the night before by staying close to the fire, and why he was so obsessed the next day with marking his territory. I found a piece of wolf scat that was very fresh and left while the wolf was in motion and moving away from our camp. It had to have been left within the past 8 hours. I began doing a search of the area around our camp and found sign that a pack of wolves had come in the night before and walked around the perimeter of our camp. No wonder Rowdy was acting so strange the night before! The rifle I had was a Marlin 1894 in .45 Colt, with a Surefire weapon light attached, 6 extra rounds in the butt stock pouch, a green dot optic, and smoothed action. Pretty much the perfect weapon to be holding when a pack of wolves comes in.

I've been remiss in not reporting my field trips for the last couple of months, so I'll try to get back into it. I've made a number of outings, but had some problems with making my phone upload photos to the computer and got frustrated with trying to make it work. This evening i made a run up one of our local research areas that had been gated for active logging for almost a year, and took Thomas along for the ride. I'd heard that the gate was now open, since the logging had ended for the season, and we found the gate was indeed open. However, the contractor had obviously just completed cutting drainage cross ditches on the road, and did it very thoroughly! The new trenches were aggressively steep and very frequent, slowing progress to a crawl to avoid suspension damage or noggin bonking on the roof! We only got about 2/3 of the way to the summit before we decided that the effort to reach the top wasn't worth it. Here's a video that Thomas shot on the trip back down: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1WbkQxebhb/

I also did a one day 185-mileJeep trip through some very remote Idaho backcountry. No BF sign, but some beautiful country...

Todd Standing's Bigfoot heads are full blown fakes. They even show progression, with later ones being better than the muppet heads in the beginning. But Todd Standing is in a great area along the BC and Alberta border. Did Jeff Meldrum bump something genuine in that area? Who knows. Its my understanding that his sighting was at night with a NV or FLIR scope. I cannot remember which. Its entirely possible that Standing pulled some shenanigans. But its also possible if you believe the creature to be out there that Meldrum may have had a genuine encounter. Either way it doesn't move the goal posts regardless.

The article bot caught this story from a number of news outlets. https://www.syracuse.com/statefair/2025/08/searching-for-bigfoot-at-the-2025-nys-fair.html It caught my eye when perusing the list of vendors, considering entering our car club next year to raise interest in classic cars of the little British variety. Charles "Snake" Stuart has an exhibit at the state fair featuring a preserved "Bigfoot corpse" behind plexiglass. Includes a paid appearance by William Shatner on an old TV. Charles certainly sounds like my kind of weirdo and I hope to meet him and his clearly fake body of a Bigfoot. (Sorry, Charles.) I haven't visited yet. But I'll certainly report back if I do. The fair runs through to Labor Day, Monday the first of September in Syracuse, NY. If you do attend, grab some local delicacies, salt potatos, speedies, garbage plates, chicken riggies, etc.

Yeah, don't get used to that from me... Healthy skepticism is warranted and needed in this field or else people will be thinking that we'd all buy that bridge in Brooklyn they want to sell us.

I'm a follower of Stefan, but he gives short shrift to the Cerutti mastodon evidence. I appreciate his skeptical nature. I'm not knowledgeable enough to render a decision on the Cerutti mastodon evidence, but lean towards its authenticity.

No, times have changed. Photographic evidence isn't going to cut it.............

I represent that remark!

I was just listening to episode 180 of Bigfoot & Beyond. Can't give you a time mark as I was otherwise engaged, but the guest, Joe Perdue, discusses being an employee of a West Virginia government agency (probably state parks or DEC) and discusses his supervisors' reaction too, and limitations on, Bigfooting on the job. Basically, he could not initiate any Bigfoot discussions and if sightings were reported to him, he could take the reports for his own personal use, but they didn't want them as official records, such as injury reports at the park, bear sightings, etc.

Extremely sad. First and foremost obviously for his family. He seemed a very genuine and likeable man. Secondly for the Bigfoot community, who've lost one of the most intelligent, erudite and respected believers. Thirdly, for the man himself, who sadly never got to see the object of his interest confirmed by the mainstream and never got to study Bigfoot as a proven species rather than a cryptid.

Oh my how tragic. I recall David Paulides stating that on a bigfoot cruise that Jeff had serious heatlh episode and had to be life flighted away.

My understanding is that Gimlin had a 30-06, which would offer plenty of power to kill a sasquatch with a single round if it was shot through the boiler room.

^^^ HA HA You got me there with ME. Yes, the possibilities can be endless.

But that's a make believe gun. Might as well say you want to be armed with a phaser on kill or a Phased plasma rifle in the forty watt range

That’s what I’m hearing perhaps the professor was played for a fool? His first sighting might not be genuine?

I don’t think it would ever make it to the fair without being sold off to some government agency.

Where is your proof of this accusation?

But why would we (the Army) care? If reports are made by family members who were in in areas approved for recreational use, has there been any harm or threat of harm? If not, no military interest. Even if it were a known animal (bear), the Base Commander would only care if the animal was a threat to the community (foraging in populated areas or areas approved for recreational use) or a threat to military operations (destroying vehicles, outbuildings, interfering with training, etc.). Any number of known animals (deer, bunny rabbits, bear, elk if in that area) are probably killed by being in the wrong impact area during aerial gunnery (Lewis is a joint base w/the Air Force base next door now, + the helicopter brigade), artillery practice, tank gunnery, and crew served weapons (mortars, heavy machine guns, etc.) ranges. As to rifle ranges, the concern would likely start and stop with the question of whether people, whether military or civilian, were downrange. If a 'Squatch ambled across the M-16 range, they'd likely hold fire just because no one wants to take the chance that some clown is running around out there in a rented gorilla suit. When one gets to even a medium level of responsibility/authority in the military, one develops a good CYA gene. So if one were reviewing or approving a Report of Investigation concerning the destruction of a B-hut (plywood hut used to house Soldiers out in remote training areas) by blunt force, even if very large footprints were present in the mud, it would be written up as an apparent "act of nature" or vandalism by persons or persons unknown. No need to go out on a limb and opine on the possibility that a local 'Squatch didn't like the new temporary camp blocking access to a fishing point or something similar. All of that being said, it doesn't negate your statement that the Army (most likely the long-term civilian support staff) "knows" that it was a Bigfoot and not a bear, but that report is never get past the relevant commander's desk and is immediately going back for a re-write.

For more than a year I lost interest with Bigfoot Forum since I was spending lots of time commenting, and I had outside work to do. I began missing the forum and took up where I left off recently, and I'm very surprised how much the forum has changed due to lack of active posters. Many former members have lost interest and are no longer posting. The older forum had topics that received constant replies and active discussions on a variety of topics. I'm sure some of the regulars have noticed this trend and if something is not done soon, the whole forum may disappear due to lack of interest. What can be done to rejuvenate the forum? One suggestion is for long time members to make newcomers feel more welcome by noticing and replying to their comments in a positive way. What about all members reaching out to former members, foresters, college biologist, forest road builders and others who live and work in the forest and may want to share a sighting and join the forum? What do you regular members with some stars that you earned believe will help? Bigfoot is still out there, and the forum helps add to public knowledge and eventual protection of bigfoot. It's just a matter of time before a bigfoot is brought in live or dead and proven to exist.

First hello. I may be one of those people you mentioned. In my case, there just is not any evidence of BF in my area (north central NC) to report in the last 3-4 years. Also, I have stopped studying them as I have believe after 5-6 encounters and reading 2K plus reports I have it pretty much figured it out and honestly I do not care about the fight. Yes, BF is still out there, please leave him alone and for FFS stop running around at midnight making calls to try and lure him/her in. It does not work.

Great catch, and you're right - the Minnesota Iceman was probably more authentic looking.

^^^ If a Hunter shot Bigfoot maybe they should just claim self-defense. If Bigfoot is determined to be essentially human, one can actually claim self-defense vs an attacking human. After all what kind of doctor does one take a sick Werewolf to anyway?

^^ My understanding is that in most states, hunters are only allowed to take "permitted" animals - that is, animals that the state permits you to shoot, trap, or catch. Like what happened in Canada (discussed elsewhere in another thread) - hunters were permitted to take polar bears, and permitted to take brown bears (grizzlies?), but not permitted to take hybrid brown/polar bears. So, if I recall correctly, an American hunter got a huge fine for shooting a bear that was virtually indistinguishable (to the naked eye) from a bear he was permitted to take. Presuming one lives in a reasonable state - and that the shooting has been highly publicized so that it can't be swept under the rug - whomever first shoots and kills AND makes it out with the body could be reasonably safe.

I've already stated it, you quoted me, and it aligns perfectly with the statement you posted from the USFS, and I explained why I believe they have taken that position. I'm pretty confident that they don't. I don't think anybody in the agency wants to document anything about them. I didn't see a stamp or fine print footnote of official approval.

#1 Love the video. #2 A few years from now it is going to get really difficult to tell what is fake and what is real. This illustrates how good these vids are getting. Imagine a video 20 years from now; especially one made for harmful purposes vs comedy purposes.

^^^ I wonder what LEOs would do if those same reports came in today. Probably arrest the witness for making a false emergency call, or explain that they just misidentified a nine-foot tall plume of swamp gas or Venus low on the horizon.

Bigfoot The topic of this thread is: what do you think of the US Forest Service's view on Sasquatch? The Forest Service's own opinion as of this year is as follows: "The US Forest Service's official stance on Bigfoot is that it's a creature of folklore and urban legend, though they have engaged in some playful acknowledgements of the creature." 1/4 of a billion acres is managed by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and what is their main duty? Their duty is to insure that we have a "sustained yield" of lumber trees. What's that? If it takes a Douglas Fir trees 30 years to grow to a profitable crop then cut 1/30th of your land per year and replant each year. The Forest Service's job is to sustain wildlife. Could we have the Forest Service managers more out of touch with the reality of Sasquatch when Sasquatch reports pour in from all parts of the country along with mysterious disappearances of hikers. This is the topic so please refrain from derailing it or simply start your own topic. What is your viewpoint? If the Forest Service admitted that they know all about Sasquatch, would this close down most logging? Does sustained yield logging harm or help Sasquatch? Could the Forest bring in revenue for creating bigfoot parks and selling true life proven Bigfoot books written by their wildlife biologist. The national forest lands that are composed of 245 million acres of land mostly dedicated to commercial forest, grazing, grazing and wildlife preservation. As Norseman stated most of the lumber mills in his area have closed and the same here in Coos Bay, Oregon. Maybe someone can start a new topic on this dilemma. Forest Service incognito posters reply at will. Norseman can you please deal with chronic topic derailers?

Of anyone I might deem myself "associated with" Norseman, I would expect and trust your awareness and preperation/contingency planning to be on a level above the rest. I very been reading your perspective and experiences hunting for what, 15+ years now, and I take your word on all things hunting. Just saying in case it seemed like I was casting doubt on your statements.

^^^ JKH, yes, I know that the BFRO says at one place on their website that they believe it to be an authentic 9-1-1- tape, I'm just surprised that they don't list it as an encounter on their encounter map. Could be nothing at all. One other thing that I forgot to mention. I've spent roughly half of the last 40 years listening to people testifying and listening and looking for "tells" that they were lying so that I could find a thread to start pulling on to unravel those lies. I am pretty good at it and there are certain things that consistently tip off a memorized, made-up story.* Additionally, it's pretty hard for most laymen/laywomen to pretend to be emotionally triggered or afraid or reliving a past fear - the inflections are in the wrong place, they "over-act," they miss places where there should be an emotional response, etc., etc. It's possible that the "victim" calling 9-1-1- is a trained actor, but he sounds to me pretty much like I'd expect of an actual frightened, shocked, or surprised witness to an unexpected event. *True story, there I was, trying to tamp down a problem in a foreign country, listening through an interpreter to a cock-and-bull story about American troops being really, really mean to a person (they were actually stationed in the area to prevent ethnic cleansing against this guy and a few remaining other members of that ethnic minority). The guy had led us to a storage area above his garage or shed and listed everything that the American troops had broken, ripped, shattered, etc., and his last line was, "... and then they broke the holy icons." Now, this garage or shed looked like every garage, shed, barn, attic, outbuilding, etc., that I had ever seen in rural Pennsylvania and it was full of a lot of old stuff with dust two inches thick on everything. And it didn't help that the interpreter's tone in translating the last line sound just like a beer commercial where a guy was telling a sob story to get his buddy's bud light. I responded with a one word epithet that made it pretty clear to everyone that spoke English that I didn't believe the story. The interpreter was so stunned that he just stood there, jaw hitting the floor and I asked, "Do you need to interpret that for him?" He immediately answered, "Oh no, he knows exactly how you feel about this." Not telling this story to discuss politics, nation-building, etc., but just to point out some things that make it easier to pick out false stories - over-emoting, visual facts that don't add up to the story, and repeating the story like a kid rehearsing a poem and trying not to miss any lines. I don't hear any of that in either of the 9-1-1- calls.

I don't deal with browns like a few of you guys do it's just blacks . I've probably had at least 100 encounters with them over the years that includes on my property . I never had to use spray because they they always just run off . Just one time I had an aggressive one on my property and it was the only time I feared it was going to attack my dogs . i grabbed the spray because I kept a can at the back door because honestly I don't want to kill it if I don't have to . After a bluff charge it finally took off with my dogs barking it at it but I was armed with my pistol just in case . Most times just me waving a broom and saying get out of here works