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2nd Annual Nebraska Bigfoot Conference


slabdog

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What a great time at the 2nd Annual Nebraska Bigfoot Conference today!

 

Bob Gimlin and Cliff Barackman could not have been kinder to my 7 year old son and everyone else in attendance.

 

Great job!

 

Very well run conference!

 

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Wish I could have attended, Slabdog. Maybe next year!

 

From state's largest newspaper:

 

HASTINGS, Neb. — It took 47 years, but this weekend 63-year-old Marshall Garner stood up in public and told the story of when he and a buddy saw a Bigfoot sprinting across a Sand Hills alfalfa patch.

He said he’d kept the story mostly to himself due to harassment from his neighbors in Sheridan and Grant Counties.

“They’d ask if I’d seen any monsters lately,” Garner said. “Or what were you guys drinkin’?”

 

But at the Second Annual Bigfoot Conference this weekend in this central Nebraska city, the gray-bearded retiree, as well as some of the best-known names in the Sasquatch world, spoke freely.

 

Almost 400 people attended the event on Saturday, well short of the 1,000 organizers had hoped for. But it was about 100 more than last year, when a local retiree, Harriett McFeely, launched the event because she’d grown tired of driving elsewhere for seminars on Sasquatch.

 

This year, Hastings seized on the opportunity to bring “squatchers” from out of town on a chilly February weekend. There was a Bigfoot cocktail contest earlier in the week, and you could buy the “Bigfoot special” at the local coffee shop. The local Ford dealer allowed people to pose with a big, four-wheeled “Bigfoot” pickup truck.

 

At the conference, it was all Sasquatch all the time. Speakers spoke of encounters and footprint impressions. Vendors sold Bigfoot bumper stickers, T-shirts and mugs. Sasquatch action figures and neon-colored night lights were also for sale, and a numbered Nebraska Sasquatch “hunting license” could be had for $3.

 

“We’ve sold out of a lot of things,” said Irene Rogge of Hastings at a booth selling Sasquatch souvenirs.

 

Like Garner, there were a lot of true believers in the audience, but also some doubters of the existence of the hairy, 7-foot creature, which seems to be a trendy subject for advertisements and cable TV shows.

 

Curiosity called Steve Wagner of Lincoln, and a buddy and their two sons, to the festival en route to a youth basketball tournament in Kearney.

 

“If there’s validity to it, why are all the films so fuzzy?” asked Wagner as he listened to a speaker. Yet, he added, so many people are certain about what they saw.

 

“Or made up,” chimed in 12-year-old Alex Feauto, who was along for the ride to the basketball tournament.

 

Me, I’m rooting for Bigfoot. I mean, what breaks up a slow news day better than a sighting of Sasquatch?

 

Yet, as I watched a documentary about Bob Gimlin, one of the cowboys who filmed the famous footage of a Bigfoot named “Patty” along a California stream back in 1967, I wondered: Why is the best recorded evidence 50 years old? Doesn’t everyone have a smartphone these days? Wouldn’t someone have shot a cellphone video by now?

 

One of the stars of Saturday’s Sasquatch show, Cliff Barackman of the cable TV program “Finding Bigfoot,” was among those who told me that shooting video of the big hairy hominoid isn’t so easy. And many people, like Garner, aren’t so willing to step out in the spotlight (or show video they shot) due to the stigma attached.

 

To be sure, two middle-aged people from Omaha didn’t want their names in the paper for driving halfway across the state for a Sasquatch seminar.

“My girlfriends wouldn’t come with me,” said one woman.

 

Garner — whose ball cap said “Cowboy Fast Draw Association” — also didn’t want his hometown identified. But he knows what he saw.

He and a buddy were driving through pastures one March night spotlighting coyotes. Pelts were selling for up to $7 back then, said Garner, who was a sophomore in high school.

 

As he went to open a gate into an alfalfa field, his buddy sternly told him to “get back in the car … there’s something there looking at you.”

After learning his buddy wasn’t joking, a spotlight was trained on a stack of irrigation pipe about 30 feet away.

There, towering over the 6-foot-high stack of pipe, was a brownish black creature, blinking into the bright spotlight.

“I was terrified,” Garner said.

 

After deciding against trying to shoot whatever it was in the spotlight, his buddy honked the horn, sending the creature sprinting into Sand Hills too rugged for the station wagon they were driving.

 

“It went over a four-wire fence like a world-class hurdler,” Garner said.

This weekend, he could tell his story, sitting in an auditorium filled with people who, unlike his ranching neighbors, had more open minds about the mysterious, and many say mythical, beast.

“I don’t try to convince other people, but there’s nobody going to convince me I didn’t see one,” Garner said.

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I didn't talk to Bob directly. He was always surrounded by fans and he was very gracious with everybody. I'll probably start a thread about Bob's movie soon.

I also enjoyed the conference and am pretty sure I'll be back next year. I got some good information on places to hang my recorders now that I'm in Nebraska for good.

Was surprised and happy to find an old squatching buddy from Wisconsin there.

 

Bob at the start of his presentation

NBC Bob and Harriet.jpg

 

All the presenters

NBC Presenters.jpg

Edited by Redbone
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The chairs got uncomfortable... Some people went up to the stadium type seats in the balcony. Next year I may do the same...

 

They asked for help supporting Bob's Movie - Link Here  https://www.facebook.com/thebigfootmovie/

All proceeds go to Bob if they can sell it to a streaming service...

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Last year was fun but this year was a huge improvement.

 

Well organized.

 

Great vendors too.

 

Lord, my kid probably talked me into dropping $250 on BF swag.  

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I had no idea there were several members here in/from NE.  I grew up and lived in NE for over 30 years ago before moving to Montana in the early 2000's.  I do remember heading up hwy 275 with my parents when I was about 10 years old, as we were just crossing the Battle Creek bridge heading towards Norfolk, the radio DJ was talking about a report that someone claimed to have seen BF crossing 275, ironically right there near the Battle Creek bridge that we just went over.  My brother and I turned around looking for BF after hearing the report of course, although it was night and we would never have seen anything behind us.  Will never forget hearing that over the radio just as we crossed the bridge and location while it was being reported over the radio.  

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On 2/18/2018 at 10:59 AM, Incorrigible1 said:

This year, Hastings seized on the opportunity to bring “squatchers” from out of town on a chilly February weekend. There was a Bigfoot cocktail contest earlier in the week...

 

I was not aware this event was happening but will put it on my calendar for future years. Since this is in Nebraska, I would ask why it is held in winter?

 

I am a mixologist and would love to compete in a bigfoot drink contest.  The secret to mixology is any drink can be named anything you want.  While I can't think of a precise Bigfoot cocktail recipe at the moment, I have one for cryptids.  

 

1/2 ounce Black Rum

1/2 ounce dragonfruit purée

1 ounce pomegranate juice

Build in a pint glass with ice. Garnish with black or red licorice

 

(pomegranate is a natural laxative :ph34r:

Edited by Arvedis
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  • 1 month later...

Here is audio of Richard Soule's Presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXibs5gi7f8&list=PLCOqL3KIhbcWlqTWsYIdPqup_BV9-HH79

I was not at the conference on Friday when he presented. I showed up only on Saturday,

 

He talks of the Elkhorn River Valley near West Point. Now that I live in Nebraska, that's an area where I plan to plant my recorders this year. I don't have high expectations but need to give it a try anyway.

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Lots of public ground along the Elkhorn at Dead Timber SRA, and also at Powderhorn WMA. They are very near to each other, south of West Point. I've deer hunted there, years ago.

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