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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.

Norseman is correct. We do not know what laws apply until (or unless? :)) we have one, have DNA to test and retest. Like many here I've pondered this quite a bit. I don't think they are descended from new world monkeys or anything else that originated here. There's simply no fossil record. I think we are left with two families / themes of possibilities. First, they are a very close cousin to us, a recent split, with rapid evolution such that there are no older fossils because they didn't exist yet and the DNA is so close to ours as to appear merely contamination rather than distinct. Second, they are from a very old, very remote split and have never existed in large numbers, not for possibly hundreds of thousands of years, and they exist only in temperate forests with highly acidic soils that destroy bones / remains rather than producing fossils. I lean toward the first of those though I can't disprove the second. My best guess is, since we know there were at least 4 periods with land bridges from east Asia in the Pleistocene, that they likely crossed in one of the earlier 3, in small numbers, and somehow survived despite extreme environmental pressure. We know that small population and extreme forces of natural selection can push evolution much more quickly than it happens in a larger population. It seems the simplest solution working within the things we've already studied scientifically. I think having irrefutable DNA (which means a body .. I think) would allow us to answer a lot of questions.

Good morning Georgerm......thanks for the reply! I had an experience at my grandpa's place near Dallas in 1959 when I was 6, extremely close encounter and it could have grabbed me if it wanted, but I did get a nice smile from him, so my journey began then. My main hiking areas the last 25 years are very close to my small town, which has almost doubled in the last 5 years to 8,800, we are on the edge of the Texas Hill Country, and I have been researching what I term 'Urbanfoot's' that come into town nightly for food source, there are Cougar's and other predictors too that hunt in town, as the numerous Whitetail Deer are everywhere and quite tame, easy pickens. There are only a few ways the Hairyman can get into town undetected, and they follow the main creeks in deep ravines. Over the years I have bushwhacked my own trails and the Hairyman seems to like my work and uses them, lol. I never put any game cameras or other electronic devices out there, they are well aware of our tech so I never disrespect them with such things and guess they sort of trust me. The Urbanfoots are quite stealthy, no noise, howling or aggression in the city at night. I've been all over the country and off-shore in my research over the years, and is extremely hard to find signs going out to wild places, but the Urbanfoot's are quite predictable in their travels in and out of town, so I can really zero in on their movements. Finding tracks or sign in wild places is hard, but out here the exception is NOT finding any, every time I head out there, something cool awaits me:) There's an area with caves, pretty sure they hang there but not me, I never go to these places. WOW, great artwork! Here are some pics of the area.

Hello NorCal and it's been a while since we have spoken. I just want to say your critical thinking is an important part of Bigfoot research but another important part of Bigfoot research is not to offend the long-time posters on this forum who have dedicated hundreds of hours of Bigfoot research and posting to other people's questions. Critical thinking is important part of research and questioning people that have had experiences is very acceptable. Some people that are making up experiences. The people on this forum have the ability to sense when somebody is not being honest. Now Todd Standing's so called bigfoot picture posted on this thread looks like a teddy bear that you would buy in the department store. I am never going to pay attention or waste my time on his reports. Now I've been doing Bigfoot research ever since about 1980 when I had an up-close Sasquatch sighting. My buddy Bill, and I had cut firewood all day, and we threw our sleeping bags out on the tarp and immediately went to sleep under the stars. Maybe somebody on this forum can explain this. I was sound asleep and snapped awake about 2 in the morning, sat up in my sleeping bag, and looked straight ahead for about 100 feet. The moon had lit up the whole area, and I stared into the face of a Bigfoot that was silently peaking over a 4 ft diameter horizontal log directly at us. Was this luck or esp? I tried to wake up my friend Bill and he kept sleeping so I looked back at the bigfoot and it had disappeared. Read the rest on this report under Northwest encounters. I was so amazed at the sighting that I drew a sketch of what I saw and it's posted below. First look at my sketch below then it's up to you to make up your mind if I'm telling the truth or not. Now why did I snap awake at 2:00 in the morning when I was dead tired after cutting firewood all day long? if you want to check up on me then contact me and I will give you the phone number of my wood cutting partner and you can ask him about this. Okay now NorCal welcome to the forum and let's settle down a little bit and give some of the old-time members some basic respect. Now can you guess how many posts it takes to have five gold stars under your name? Now this shows a dedicated member and researcher of Bigfoot who is serious about this endeavor. Now I feel bad for some of our members who have several gold stars, they remain active on the forum, and they have not had the good luck to see a Bigfoot. Some animals are so rare, far and few in between that some of the best field researchers may never see one, then along comes a novice researcher like me who sees a Bigfoot . I had another novice find one time. I was about 15, and we were staying and a very isolated cabin on the lower Rogue River, and I was digging up an old tire half buried in the gravel bar looking for blue-tailed skink lizards. Well out comes this rat that looks at me and then begins jumping up and down across the Gravel Bar like a kangaroo. After researching I found out just now that it's a rare and endangered species animal called the Tipton Kangaroo Rat. Below is my sketch of the Sasquatch that I saw up my Prospect, Oregon. it looked to me like it was a young male Sasquatch that just stayed behind the log and watched us while we slept. When you think about it that was kind of spooky.

That is cool that you were able to see the museum and meet Jim. I was able to make a plaster cast of one of his largest brown bear ones, it is quite a treasure to me with the date of the course inscribed on the bottom. Jim is a great guide when searching for wolves and bears in Yellowstone too. Will message more later in the weekend. Colbert says in related news, a bear was found behind the counter of an ice cream shop in Lake Tahoe, lol. Would hate to be the clean up on aisle 1 on call person for that caper.

My favorite interview it was so genuine Meldrum. RIP!

"Patty" comes as close as you're going to get. What I've said before is that Patty was not identical to either of the two I've seen, rather, assuming her to be a middle-aged female, she is biologically correct to match the much larger male I saw in 1976 and to match the late juvenile/early adolescent I saw in 2013. If you see something that's appearance is not similar-ish to Patty, not exact, but biologically appropriate, you're not looking at a real bigfoot. And, as I've said before, I saw those before I saw the PGF, first long before, second roughly the same time. Other examples would be the Blue Mountain footage though I didn't think the heads were quite so forward-jutting as that film shows, but a pregnant female .. which those were IMHO .. might carry her body differently. MIB

We sure are. Veteran BFF troopers. I'm thoroughly fascinated by the subject, but as a Plainsman, have had no personal experiences. Thus, I don't really have much of value to add. I commented on your posting because in this day of the internet, it's generally understood that all caps posting denotes "shouting." 😉

That's a pretty exhaustive list of possibilities, but there really is no end to the possibilities. See the quote in my signature list: (........"If a person is convinced our government is in cooperation with Aliens, the sky is the limit on what else can fit that narrative." - Backdoc.........)

Meldrum wrote about a personal encounter in his Legend Meets Science book. In 1997 he had a non-visual encounter in Northern California involving something coming into his camp at night and leaving large footprints. I didn't get the impression that this experience converted him into a knower but it probably nudged him in that direction. Standing may have tipped him over the edge. I'm ambivalent on Standing. I remember watching his Discovering Bigfoot documentary and thinking he seemed to push Meldrum into supporting Standing's claim of being the Jane Goodall of Bigfoot. Standing would keep encouraging Meldrum to do things to deepen his commitment, such as put an apple in a tree, do a Bigfoot call, confirm a foot impression is a Bigfoot print, or admit that he saw that shadow and it was a Bigfoot. It all seemed suspicious to me. A couple months ago I wrote about the anatomy of a hoax, and honestly I think Standing's behavior shows a similar pattern to Hansen's regarding the Minnesota Iceman, and unfortunately I think he may have been using Meldrum's desire to believe in Bigfoot as a pathway to convert Meldrum into a champion for Standing in the Bigfoot community. As @Huntster says, though, this is all conjecture. Here's my post for those interested. I'm not above a little self-promotion. https://thesocialbigfoot.substack.com/p/the-art-of-the-hoax

Good post.

This was posted on Facebook in the North Idaho Life FB page by some lady that lives about 30 miles from me. I know that photo wasn't taken in this area, and not recently since it is far too green with too many deciduous trees. Her comment on the photo is "Barely caught the fireball in the sky". No reference to the BF in the photo. Obviously she is trolling or whatever. But I was just curious to know if anyone here is familiar with the backstory of the picture.

I was down at the family cabin and came across this broken tree. This is the third such tree I have come across in the Idaho mountains that had no rational explanation for why it was twisted and broken off at 8' above the ground. Grass around it was clearly crushed. No prints since super dry this time of year. I know these tree breaks have been attributed to Bigfoot, but can't remember the reason, or theory.

My sidearm for hunting, woods walking has been a Ruger Blackhawk .357. IF , I were to go searching for Bigfoot I would also carry a 12 gauge pump with alternating 00 and Brenneke slugs

I think we have discussed the Dennis Martin case enough in this thread. Go back and reread the OP and go from there. 👍

Sorry it's taken a while to reply. Been busy and haven't had the time to properly research and set out my thoughts. I'm also sorry that this is going to be quite long. I wasn't aware that firefighters were involved in SAR missions, but clearly, in that light, you're right that that experience certainly counts. My issue with the Dennis Martin case is that much of what seems unusual only seems so if your information comes from David Paulides either directly (from the books/movies/videos) or indirectly (as the narrative that most people relay seems to incorporate his 'take' so that 'reporting' on websites seem to also incorporate them). If you look at actual newspaper reports, NPS reports and FBI Files and documents from the time, everything seems less unusual. Harold Key and his testimony is a perfect example. According to Paulides Dennis went missing at 3:30pm and that 'the same day sometime between 4:30 and 5:30pm' Harold Key heard a scream. This is important because Bill Martin and a Park Ranger supposedly hiked the 7-9 mile trail from Spence Field to the area Harold Key identified, taking 90 minutes to do so. The problem - Dennis went missing at 4:30pm (NPS chronology and the Incident report, as well as most contemporaneous newspaper reports confirm this) and Harold Key said he heard the scream 'it must have been around 4:30 in the afternoon. I know that it couldn't have been earlier than 3:30 or later than about 5:30' - Knoxville News Sentinel 7.21.1969. 'Key said that the scream 'a trouble scream' was heard about '4 or 4:30 in the afternoon' - Kingsport Times 7.22.1969 So the scream happened around the same time Dennis went missing, was just as, if not more likely to have happened before than after he went missing, and even taking the absolute latest time of 5:30pm would only leave and hour for someone to hike and carry Dennis a trail that had taken his father 90 minutes - his father, of course, would have been hiking as quickly as possible to prove a point, given his (fully understandable) desperation to get the FBI involved. Without changing the time of the disappearance (whether purposefully to suggest foul play, or a result of the shoddiest investigation/reporting of a fundamental fact possible, who can say?), the whole Harold Key testimony becomes irrelevant, exactly as the Rangers and FBI assessed. Remember also that Harold Key came forth on the July 20/21 1969. Green Beret help was requested June 15, and they had left by June 26. The Green Beret deployment couldn't be a result of Key's testimony because he wouldn't go on to tell anyone for well over a month after they were deployed and at a time when they'd left almost 4 weeks earlier. The idea of a man running and carrying something on his shoulder also seems to come from Paulides and Paulides only. He says that he interviewed Bill Martin (although Mrs Martin told Michael Bouchard later, after Bill Martin's death, that she had no recollection of any such interview) and that 'Mr Martin stated that the Keys had thought they saw a dark figured man running along a ridgeline carrying something on his shoulder.' So David Paulides says that Bill Martin said that Harold Key said there was a guy running with something on his shoulder. Only none of that appears in the NPS or FBI reports or crucially the newspaper reports. That means that Harold Key decided to come forward to try to help and either left out the most crucial part when talking to the press, or the press decided against publishing the most intriguing part of the story. Seems unlikely in the extreme. In addition to that, Bill Martin, who it seems to me from reviewing the FBI files and various newspapers, was of course desperate to get the FBI involved, didn't bother to mention to the newspapers, NPS or FBI that there was this evidence that would point toward a kidnapping and therefore probably get the FBI involved, exactly what he wanted? I don't buy it. There was a taped interview (see page 35 FBI documents) where Bill Martin 'speculated foul play ...but furnished no basis for this inference'. There's a letter in the NPS files (pg69) from Bill Martin to a Mr Hartsog complaining of not being informed of Mr Key's story before the press and before Mr Key showed the FBI and NPS where he was on that day. In it he states that he has spoken to Mr Key 'long distance several times. He complains that some descriptions of foliage and terrain, as reported by the newspaper, was incorrect. He did not complain that none of the NPS, FBI or newspapers made any mention of a person 'carrying something on his shoulder', which is again exactly the type of information that would likely have got him exactly what he was so desperate for. And those are his own written words. My take is that the man Harold Key saw was probably up to no good - moonshining as Harold Key thought, illegal ginseng harvesting like the later man who found bones, or something else. But it seems certain that it had nothing to do with Dennis Martin. That obviously doesn't mean that it's impossible that an off the gird mountain man didn't take Dennis because obviously nobody knows for certain. But it still seems infinitely more likely that a 6 year old got turned around in the forest, got lost and in the pouring rain and wind succumbed to hypothermia o, was attacked by an animal or fell down a crevice or into a stream. By all accounts 56 square miles had been searched by 6.23.1969. That equates to a circle with a radius of 4.22 miles. In 9 days. Meaning that the search assumed (or at least was not able to expand beyond) a possible distance of less than half a mile a day. As mentioned in a previous post, a conservative estimate of movement of 1mph would give a search area of over 450 square miles before the search had even really begun. Regarding the possibility of abduction by mountain men and Green Berets being deployed because of the threat, a few thoughts struck me while researching and thinking about this. If the Green Berets were deployed because of any such threat, it would require collusion between anyone at the NPS who had contributed to or seen the NPS chronology (so that it was faked), the FBI and anyone within it who knew about the threat of such mountain men and the military, including all those involved in deploying or searching with the Green Berets, with not one single person speaking out in over 50 years. Possible? Maybe. Probable? Would the authorities, knowing of the threat, allowed civilian volunteers to search the very areas that these mountain men were thought to predate on? In particular, if the authorities thought that a mountain man took a small child, would they allow the boy scouts to search remote places in the vicinity? Would the authorities send in the Green Berets to 'take out' a threat in an area that was being actively searched by hundreds if not thousands of people who might see or hear them doing exactly that? If they did suspect a Kari Swenson type situation, why hide it (in the official records that wouldn't be available to the public, not 'why wouldn't they announce it to the press at the time?')? My (very basic) look at that case doesn't suggest that they hid that case . If they turned out to be right they'd be heroes for finding the boy or giving the family closure (they could obviously come up with a 'they pulled their guns first' type story if necessary to cover for eliminating them if they found Dennis). If they thought so, but turned out wrong, who would care that they were extra precautious? If there are mountain men out there, off the grid, why would the authorities assume that they were murderous child snatchers? And wouldn't the search by thousands have found their dwellings? To me, although as I say, it isn't entirely impossible that Dennis was taken, any scenario other than him getting lost and falling foul to weather or animals, means making leaps in logic that aren't supported by any factual basis. It means saying 'everyone, the FBI, NPS, newspapers and military, is lying to you to persuade you that the very probably happened, whereas what actually happened was the very unlikely, for which I have no real proof'. Anyway, that's my 2 cents/pence, an eye opener for me only in the sense that I don't feel I have to look much further into the M411, given that the case that is often held as the flag bearer for the theory falls apart as soon as you start checking things for yourself.

Thank you for your reply Firefighting is a noble career and I'm sure that you've made a lot of people's lives better and safer, but I don't see how that's relevant to this particular discussion. I should say, I'm from the UK and nothing in our fire service's experience would necessarily be relevant but I accept that your services are different so I may be wrong. You seem to accept that there wasn't a kidnapping ( I say "seem" because it looks like your paragraph may be a case of "even if you accept this is true, how do you explain this?" and I don't want to put words in your mouth or suggest you accept/concede something that you don't). That said, I disagree completely with your evaluation. You say 'you're telling me there is nothing strange about 1000s of people searching for a 5 year old boy that had a five minute head start and cannot find him?' but that's not what happened. He went missing at 4:30pm. His father and a few other people started searching for him within 3-5 minutes (the details are sketchy). They were searching in terrain that, outside the field and off the trail, which is the terrain he went missing, is reported as being dense forest ('so thick is the green growth of trees that a squirrel could go from Gatlinburg to Cherokee, N.C some 30 miles over the mountain, without ever having to touch ground' - The Tennessean 6.20.1969), ('[Dennis] became separated after plunging into the thick tangle of forest and underbrush, home of black bears, wild hogs, and snakes' - Kingsport Times 6.16.1969) He wasn't reported missing to the Rangers for 4 hours, at 8:28pm. Some few people (no reports I have found state a firm number) searched during the night, during which there was significant rainfall. The first actual, co-ordinated search started at 5am the next day. According to the NPS report, this consisted of somewhere between 50 and 80 people (it's not clear whether 'leaders' were included in the count of searchers or were additional). In any event, some 12+ hours after he went missing, fewer than 100 people were looking for him (assume the higher number of 80 and add in family, who let's assume weren't counted as 'searchers' by the NPS). This is a million miles away from 1000s looking for him within 5 minutes. Assume he could move a conservative 1mph, over 12 hours, that would give a potential search area of 452m2. Slightly smaller than Los Angeles City limits, but covered in dense forest, rivers, caves and crevices. It would be a minor miracle if they did find him! The number of searchers for 6.16.1969 was approx 300, 6.17.1969 was 365 etc. The only day over 1,000 was 6.21.1969, a full week after his disappearance. As for the Green Berets - from the NPS report '[Ranger Mike] Myers also contacted U.S. Forest Service District Ranger on the Nantahala, who in turn made contact with Col. Kinney, commanding the Special Forces troops in that area. Col. Kinney requested and obtained permission from the Third Army Headquarters at Ft Benning, Georgia, to transfer 40 Special Forces to the search area. - 6.15.1969 I can't see anything suggesting that the Green Berets 'kept adding to their force.' They seem to have added 22 men on 6.18.1969, although I admit the seem to have had 71 by 6.25.1969 33 left the search on 6.25.1969 with the remaining 38 leaving the next day. It is mentioned in the NPS report and news papers that they were 'in the area' and familiar with the type of terrain in the area due to having been deployed in Vietnam. I understand that Green Berets don't get involved in SAR on a regular basis, but if they're available, and if this, as was obviously the case, caught the public imagination, why not? Are you willing to suggest why you think the Green Berets were involved? Absent another, better, theory, I don't see why the logical reason put forth shouldn't be accepted.

^^ Yep, retired Army, both because I had a decent CYA reflex and I listened to my civilian employees as my career went on. You are absolutely correct, all of this would be a Garrison Commander problem, not a 2-star or higher problem. Boy would I have love to be sitting in on that conversation between the Garrison CO and whoever was the major command commander. ("Well, sir, I"m not saying its "Bigfoot," ... but it's "Bigfoot.")

Because they're anal and, by nature, insecure. If there is something going on in their area of authority, they want to (1) know what is going on, and (2) control it. That's just who and what they are. All true. Sasquatches really aren't much trouble for anybody, on post or not. You get the occasional person getting freaked out, but that's about it. They're the perfect creature to ignore. You're correct. I bolded the civilian part because it's important. I know you're an Army guy (career?). I was a Public Works (DEH, DFE. etc) guy, exterior. The Natural Resources Officer is a civilian guy (at least on Ft. Richardson). The civilians are the continuity, and the Command bring the agenda. I suspect that when the first report of a Sasquatch on Ft. Lewis that got to the Post Commander (not the Commanding General), "a re-write" was immediately ordered because he WAS NOT going to be "the guy" to bring this up to the major command........and this is just how it has gone forward. "People in government" know" but "government" (as a total organization) doesn't.......because they don't want to. (That said, yes, the Commanding General most likely got briefed behind closed doors by the Post Commander...........because that's how those guys roll..........)

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.

I full believe that our government knows full well what these beings are. I don't believe for a second that has anything to do with shutting down commercial forestry or access to the forest. Biologists only know about the animals they have studied. This has more to do with religion, social upheaval and the government maintaining control.

Not "most." About 50/50. The other half allow you to shoot, at any time, anything not specifically regulated. My state is one of these.

Nothing that dramatic. Employee X, you are reminded that you are not permitted to speak as to the official government position. You may talk all you want about Bigfoot, Bigfoot, Bigfoot, but you must make clear that all opinions expressed in this interview, podcast, blog, etc., represent your personal views and do not represent the official view of the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S government, or any U.S. government agency. These are standard instructions for federal employees engaging in outside employment or volunteer work or outside speaking engagements (e.g., acting as an adjunct professor at a local college). Failure to follow those instructions may result in a wide range of disciplinary actions, ranging from an oral or written reprimand to being fired, depending on the nature of the violation. So Employee X is not fired because he says "Bigfoot is real," he's fired for ignoring the instructions or directions given him by his supervisor. I don't know of any case directly on point, but law enforcement personnel would want to remain silent to avoid being impaired during future testimony. For example, if FBI investigator Y states on live TV, "I saw Bigfoot run across the road in front of my official vehicle," that statement will be used to impeach that investigator every time she testifies. So, at most a smart investigator would say, "Well, something ran in front of my vehicle, but I was not able to identify the animal." Not saying that either of the above is fair, but that's what would happen. +++++++++++++++++++++++ Norse, okay, thanks, I see what you were getting at now.