What turned you on to Bigfoot?

[Bigfoot Gumbo]

Just wondering what turned you on to Bigfoot? 

 

For me it was watching The Legend of Boggy Creek as a young boy. It scared me to death lol, but really got me interested in the creature.

Then I moved on to bigger and better things like The Six Million Dollar Man: The Secret of Bigfoot. 

 

How about y'all?

[Doug]

Finding giant heel, hand with forearm up to the elbow and naked butt prints on a bank where it slid down a hill and came to rest on an elk trail and then fell back into the hill now with a swath of fresh dirt and pushed away with it's hand and forearm. The next week, it was in the news that a fisherman saw a Sasquatch in the creek just below where I saw the prints.

[BC witness]

Local newspaper stories here in BC during the '50s, which intrigued my young mind, especially as some were written as "matter of fact" reporting, not amusing tall tales. Then I found those wonderful books written by local author/reporter John Green, who was the first person I called when I found a trackway in the snow.

[Rainshadow]

Found a copy of the original Argosy magazine issue featuring Patty at a friends house when I was a kid.  Ooooh, whats that!!  😀

Edited August 14, 2019 by Rainshadow

[Arvedis]

Mr. Spock.

[norseman]

Tracks in snow.

[Bonehead74]

[Incorrigible1]

I vividly recall the 1967 television reporting of the Patterson/Gimlin sighting.

I was 13, with my parents at my aunt and uncle's. The adults paid the report no mind, but it fascinated me.

I remember photos in a magazine (Life, Look, I don't know) a few years previous, of footprints taken in the Himalayas, said to have been left by the abominable snowman.

I'd checked out books written by Ivan T Sanderson from the library.

 

I was ripe for lifelong interest at 13 when Patty burst onto the scene.

[7.62]

Friend said they had been at his cabin from spring into fall for the last 5 years.

[Incorrigible1]

1 minute ago, 7.62 said:

Friend said they had been at his cabin from spring into fall for the last 5 years.

"They," meaning bigfoot?

[7.62]

Just now, Incorrigible1 said:

"They," meaning bigfoot?

yup

[Wolfjewel]

I, too, saw an early article about Himalayan yeti prints in the snow. Wikipedia says, “...While attempting to scale Mount Everest in 1951, Eric Shipton took photographs of a number of large prints in the snow, at about 6,000 m (20,000 ft) above sea level... Some argue they are the best evidence of Yeti's existence, while others contend the prints are those of a mundane creature that have been distorted by the melting snow.^[“30]

Later in the ‘50s pictures of the prints turned up in the Weekly Reader, a children’s publication which was distributed in my classroom. My friend, aptly named Patty, who sat behind me, would tap me on the back and then whisper “Yeti!!” with her hands outstretched like claws. I did the same to her. So my fascination had started.

[Patterson-Gimlin]

At the local cinema when I was 7. They showed the Patterson film before the movie started.

An older relative explained to me that the creature was real and lived in the forests of the PNW 

That began my endless fascination with the film subject and other scary monsters. 

 

[MIB]

13 hours ago, Bigfoot Gumbo said:

Just wondering what turned you on to Bigfoot?

 

Depends on what that means.    I was exposed to the topic starting around 1970, then in '74 I found a track line and in '76 I had an extended sighting.   Didn't really do anything with it, I just knew they were there.   For context, we also still had wolves though officially they'd been exterminated, completely removed from the area, in the early 1900s, and despite biologists' protests, we had very rare grizzly sightings reported.   So the idea of unaccepted animals being around was never a hurdle to get over.   Had some weird stuff happen over the following years.   Some of it was most probably bigfoot in hindsight.   Left the area, went to college, got a job, never gave it any more thought, just knew they were there and went on about my business.  Jump forward to about 2000-2005.  I'd moved to a new town in '96, had family conflict which lead me to decide to explore a new area to hunt rather than returning to the ol' familiar family "haunts", and in the process I ran into some weirdness.   Best bet was bigfoot.   I contacted a researcher to ask some questions and thing snowballed from there.    At that point I truly got interested.  

 

Funny thing is I never saw the PGF 'til probably 2012 or 2013.   Patty is a dead ringer for the female counterpart for the big male I saw in 1976 and for the mom of the juvenile I saw in 2013, not identical, "merely" "biologically right."  

 

MIB

Edited August 14, 2019 by MIB

[ioyza]

A close friend spending a summer of nights arguing with me about it over beers, adamantly going over all the evidence, all the sightings, all the footage, me eventually realizing my rebuttals to each individual encounter or piece of evidence boiled down to "I don't have an explanation, but it can't be bigfoot!" Many of my assumptions and views on the world deflating like a whoopie cushion over the following year. Some aspect of the witness reports finally clicked into place and I was struck with the realization that the only explanation for all of it that really makes sense is the one witnesses and proponents all insist on, the one right in front of my face. Some pretty jaw dropping encounters the first couple times actively seeking them in the mountains the following summer, and quite a few more in the decade since.