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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...

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

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.

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.

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

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/

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.

Government silence: There was an old skit from Saturday Night Live back in the 1970s where President Carter becomes giant from a Pepsi spill on the control panel at a nuclear energy factory. Once President Carter becomes nearly 100Ft tall (from radiation poisoning) reporters ask the government questions. Here is the governments answer: Female Reporter #1: Yes, is it true that the president is 100 feet tall? Ross Denton: Nooooo! Absolutely not! Male reporter #3: Is the president 90 feet tall? Ross Denton: No comment. OK, maybe a non- answer IS an answer after all. :-)

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.

Are you angry?

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.

The salmon fishing in Oregon has maintained a good level on some Rivers like the Rogue River where they have an Oregon Hatchery up by Shady Cove. I live on the Coquille River in southern Oregon, and the salmon fishing is still holding up but they closed it down early. All we can do is the best we can since we don't know how many bigfoots are out there and we don't know if they are starving due to the lack of salmon. My guess is the Bigfoot are doing okay because there are plenty of deer here in Oregon and I've heard that when they begin to get really hungry they'll take out cows. This may be a way to gauge how hungry the bigfoots are getting. I took some of the latest Bigfoot Research Organizations data showing Bigfoot action in Oregon, and there are recent reports which is a good sign. My guess is the bigfoots are remaining healthy as long as the forest service keeps up its present sustained yield logging quota. Now some of the forest service roads are being gated off so if they ever start studying Bigfoot, they can use this method to keep up Bigfoot numbers and to keep people out of their habitats. With sustained yield logging which means as Forest are cut down the clear-cut areas are replanted so there are always trees that are growing and the mature ones get cut down. In the clear cut areas there's a number of various foods that Bigfoot easily survives on such as huckleberry, deer and Elk. I also believe and sometime it will be proven that if an area becomes void of food such as rivers that have reduced salmon populations then the Bigfoots are mobile enough and they move into different areas where food is more plentiful. Now an example of this is the Rogue River that has a lot of boat traffic during all seasons of the year, and I believe the Bigfoot avoid this area. They can move over a mountain ranges, and there will be less people and some of the rivers there have fish hatcheries. The salmon population can remain stable providing the state of Oregon secures its funds to keep the fish hatcheries viable. February 2025, Jackson County (Class B) - LAST FRIDAY: BIgfoot knocks heard in mountains 28 miles NE of Medford August 2023, Clackamas County (Class B) - Backpackers on east flank of Mt Hood hear volleys of loud knocks between 12am and 3am August 2023, Clackamas County (Class B) - Solo female backpacker reports sasquatch vocals and knocks at 3am at Timothy Lake, 18mi S of Mt. Hood

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.

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.

Welcome to the Bigfoot Forum.

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.

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

Dr Meldrum’s wife just announced his unfortunate passing. We were presenters alongside Dr Meldrum at the recent Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference and found him to be a very kind and engaging person. The Bigfoot community has lost one of its most valuable proponents.