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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.

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.

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/

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.

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.

I've always found that the number of reports coming from an area is more contingent on the number of investigators than the actual number of reports. In other words, if no one is there to investigate, sightings go unreported. If an investigator is found for that area, a bunch of reports surface. I wish there was something like I-Naturalist where people could report without going through a middleman. I fully realize the flaws, it's just a pie in the sky dream...

I'm sure this is very hard on his family and I wish them peace above all else. It's a sad loss to the community at large as well with him being one of the few credentialed individuals who took this seriously.

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.

I admired the man. He seemed like a good person, who did some very good work. He will be missed by many on this forum. Condolences to his family.

I missed that thread, darn it. But now that I read everyone’s comments, I’m feeling the warmth and camaraderie of the Forum!

Great videos PNWexplorer and BC witness. The views are magnificant and the approaches to the area amazing. It underscores how fortunate you both are to be sasquatching in the wilderness areas you go. Kindly keep up the great work you're doing.

One day the public will have definitive proof of Bigfoot. If this happens Jeff Meldrum will be viewed as a visionary. It will be mentioned how he was ahead of those colleagues who lived in his times. He became respected even among those who were skeptics and essentially modernized the study of Bigfoot. There will be a Meldrum- Patterson wing of the Smithsonian. RIP

My favorite interview it was so genuine Meldrum. RIP!

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

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

RIP, Dr. Meldrum. You'll ever be an icon to the bigfoot enthusiast community.

Yes, it does. No, that isn't accurate at all. Sasquatches stealing women and children is an old story among the aboriginal people. The story of Muchalat Harry, an indigenous man of the same era as Ostman, also exists. I'm not going to deny that sasquatches are cannibals or not, because I don't know, but chimps and Homo sapiens are (and Neanderthals accused of) ............sometimes. Therefore, I would speculate that if sasquatches exist, they might be cannibals............sometimes. But the kidnappings might happen for other reasons. Ostman himself (I believe) opined that he may have been brought as a suitor for the young female.

Did you catch my post somewhere on the forum about the drone flying above my driveway? It was the electric coop flying a lidar drone, collecting pics on vegetation in the right-of-way and easements. I'm really glad I didn't shoot it down (the impulse to do so was strong.........I guess I'm addicted to wing shooting doves too much ). I followed it to the operator and talked to him. It was a very expensive looking drone, and bigger than my impression of it while it was flying.

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

"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." 😉

I have.

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

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.........)

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

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.

Todd Standing =Red Flag.

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

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

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.

I think we have at least one, maybe more, members that have been left in the lurch on BF research teams due to the lack of pre-planning and strategic implementation of a purported detailed plan. So yah, this is serious in your face, risk your life stuff, not ready for TV necessarily at least not in the Expedition Bigfoot sense of the word.

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

Maybe it wanted her for another purpose? If its goal was only to stun her and pack her off? A lone female hiker as a mate? It’s quite possible that the reason I have never seen one in all my years was simply because it didn’t want to engage me. And I rode on by. I am not Bigfoot big, but I am large and always armed. And in years past I was packing mules. And a 18 hand mule is intimidating, and I am sitting on it. Or maybe I was just lucky? It does make a person think a bump helmet may be a good investment while out there.

You have come a long way from Churchill arming citizens with Winchester .30-30 rifles.

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