Bigfoot Times, April 2009

The Bigfoot Times newsletter will be released on April 30th for all those who get the newsletter. A tribute to an old friend and colleague, Rene Dahinden, plus much more. Watch your mailbox. What are you waiting for? Get your subscription going today!

Editor,

Daniel Perez

Portland, Oregonian newspaper, April 16, 2009

"Bigfoot Believers: Faith and Fakery"
Posted by Jeff Baker, The Oregonian April 16, 2009 09:47AM

After Ray Wallace died in 2002, his children revealed that he had a pair of carved wooden feet he used to stomp around the woods in Northern California, leaving tracks that he claimed belonged to Bigfoot.

The disclosure should have been a blow to Bigfoot hunters everywhere, because Wallace's stories about a huge, hairy humanoid are credited with starting the Bigfoot movement. If Wallace was a practical joker, shouldn't that make those who believe in Bigfoot think twice?

"You're not going to shake these people," Michael McLeod said. "They don't want to admit anything. They still deny Wallace has anything to do with Bigfoot."

McLeod interviewed Wallace before his death and Wallace told him Bigfoot "can throw rocks like a bullet and kill deer and elk three hundred feet away on the run." Wallace played him an album of Bigfoot screams he'd recorded. The album cover, McLeod notes in his new book "Anatomy of a Beast: Obsession and Myth on the Trail of Bigfoot," "showed a Bigfoot and a cougar posed together on a log."

McLeod is a writer and documentary filmmaker who worked for KGW(8) in the pre-video days. One of his early assignments was to go to Skamania County, Wash., to interview eyewitnesses to some Bigfoot sightings around Beacon Rock. He figured someone in an ape suit had fooled some otherwise rational people, but later started wondering about the famous Roger Patterson film, shot in Bluff Creek, Calif., very near where Wallace first left his tracks.

Patterson and his famous film -- which includes an image of an insouciant Bigfoot, caught in mid-stride, looking directly at the camera -- is the jumping-off point for McLeod's book. He set out to investigate how Patterson made the film and was captivated by the human side of Bigfoot hunting, the people who obsessed over the creature and made the question of its existence an early example of pseudoscience. People want to believe in something -- the Yeti, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster -- and selectively use evidence to support their belief while ignoring anything that contradicts it.

Skeptics point out that Patterson set out to find and film Bigfoot and did, in broad daylight. McLeod did enough digging to confirm, to his satisfaction, that Patterson's friends in Yakima knew all about his Bigfoot schemes and more than likely one of them wore an ape suit for the movie.

As for Bigfoot "there's never been any evidence, physical or any other kind" to prove its existence, McLeod said. "It's folk art. A lot of people have been mistaken in what they've seen, and others have been faked out."

Put another way, McLeod said "'UFology' is nutzoid, but I'm not entirely dismissive of the possibility of aliens out there somewhere. It's a big universe. But the idea of an 8-foot-tall, 700-pound beast walking through the forests of the Pacific Northwest is ludicrous."

McLeod discusses "Anatomy of a Beast" at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 23, Powell's Books on Hawthorne, 3723 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.

-- Jeff Baker: 503-221-8165; jbaker@news.oregonian.com

21st Annual Bigfoot Conference, Don Keating, Ohio

21st Annual Bigfoot Conference / EXPO

Only 24 days until the 21st Annual Bigfoot Conference / EXPO !!! Web site last updated 3/31/2009.

DATE... MAY 2ND, 2009
TIME...4 p.m. to approximately 10 p.m. There will be a 1 hour dinner break included as well.

ADMISSION...No admission charge anticipated.

LOCATION... SALT FORK STATE PARK LODGE located just off of US Route 22 in Guernsey County, Ohio. (See map)



THE 20TH ANNUAL BIGFOOT CONFERENCE / EXPO WAS ATTENDED BY 425 PEOPLE + / -. IF YOU WERE ONE OF THOSE 425, I THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS EVENT VERY SUCCESSFUL ONCE AGAIN THIS YEAR. KEEP AN EYE ON THIS WEB SITE FOR UP AND COMING DETAILS REGARDING POSSIBLE PLANS FOR THE 21ST ANNUAL BIGFOOT CONFERENCE / EXPO IN 2009!

YOU MAY NOW RESERVE VIP SEATING, RECEIVE INFORMATION ON ROOM PRICES, ETC, BY CONTACTING DON KEATING AT THE E-MAIL ADDRESS BELOW!

SPEAKERS... SPEAKERS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE!

BILLY WILLARD from MANASSAS, VIRGINIA --- Billy Willard is a vice-president of an environmental consulting firm. He oversees various types of environmental assessment and cleanup projects (e.g., leaking underground petroleum tanks, environmental site assessments, and soil/groundwater remediation). Billy is an OSHA Hazwoper Supervisor and holds many other credentials.

Billy became interested in the Bigfoot phenomena early in life as a kid after watching such movies as the Legend of Boggy Creek and the Creature From Black Lake. In 2005, Billy and his son Josh formed Sasquatch Watch of Virginia in which Billy currently serves as Director. Billy is also a member and investigator for the American Bigfoot Society (ABS), The Alliance of Independent Bigfoot Researchers (AIBR), the Northeast Sasquatch Researchers Association (NESRA), the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society (PBS) and the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center (MABRC).

Billy is the host of an internet radio show called Sasquatch Watch Radio on the BlogTalk Radio Network which started in September of 2008. The show airs every Monday night at 9:00 pm Eastern. The webpage link to the show is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sasquatchwatchradio The radio show features those who have been eyewitnesses of a Bigfoot-like creature, other researcher/investigators, book authors of the subject as well as different subjects on the matter.

DIANE STOCKING from PORTLAND, OREGON --- Diane was raised in Cutler Ridge, Florida, which was the Black Swamp, and part of the Everglades before it was drained and built on in the early 50's. With the early 70's came many Sasquatch flaps in South Florida; this is what grabbed her attention, and subsequently, became her life's passion.

Diane is President of Stocking Hominid Research, Inc., a non-profit organization based in Florida. Diane spent many years as a BFRO Curator and is well known and well respected in the field of Bigfoot/Sasquatch.

Diane's degree is in Forestry, and she thrives in the woods. Diane also enjoy's wildlife photography. She has 3 great boys; George, Boomer, and Curtis. Diane has a reputation as a no non sense tell it like it is researcher.

DOUG HAJICEK from MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA --- Doug Hajicek (pronounced high-check), president of Whitewolf Entertainment Inc, is a television documentary veteran. He has produced over 200 TV features since 1987, covering the globe from Russia, the un-explored jungles of Belize, up to the Arctic. He has experienced the diversity and adversity of the business, making him a strong director and field producer. He knows what’s needed to tell a compelling story, in long or short form. He is also a seasoned offline editor, having tested and helped with development of an early computer system and then used it as the first non-linear editor for a TV series in 1990. Hajicek has been dubbed “The Camera Explorer” by some, inventing and implementing new camera systems in untested places. In 2006 his greatest accomplishment may have been his development of the Trojan Squid Cam, used to film the worlds first free swimming Giant Squid in 2006 that was over 54 feet long.

Hajicek is also a skilled Video photographer, and often a Television story writer. His interest in the famous 1967 Patterson Film lead him to forensically 3D animate the strange rotating lower leg walk, he dubbed “The Mountain Gait.”

Doug Hajicek has been featured on many News stories, Talk shows and National Newspapers such as USA today. He has been featured on TV Shows on CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, The History Channel, Animal Planet, to mention a few

His successful Television career has now spanned more than a quarter century and he continues with innovative hit series like Monster Quest. Now airing on the History Channel Wednesdays at 9 pm central time.

OTHER ACTIVITIES... On FRIDAY the 1st of May there will be a "meet and greet" in the lodge. If you go to the floor where the main conference rooms are located, there will be an area you can overlook the swimming pool. It will be in that area where all of the chairs and big screen TV and tables are located. This activity will take place at 8 p.m.

On SUNDAY the 3rd of May there will be a "guided tour" around the park to different locations of sightings, track discoveries or other unusual incidents in the park. A caravan of vehicles will line up in front of the main entrance on Sunday and leave at 12 noon.

ACCOMMODATIONS...Salt Fork State Park Lodge has once again agreed to give attendees who attend the conference and stay at the Lodge a HUGE discount on room rates! Just contact SFSP at (740) 439-2751 for rates. Make sure to tell them you are attending for the Bigfoot EXPO. Or you may check the RATES LISTING for details.

My thanks to every business and individual who help every year with their gifts. Without you, there would not be a Conference the way it is today.