"Everything's Bigfoot In Texas," by Eric Spitznagel, October 30, 2008, Vanity Fair

In a high school cafetorium, a small man in his mid-70s was lecturing to a rapt audience of several hundred people. Dr. Henner Fahrenbach, a retired zoologist from Oregon, is also a self-proclaimed expert in the behavioral habits of a bipedal ape sometimes known as Sasquatch.
“Their top speed for running is between 42 and 45 miles per hour,” Fahrenbach told the crowd, in a thick German accent. “They can cover 90 feet in just three steps, or 30 feet per step. So obviously, they have immensely powerful thighs and legs in general.”
Fahrenbach, one of the featured speakers at the seventh annual Texas Bigfoot Conference, held on October 18 in the north-eastern Texas town of Jefferson, seemed an odd choice for an event that promised to “establish the legitimacy” of the field. Unlike his colleagues—an assortment of authors, academics, and independent Bigfoot researchers—Fahrenbach made no secret of his beliefs. He didn’t speculate about the “possibility” of Bigfoot’s existence. He’s convinced that Sasquatch is not only real but borderline supernatural—a monster straight out of Greek mythology.
Dr. Henner Fahrenbach delivers his lecture to a dubious audience.
“Sasquatch has been observed walking with two 200-pound pigs under his arm through the countryside,” Fahrenbach declared. “On another occasion, he’s been witnessed grabbing three goats with one arm and walking over a five-foot fence without breaking stride.”
Drawing on interviews with dozens of eye-witnesses, Fahrenbach went on to say that Bigfoot’s diet is rich in mussels, clams, peacocks, and the “hindquarter” of deer. He insisted that Bigfoots enjoy wrestling, tickle fights, and, most surprisingly, gangbangs. He assured us that even a horny Sasquatch has an impeccable sense of orgy etiquette.
“When an especially large male came onto the scene,” Fahrenbach said, describing a sexual pileup involving one willing female and lots of dudes, “he didn’t try to buck the line but simply stood there and took his turn in good time.”
In the beginning of his lecture, there was some nervous giggling from those in the audience. After a while, they just stared at Fahrenbach, a few with jaws agape. Somewhere in the back row, a woman turned to her husband and whispered, “I can’t tell if he’s kidding.”
It’s been a rough few months for Bigfoot true believers. Last August, a pair of hoaxers in Georgia tried to convince the world that they’d found a Sasquatch carcass, which turned out to be a cooler filled with animal entrails and a rubber gorilla costume. The Bigfoot legend has always been a hard sell, but after such a high-profile scandal, it hasn’t been easy to keep the faith when even casual cryptozoologists are portrayed as gullible or insane, and sometimes both.
At least during the first half of this year’s conference, the speakers tried to prove that all Bigfoot researchers aren’t con artists or rednecks who subscribe to the Weekly World News. Most of the morning was devoted to raw data, delivered in a grave monotone by Daryl Colyer, a member of the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. He rarely used the word Bigfoot, opting instead for vague descriptions like “unlisted primate species” or “unknown, upright hair-covered species.”
A map showing reported Bigfoot sightings.
Colyer numerated a staggering amount of minutiae from reported Bigfoot sightings, including the creature’s hair color (31 percent of witnesses claim it’s red-brown), location of sightings (2 percent of Bigfoots hide up in trees), what the witness was doing during sightings (11 percent were fishing, 5 percent were biking, and just 2 percent were in the midst of a picnic), and a vast array of Bigfoot’s vocal sounds, from growls and screams to whoops, grunts, roars, howls, moans, and hoots.
“A hoot could be interpreted as being the same thing as a whoop,” Colyer admitted without cracking a smile.
Later, a wildlife biologist from Oklahoma named Alton Higgins talked about Bigfoot hoaxes, using a PowerPoint presentation to demonstrate how costumes and obvious frauds could be identified. There were the obvious clues—thick, tubular lower legs and zippers—and also more complicated hoax telltales, like irregular arm-leg symmetry and head/humerus proportions.
The audience nodded appreciatively, and those clutching notebooks wrote down every detail, as if these observations directly affected their own research. They were primarily male and middle-aged, an even mix of grizzled hunters and fantasy fan-boys. It was a sea of grey beards, plaid jackets, and Bigfoot-kitsch t-shirts.
But just how serious are they? According to Brian Brown, the conference’s M.C. and the host of several Bigfoot podcasts, their interest level is somewhere between aloof skepticism and giddy enthusiasm.
“A lot of people here try to be as conservative as possible,” he said. “It’s all about the results and not jumping to conclusions. But as in any field of study, there are a large number who just want to believe. They want to go out into the woods and get scared. They love the idea that there’s a hairy monster out in the shadows somewhere.”
Michael Cathey, a Bigfoot enthusiast from Oklahoma (he runs his own canoeing business called Bigfoot Floats), falls into the latter category. “I remember doing reports on Bigfoot in Junior High,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to do someday, go out and find Bigfoot. But you know, the older I get, I kinda don’t want him to be found anymore. It’s better as a mystery.”
Those who’ve devoted their careers to studying Bigfoot, however, aren’t content to let it remain folklore. And they certainly don’t like being dismissed by a cynical media. David Paulides, a conference speaker and Bigfoot researcher from Northern California, complained that “the biggest headlines are for the hoaxes and the people who probably aren’t doing the best kind of research. The guys in the background, who are sitting in the woods and doing the hard work, they aren’t getting the press they deserve.
“Like Dr. Meldrum,” he continued, pointing to a man sitting behind a table and selling plaster cast Bigfoot footprints for $40 a pop. “He put his entire career on the line by coming out and saying, ‘Hey, these things are real.’ And he’s still ridiculed about it. There’s a hero for you to write about.”
He may have a point that the media can be too quick to judge, but he and his peers need to share at least some of the blame. It was impossible not to smile during the conference when a lecturer was introduced as “the foremost expert and collector of Sasquatch hair,” or when a speaker discussed Bigfoot’s criminal history (according to Native American legend) of kidnapping young boys and eating human flesh, or when Paulides made the disturbing revelation that Bigfoot might be drawn to menstruating women, and has been observed digging though garbage cans, looking for used tampons.
If they don’t want to be ridiculed by the media, then they should try a little harder not to make it so easy.
They haven’t exactly received a warm reception from mainstream science, either. “Obviously there is no official consensus when it comes to a controversial topic,” said Dr. Jeff Meldrum, an associate professor of anthropology at Idaho State University, where many of his fellow professors have publicly dismissed his Bigfoot research as a “joke.” “Such a thing is a rarity in the scientific community, especially one such as the possible existence of Sasquatch. Those most vocal are the ideological or professional skeptics. But I find more and more colleagues interested to learn more about what I am doing to investigate this question.”
Dr. Henry Gee, a senior editor for Nature magazine, doesn’t think the climate is quite so accepting. “In my opinion, the scientific community at large regards Bigfoot as either a figment of peoples’ imagination or a hoax,” he said. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t subscribe to his own special brand of crazy. “That’s not to deny the possibility, even if remote, that unknown human-like creatures might await discovery in some part of the world,” he said. “The discovery of fossils of Homo floresiensis, otherwise known as “The Hobbit,” a strange humanoid creature that lived in Indonesia until at least 14,000 years ago, increases that possibility.”
In other words, Sasquatch is probably fictional. But Hobbits running around in a prehistoric Middle Earth? Totally real!
*****
The author poses with a Bigfoot head.
“Some day a good picture’s going to come out,” said Robert Swain, author of an unsyndicated comic strip called “Laughsquatch,” in one of the most heartfelt speeches of the day. “And it’s not going to be the Georgia hoax that we’ve all cringed about. It’s going to be something that you can really put stock in, and people are going to start looking at this community as something that’s really credible and something they need to take seriously. We probably have an endangered species that’s a very important scientific find, right here under our noses. We need to help science because science doesn’t know what to look for. It’s going to be up to us to find it.
“I appreciate everybody that’s out there looking for Bigfoot,” he added. “Because I think it’s only a matter of time before we bring him home.”
Perhaps the most telling moment of the conference occurred during the panel discussion. Asked if they thought it was ethical to shoot and kill a Bigfoot—if only to collect DNA samples for research—every speaker, without hesitation, said no.
“It doesn’t have to be killed,” said Craig Woolheater, the conference’s director and founder. “Somebody could be hiking in the woods of north Georgia, for instance, and actually find a Sasquatch body. But until that happens, we’ll stick with documenting it with video and photographic evidence.”
Kathy Strain, the author of a collection of Bigfoot lore called Giants, Cannibals & Monsters, just shrugged and said, “I don’t know that DNA is necessarily going to make or break this case.”
It’s unlikely that Bigfoot research will ever gain the credibility its proponents crave, at least while they consider DNA overrated. Real science requires more than blurry photos and first-person accounts from jittery hikers. But maybe scientific legitimacy isn’t as important to them as they claim. After all, gathering too much information might backfire, accidentally disproving the creature they’ve come to love and need. Better to keep Bigfoot at a safe distance, where it can remain mythical and larger than life, leaping over canyons and kidnapping women and hosting forest gangbangs.
The last word on Bigfoot hunting went to Dr. Fahrenbach. The question of whether to shoot Sasquatch was moot, he said, because such a plot would never succeed. “Bigfoot would just swat at the bullets as if a bee had stung him.” The audience laughed, but it wasn’t a derisive laugh. It almost sounded like a sigh of relief.
The mystery of Bigfoot, at least for now, is safe.
Illustration by John Hogan

Bigfoot In Pleasanton, California, circa 1963.

SANDRA MAISEL, PLEASANTON, CALIFORNIA, WITH BOB GIMLIN, YAKIMA, WASHINGTON, SHOWN IN FELTON, CALIFORNIA ON AUGUST 9, 2008. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF TOM YAMARONE.




BY SANDRA MAISEL
“Bigfoot enthusiast”


Yes, really. And no, it’s not in my freezer!!! I have a copy of the Bigfoot Discovery Museum newsletter from last April that details a very credible Bigfoot sighting back in January, 1963 that happened right here in Pleasanton!!! Two hunters from Castro Valley, who were out hunting quail, saw a 7-8 ft. tall hair covered Bigfoot walking upright in a sugar beet field by Gold Creek, just a quarter mile from Hopyard Rd. It was early in the morning and raining, when they came across this dark brown, hairy creature walking on two legs. They became very alarmed and exclaimed, “What the heck is that thing?!!” It was 60 to 70 yards from the creek and it started running away from them, then it stopped and turned around and looked at them. They were quite shaken by what they saw. (I would have fainted!) They followed it for a short distance until it disappeared into some dense bushes and trees along the creek. The “monster” had a very long stride, and it left behind 20”x7” impressions in the mud that were 3 inches deep. Also, approximately 4 years later in 1966 or 67, one of the hunters was told of an article that appeared in the Pleasanton Times that reported a woman and her daughter saw a Bigfoot crossing Hopyard Rd. late one night. What was Bigfoot doing in Pleasanton??? I don’t think the Hopyard Alehouse was there yet, was it? I’ve heard that Bigfoot likes beer! Now you have to remember that back then there weren’t many houses here and the land was mostly fields and wooded areas. When I read this report, it gave me cold chills, because Gold Creek runs through the property I live on. I know it’s hard to believe that these big, hairy creatures once roamed in my own backyard! Back in the 1800’s, there were reports of Bigfoot being seen in Crow Canyon and the Diablo Mountain range as well. If anyone out there knows of any other sightings in the Tri-Valley area “back in the day,” please contact the Bigfoot Discovery Museum at mike@bigfootdiscoveryproject.com.

I definitely believe they do exist. My interest began back in the early 1960’s, when I was on a Girl Scout camping trip in the hills of Marin County. My parents came along, and my dad went off by himself hiking in the woods. He said he found a HUGE pile of human looking scat that looked too large to be from a human, so he thought it could be from a Bigfoot. He didn’t tell us about it until we got home, because he didn’t want to frighten all the little Girl Scouts! I know that one night we were all awakened by some loud growling noises, which scared us, but it turned out it was just my dad snoring!
I have read some reports of Bigfoot being seen in the hills of Marin back in the 60’s, but I don’t think he was a “flower child!”

I recently went to Bigfoot Discovery Day II held at the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton, Ca. I got to meet all the famous “Bigfooters” that have been featured on MonsterQuest and other TV programs about Bigfoot. Dr. Jeff Meldrum was there. He is the author of “ Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.” Dr. Meldrum is a prominent researcher, an expert on footprints and is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Anatomy at Idaho State University. He gave a lecture on the Yeren, which is the Chinese version of Bigfoot. He made the trek to China to research the subject, and it will be shown on MonsterQuest. I also got to meet former San Jose police investigator, David Paulides of NABS (North American Bigfoot Search), who just released the book “The Hoopa Project.” He spent several years on the Hoopa Indian Reservation in Northern California investigating Bigfoot sightings by the Native Americans that live there. He had a police sketch artist draw what they had seen, and you would not believe what these sketches looked like. They had VERY HUMAN looking faces!! It was shocking to see how human they appeared! When I told David Paulides about my father’s discovery of the scat, he excitedly said, “Come with me, I want to show you something.” So he led me to the back of his SUV, and he pulled out a gallon storage baggie that was filled with what he believed to be Bigfoot scat. It was very interesting and it did look human-like but much larger.

I also had the privilege of meeting Bob Gimlin of the famous Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film shot at Bluff Creek in 1967. He was a very nice man, but he was almost sorry that he had ever seen the female Bigfoot knick-named “Patty,” because of the ridicule he had to endure afterwards. But he was treated like a real celebrity at our Bigfoot gathering. Kathy Moskowitz Strain and her husband Bob were there. She is the author of the book “Giants, Cannibals and Monsters: Bigfoot in Native Culture.” I saw her recently on an episode of MonsterQuest. Her husband, Bob, had a sighting of a 9 foot tall Bigfoot in
1975 while hunting in Idaho. I wouldn’t want to run into THAT on a dark, stormy night!!! Or in the daylight, for that matter!!! Bigfoot researchers Daniel Perez, Rick Noll, Cliff Barackman, James “Bobo” Fay, and Bart Cutino were also in attendance. Craig Woolheater of the Texas Bigfoot Research Center came all the way from Dallas to be there. He’s been featured on several programs about Bigfoot on the Travel Channel. The curator of the museum, Mike Rugg and his wife Paula hosted the event. They had a barbeque with “Bigfoot burgers” and hot dogs. Tom Yamarone entertained us with his Bigfoot songs played on his guitar. It was quite a thrill for me to get to talk to all the researchers that came to this Bigfoot convention. They had a great turnout for the event. It’s amazing how many people are interested in Bigfoot. Some of the researchers stayed at the new Bigfoot Resort in Felton, which just opened for business. It’s nestled in the woods by the San Lorenzo River, and if you stay there and you’re lucky, you might hear a Bigfoot howling in the forest!!!

More and more very credible people are having sightings. Even my own dentist saw one many years ago in the summer time while he was camping in a travel trailer with his wife. He said it looked to be about 7 feet tall and covered with hair and walked upright like a man. He said it was HUGE with very broad shoulders. They were parked at a rest stop somewhere in Northern California and they saw it walk by their trailer and cross the road. It scared them pretty good, so they left immediately. There are thousands of reports coming in from all over the world. If you would like to read some, go to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization website (bfro.net). They have a lot of very interesting Bigfoot reports, but let me warn you, these can be addicting! There have been several recent sightings here in California, but I don’t think anyone has seen one lately in Pleasanton! (At least I hope not). There have been numerous sightings of Bigfoot crossing highway 101 north of Willits, CA, and many sightings by the side of the road. People have reported it crossing roads in 2 or 3 steps.

WHERE’S THE EVIDENCE???

Bigfoot has left behind plenty of evidence in the form of huge footprints showing dermal ridges, hairs that are from an unknown creature, scat, DNA evidence, and of course, all the sightings. Possible Bigfoot beds and shelters have been found in the woods, along with broken, twisted tree branches that are too high up for humans to reach. Horrible, ear-piercing howls have been heard that cannot be identified. Credible researchers, doctors and scientists are investigating this evidence, and no, Tom Biscardi is not one of them!

These huge, hair covered hominids are known as Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Swamp Ape, Yeti, Hairy Man and numerous other names, too many to mention here. They are big and smelly and like to frighten campers by walking through their campsites in the middle of the night and raiding their coolers. They also let out terrifying screams that are extremely LOUD. So, the next time you are camping in the woods, lock up your cooler and sleep with one eye open, and listen for things that go “bump in the night!”

Editor To Be Interviewed. Read on...

Daniel Perez, founder of the Center for Bigfoot Studies in Norwalk, California will be the guest on this Thursday's Sasquatch Triangle Internet show.

Perez and host Don Keating will be discussing the recent alleged Bigfoot body discovery, the 41st anniversary of the Patterson Bigfoot film, some personal experiences that Perez has recently had and other Bigfoot related items.

To tune in to the show click http://www.nowlive.com/desktop/default.aspx?id=100288192 and then click the ON AIR icon listed near the top of the web site at or just after 9 p.m. eastern time, 6 p.m. pacific time. You may phone in at 201 661-7217 and then enter the show ID of 288192 when asked to enter the show ID.