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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.

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.

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.

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

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

Todd Standing =Red Flag.

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.

I don't believe that. Norse is 100% correct: It has to be a carcass, and delivered........to somebody........ Photographic evidence is as worthless as testimony. If the Patterson film, complete with casted footprint evidence, site visits by several independent parties afterwards, and in a location with a 12 year history of footprints (that exact size and shape) and sightings isn't enough to get government or Science to invest a hoot, forget photography.

^^^ Answered on p.25, 15 pages ago. "A Green Beret presence for a missing child is unprecedented." This is why I like primary sources – the Wikipedia article on the Dennis Martin disappearance has several links to contemporaneous newspaper articles on this case and the Case Study at fn 17 talks about the Green Berets as well. The SF Soldiers were already in the area for training. Could have been a Q course class (don’t know where they did those in the 60s) or it could have been a Group just training in the deep woods, but it does not appear that they were sent there to look for DM. They were there, and in an on-the-spot decision, decided to train by searching from what I can see in those reports. Unless there was a government coverup to hide why they were .... oh wait, wrong thread!!

... they're lying by omission.... Man, you just dated yourself!! :-) Young'uns should brace for seeing the world in black-and-white... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9H_cI_WCnE

Glad to see the BFforum back, was getting worried.....will start posting some back logged photos, here are some interesting impressions, from small to large.

I see that the old thread on this subject has been locked, probably because I've been lazy about posting to it in over a year, so here we go with a new one. Please feel free to tell us about any outings that you make, whether for serious research, or just to get out there and enjoy nature's beauty. You don't have to give specific locations, but a general idea of the place would be nice, and pictures even better. I'll kick it off with my group's most recent one, today, Sunday, July 15th. Our usual small group of 4 has made a number of trips into the field in the past year, some to investigate sightings, and others to look for evidence, and today's was a combination of both. Our first objective was to visit the scene of a sighting that was just recently reported to Thomas by an acquaintance of his from the Harrison Lake region. Unfortunately, it occurred about a year ago, so there was no expectation of finding any hard evidence, but we did want to check out the site to get a feel for the story. The witness had been canoeing on a small lake about 5km north of Hwy 7, between Mission and Hope, and reported seeing a large dark figure cross a rocky area at the north end of the lake. That was all we knew of the event as we drove to that lake today. We stopped along the west shore of the lake, to look north for the rocky area he had mentioned. There are a couple of rock outcrops on the east shore, accessible only by canoe, and another exposed rockface higher on the steep slope on the north end of the lake, beyond the marshy shore there. We continued along the logging road on the west side, and a few hundred meters past the marsh, found a deactivated road, blocked by large boulders, heading east across the rise at the end of the lake. Thomas and I parked, and hiked in on that trail, soon finding ourselves crossing the base of the rockface that is visible from the lake. We came to the conclusion that the witness had probably seen someone/something walking the same path we were on. Thomas plans to contact the witness again, to confirm that we were in the spot where he saw the figure, so this is still inconclusive. After heading back to the highway for lunch, the others headed home, but I wanted to check out an area I hadn't been able to access for about 3 years, due to a locked gate at the branch I wanted to explore. Today the gate was open, with a warning that it is an active logging block, and the gate is locked at sunset. I still had lots of time, so I proceeded to the end of both the north and south branches of the roads along the large creek valley. There is plenty of good habitat in this valley, though the fact that it is currently being logged has likely spooked most wildlife deep into the forests. I'll definitely come back here a year or two after the loggers are done, and see what sign can be found in there. Some pics of the top end of the side valley, taken from the active cutting site:

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.

My favorite interview it was so genuine Meldrum. RIP!

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.

"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

I have.

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.

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

From the FBI contemporaneous files - internal memo July 1969 'Park Officials have noted the attitude of Williams Martin has undergone marked change from time when he was frantically searching for his child and appreciative of all help rendered. He has increasingly come under the influence of visionaries, is unwilling to accept fact his child is dead, and prefers to believe child has been kidnaped and might yet be found alive'. This statement strikes me as being very callous and heartless. It does however, suggest that Mr Martin didn't 'always' maintain that his son was kidnapped, but entirely understandably, hung on to any hope he could find, which, as time went on and it was clear that he couldn't have survived alone in the wilderness for such length, latching on to the idea of kidnap. Again, there's no judgement here, I would almost certainly have done the same. Even if he had always believed that there was kidnap involved, a desperate father in emotional turmoil and probably blind panic likely isn't the best, most objective assessor of the situation. Trying to imagine how I would feel in his shoes, I certainly wouldn't trust my objective assessment of anything. Even then, if you do accept that he could think about it rationally and always believed it was a kidnapping, a belief, however strongly held, does not make it a fact. The fact is that there was never any credible information regarding a kidnapping. From the NPS chronology 'He [Bill Martin] quickly went west on the AT as far as Little Bald (Approximately 1 mile) and returned thinking Dennis might be back to the others. He then went west again on the AT to Russell Field, 2.5 miles, and returned to Spence Field.' I have no idea how long this might have taken him, but clearly Dennis hadn't gone west along the trail or his father would have found him. As such, we don't know where he went. But we do know that in the immediate aftermath, only the westbound trail was searched by his father. It seems from the chronology that, at least until Rangers arrived (some time after being notified at 8:28pm) only trails were searched. The first mention of searching the immediate area around where he was last seen comes with Rangers involved. The mention also comes after the first mentions of the heavy rainfall and mention that 'All streams were high and turbulent.' We know Dennis was off trail and looping around when last seen. Unless he got back on to a trail, no one was looking off trail until at least 8:30 in pouring rain and coming darkness. It was followed up on and the FBI didn't 'do nothing'. They visited the site with the witness. The timeframe is everything here. I've shown you, with sources quoted, that the scream happened at the same time, up to an hour before and certainly no later than an hour after Dennis went missing 90 minutes away. The FBI, with the Rangers, did what was necessary to conclusively establish that the encounter was completely unrelated to Dennis' disappearance and therefore not credible evidence of a kidnapping and therefore outside of the FBI's authority. You've provided no evidence or sources to suggest otherwise. No they don't, but plenty of forest animals make noises that could potentially be mistaken for a scream. Men who don't want to be seen or approached also have the potential to scream. There's simply no reason to believe that the scream was Dennis given that it would be impossible for him to be there, and you've provided nothing to suggest why it should be considered him. I absolutely agree that people were evicted to establish the park. Where you lose me is the leap that some haven't left, that the NPS/FBI would leap to the conclusion that they were child abductors, certainly responsible for a kidnapping (for which there is no evidence of kidnap anyway) and in collusion with the military, send in the Green Berets to take them out. Again, you've provided nothing to back up those huge assumptions and leaps in logic. I don't know why. I have given you quotes and sources for why they were included in this particular search. I've also suggested a logical answer to your question - that is that they weren't previously training in the local area at a time when a massive public SAR was happening and required the exact skills that the Green Berets had experience of and were currently training for. The NPS documents suggest improvements that could be made to SAR procedures, including using fewer searchers and concentrating on ones with specific knowledge of the area and tracking skills. 'could this have precluded using Green Berets in future? Again, I'm not stating that I know for certain, but it sure seems more likely than sending them in to take out mountain men or 'feral' humans in front of hundreds of potential civilian witnesses based on no evidence of wrongdoing. You're the one making an assertion that the official line is false and that there was another reason for the use of Green Berets, but you haven't provided anything to back it up. The FBI and NPS documents show that the 'Search admittedly was not absolute. This is extremely rugged terrain covered with heavy brush and woods and contains many deep crevices and sink holes.' As I have shown, the search covered 56 square miles by the end of the 9th day, meaning a search radius of 4.22 miles, not covered absolutely. I've also shown that with a speed of 1mph, by the time the co-ordinated search started on the morning after he went missing, Dennis could have been anywhere within a 450 square mile area. With a speed of 1mph, by the time the first Rangers and family started searching off trail that night, Dennis would have been at the outer edges of what was searched, but not absolutely, by the end of the 9th day. Any bear/cougar could have dragged him into an area not accessible for human searching, or outside the outer edges of what was searched. Your point also doesn't deal with the potential for accident, being washed away in those streams that were 'high and turbulent' even on that first night, or those sink holes, crevices and any other areas that couldn't be searched within, let alone without the search radius. You are stating things as a certainty, when they are absolutely not certain, then using that as a launchpad for a vague conspiracy that has no supporting facts and without providing any evidence or sources to back it up. This seems disingenuous to me. You say you have no dog in the fight, but keep repeating that the Harold Key encounter indicates something nefarious, in particular a kidnapping. You mentioned a 'mangy' human carrying something through the woods. I asserted that that was incorrect and provided quotes and reasoning, as well as showing how the encounter couldn't be relevant unless you accepted 411's false timeline. You didn't dispute my assertions or provide anything to disprove them but rather repeated the description of a mangy man carrying something through the woods that seems to be a Paulides fabrication, and use that fabrication as a reason to doubt the FBI assessment and thereby suggest some further conspiracy. You also mentioned Paulides in your first post on this thread and asserted on the 411 thread that he wasn't lying. You say that the case is well known 'because of the oddities associated with it' but on the 411 thread state that 'the fact still remains that without Paulides I would have no clue about Dennis Martin' and many of the oddities that you have listed and repeated are based on Paulides' untruths. My distrust of Paulides is not bias, it is a rational assessment of his reliability, or lack thereof, to accurately present the facts, some of which I have demonstrated in this thread, and which distrust is widely shared and proven elsewhere regarding this and other cases. I truly do not have a dog in the fight, I have satisfied myself of Paulides' unreliability and would be more than happy to discuss the case without any reference to him whatsoever. However, that is not possible until his inaccuracies are removed from the discussion, and at present, some of your arguments seem based on them, and you have provided no evidence or other sources to back up those arguments.

I tried to be clear on this but maybe I wasn't clear enough - it is entirely reasonable and expected for Bill Martin to de everything he possibly could to find his son and to get as many people and organisations as possible involved in helping him do that, in particular the FBI given their resources and their investigative powers and expertise involved, just as he did. I have a son of about the same age and would certainly do everything I could think of in those circumstances. Doug Martin (not the brother, the friend who was playing with Dennis just prior to his disappearance) said that his family had gone back some 3 years later and bumped into the grandfather Clyde, who said that he had been walking those trails every weekend for those years just because he couldn't give up. I suspect I would be the same. The pain must be unimaginable, made all the worse for not knowing. That's what makes distorting the facts to generate conspiracy in order to in turn profiteer off that pain and the almost certain death of a small boy all the worse. You seem to be still stuck in the false narrative of M411. The FBI didn't 'dismiss' the report. They met with Harold Key and Park officials on site to follow up. They accepted the Rangers' assessment that the scream was too far away to be relevant given the timeline. Harold Key, as far as I can find in newspaper reports and the NPS and FBI files, never called the man he saw 'mangy', 'hairy', 'dishevelled', 'unkempt' or anything else of that nature, just 'a man'. And no one was seen 'packing something through the woods'. This came out in Paulides' account some 50 years later. As I mentioned in my previous post, and as above, clearly Bill Martin was doing everything he could to get the FBI involved as was his right and duty. It's therefore all the more striking that he wasn't shouting from the rooftops to the FBI, the governor he wrote to and the newspapers about this man, if he was indeed carrying something. The only logical explanation is that Harold Key never actually said that that's what he saw. As much as Bill Martin (indeed anyone in that situation) might want to believe that their child was kidnapped so as to hold on to the hope that he might still be alive, and as much as he might wish to persuade the FBI that this was the kidnapper, the actual facts were that: Harold Key reported hearing a scream and seeing a man. This was most likely at the same time as Dennis went missing, possibly up to 60 minutes before, and no later than 60 minutes after. This was 90 minutes (fast hike, not carrying a struggling child) away. There's nothing odd about concluding that it wasn't relevant or credible evidence of any kidnapping of Dennis. In fact, by placing this man a minimum 90 minutes away within a max 60 mins of disappearance, it actually constitutes an alibi! I didn't say that the man was 'mangy' (see above for my thoughts on that) or that he was necessarily operating a still or picking ginseng. I offered those as examples given Harold Key's initial thought and the fact that there was an admitted illegal ginseng harvester in the area some years later, so that could be plausible. What I said was that he was probably up to no good, which was based on his making his way away from the Keys asap. it could be something else as I said, and it doesn't necessarily have to be illegal either. But it does seem that he didn't want to be approached. The one thing I do know beyond all reasonable doubt that he wasn't kidnapping Dennis Martin. If the Park Service believed there were unscrupulous bad actors in the Park, I'm quite sure they wouldn't immediately jump to 'I know this guy brews moonshine/picks ginseng, so with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I'm going to assume he's also a child abductor'. I'm also pretty sure that the FBI wouldn't go along with it, assume authority and open up an investigation despite the fact that the timeline makes it impossible for this man to be involved anyway. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by 'feral people'. I'm assuming the 'more animal than man', cannibalistic, never touched by civilisation, type rumoured without verifiable evidence to live in the smoky mountains. But the video you posted doesn't show that kind of person - the first home shown belonged to a Mr Patterson who was Sheriff of the County, and a Mr Rust, a Warden, with a picture shown of him and his perfectly clean and well dressed children. A far cry from 'feral'. The Kari Swenson and Claude Dallas cases you previously mentioned dealt with people who wanted to live off grid in isolation but certainly not 'feral'. If dealing with the off grid isolation type person, why jump straight to the conclusion that they are child abductors and send the Green Berets after them without any evidence of wrongdoing? Note that as previously stated the Key testimony came over a month after the Green Berets had been deployed so it can't be that they were deployed because of that testimony, it would have to be a practically instant conclusion that it was abduction from within the Park. If dealing with the 'feral humans' why conduct a Green Beret take out mission in the middle of the most public, best attended SAR mission ever? The picture you give of a draconian Park Service that would certainly know of a single moonshining operation and who would never allow it to stand, also doesn't really tally for me with the idea of 'who and the heck knows what is inside that park' and the existence of people (whether feral or off grid types) who the park would instantly suspect in a child disappearance but who would also be either unknown or tolerated within the park. I'd also again make the point that if the NPS/FBI/Military had such a strong and instant belief that there were people living within the Park snatching children, they wouldn't be likely to send boy scout out looking for them. Not to mention the point I made about someone out of the thousands that took part in the SAR surely coming across some evidence of a dwelling for such Park dwellers if it existed. The Green Beret presence has been explained - nearby on training, able to continue the same type of training as would be necessary whilst also assisting in the search for a missing child in a case that caught the public attention, and at the request of the NPS. I know they don't get involved in SAR routinely, but how often would they be training for similar terrain in Vietnam, at the same time and next to an SAR mission that required exactly the skills they had and were training? On the flip side, if sending the Green Berets in is what the military does when it suspects foul play, does it follow that no other case could be considered as involving foul play given that the Green Berets weren't sent in? As I said, it's impossible to completely rule out kidnapping given that we don't know for certain what happened. But the obvious, probable answer is getting turned around, and some natural (weather or animal based) death befalling him. One of the SAR volunteers actually fell off a bridge and broke his arm and might well have been done for were he not surrounded by other SAR individuals, so the idea that it wouldn't be likely for a small boy in the dark, pouring rain and high winds doesn't stack. The case just doesn't need unfounded conspiracy heaped upon unfounded conspiracy to explain (unless of course there are books to sell).

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.

Welcome to the Bigfoot Forum.

Where is your proof of this accusation?

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..........)

Bears are a lot smarter than folks think. But their bully attitudes and unsatiable appetite overwhelms their intelligence.

#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.

If we had that home-run video footage it still might not be the earthquake shift I would hope it to be. I fit into the category of "undecided lean real" Bigfoot status. I call it addition by subtraction. That is, I do not know if Bigfoot exists or not. But those who are skeptics have done such a poor job proving the PGF is a hoax it makes me lean toward it being real. If Roger Patterson was on trial for the PGF being a hoax, I would say there is not any evidence offered to convict him. This suggests the PGF must be real. Yet, IF there was some home-run recreation I would go where the facts take me and say, "Yep, it's probably fake" Absent that, it suggests the opposite. If I can't be 100% convinced (!) and I have a big intertest in the PGF, I don't expect this skeptic to be. I just want to know the truth. Then, I can move on to the next mystery.

From Outside Online, July 2016. It's a long article; the full .pdf is attached. The Outside Online website at https://www.outsideonline.com/featured offers good information on a variety of outdoor activities. Who knows, they may even have more Bigfoot articles. 2016 Outside Online Article.pdf

Or said sasquatch cause bodily harm to John Wick's puppy. Things you don't want to do, like spitting in the wind.......

^^ Funny, I think aliens traveling near earth (if they exist) see us as the microbes in the petri dish.

I confess I have NEVER considered Bigfoot any kind of "Human". I never thought of Bigfoot as a ape-like MAN. I have always thought of Bigfoot as a man-like APE. Because of this, I have never really considered any ramifications of bigfoot being essentially human. If I gave it some deeper thought, I honestly don't know what I would believe about how it would affect government, society, laws, and so on. It could very well change my mind. Coming from the Bigfoot-is-an-animal mindset, it makes sense how I- and anyone who sees Bigfoot the same way- could dismiss any high level of concern government and Bigfoot. Anyone with my bias is going to conclude the same thing. I never really considered another possibility.

If a person is convinced our government is in cooperation with Aliens, the sky is the limit on what else can fit that narrative. This position makes it much easier to believe any action needed downstream from that same government. If I don't happen to believe the Aliens-Government thing at all as we both know. This makes me less likely to believe the government knows about Bigfoot and is keeping it quiet. I can agree our government would do some of the things you might imagine involving areas of National Security. Again, the Magnitude is the defining issue. The funny thing is I am more than willing from my perspective to open the door to your position provided I was given a good enough reason the issue raising to a level like national security. (There is that darn Magnitude again). Once someone is convinced of the Close Encounters world, anything they dream up is always possible. Such a foundational belief makes your type of conclusions much easier to believe. Since I am convinced our government WOULD do a massive UFO cover up should they exist, I just happen to require any other issue rises to that level. It is all about the magnitude, as it should be. It's not "silly" at all. I respect where you are coming from. I don't know how else to say it but I don't buy the first thing (Government-Alien-Connection) so I can't buy the second thing (Government coving up Bigfoot). If one buys the first thing then they have the mental currency to buy just about anything. I have found sometimes discussing these things with those convinced came come across as an attack on what they happen to believe. This isn't the case. It's just a respectful disagreement.

Hmmm. It always come back to Theodore Roosevelt. Now I'll be binge listening to the Bauman incident tonight.....Again