2010 OREGON SASQUATCH SYMPOSIUM: Day One, Travel and Meet and Greet; Update on CONVERSATIONS WITH BIGFOOT

 

BIGFOOT'S BLOG, LATE JUNE EDITION

In the vast overwhelm that is a sea dear to behold but daunting to endeavor to swim through, we prevailed in actually making it up to Oregon to attend the first annual OREGON SASQUATCH SYMPOSIUM. Also in this blog entry you'll find our response from novelist, essayist and poet, JIM DODGE, concerning our investigation of the origins of the cryptic booklet, CONVERSATIONS WITH BIGFOOT. Though it may be an eloquent evocation of what an intelligent, sentient Sasquatch creature might be like, we've found conclusively that this book is in no way based on fact, and was specifically written as a literary lark. Read our previous post HERE for the background.

See below for that and the story of our voyage into Friday, June 18th, which did not end until around 3:30 a.m. in a fairly jovial and drunken state in a room party surrounded by Bigfooters, with Cliff Barackman camping out on the hotel balcony waiting for his early morning Bob Gimlin alarm clock. We'll have some kind of synopsis and report on the actual conference, with lots of groovy pictures, coming up soon!

This is the most controversial issue to arise out of the OSS, so let us deal with it up front here, for now, and talk about ENOCH.... We love Bigfooting conferences, and try to attend at least one a year just to keep ourselves in touch and off the internet; but we must admit that beyond geographical proximity, it was the call of this fascinating curiosity, the mind of one Autumn Williams, which really drew us to this one. Controversy is breaking out all over the internet about her new book and new stance in regard to Bigfoot "Research." We'd been talking with her via email after she made her video blog statements regarding her change in research direction, and then over the phone for a number of quite lengthy phone conversations, and were quite happy for the occasion to actually meet her in person. (Sorry all you other guys, we love you, too.)

Images: The podium and wall displays from the OSS. Photos by Steven Streufert. 
NOTE: All Colored Text Parts Are Live Hyper-Links. Go for it.

Little did we know that we'd be having a few beers and a good long conversation with her Saturday night at McShane's Irish Pub. Despite our nerdiness that adimitedly fawns a bit before such a lady, we believe we can be objective in this matter. Call us a geek, a dweeb, whatever--it's probably true. Say what you will, this Autumn W. is one sincere person, a very intelligent one, someone who isn't trying (to the best of our ability to ascertain) to pull the wool over anyone's eyes to make a buck or get famous. She's emphasized this to us repeatedly. How much cash can one really obtain from a self-published book on Bigfoot, especially considering the six months to a year it takes to write one? Researcher Thom Powell said that the most one should print of any Bigfoot book should be around 4,000; you just won't really be able to sell any more than that, as the real core of Bigfoot readers is actually quite small. Not only that, Autumn tells us she wants to avoid fame and just do her own thing out in the woods. We believe her. So there.

Look to our upcoming book review of ENOCH for more on this: she is not a gullible person who will believe any story, nor any kind of new-ager out to prove some lofty nuttiness, nor is she new to taking reports of Bigfoot encounters. Look closely, beyond the veneer of looks and ostensible TV fame, and you'll find a very down-to-earth, sensible, and humorous person, one with a sharp and critically discerning mind. If she is falling for a con-job from this fellow Mike (the source for her new book), then this Mike is a consummate master of The Con, an incomparable liar. We doubt it, though, as the story is a bit far-out, but very convincing in is verisimilitude and correspondence with other Bigfoot reports. We doubt, too, that Autumn would fall for it if it weren't real. She may never have met the guy in person, but has spent enough intense time conversing with him via phone and email that she considers him a real friend as well as a witness. This goes way beyond being some goofy hoaxed Bigfoot report that all of us researchers are all too familiar with.

Enough of that, though. We'll get to it later once the nutty furor has settled down on the BIGFOOT FORUMS (click to read the insane discussion thread--there are ten large pages of it so far) and elsewhere. Let us say this for now: it is more than a matter of trust; it also has to do with how we approach the natural world and the unfamiliar dimensions of the unknown. Do we proceed with respect, or do we enter as vainglorious and destructive conquerors?
A more sane discussion thread, though one not nearly as long and convoluted, may be viewed on the SEARCH FOR BIGFOOT FORUM (again, click link to view that particular thread).
Read Loren Coleman's CRYPTOMUNDO post backgrounding this issue: BIGFOOT CONTACTEES (just be forewarned: don't let the horrendous audio WalMart ad give you a heart attack like it nearly did to us--turn down the audio first!).
While you're at it, check out old "Walking Squatchopedia" Henry May's YouTube REVIEW of Autumn Williams' book ENOCH.
Go here. It is the only place right now that one may buy this fascinating book:
OREGON BIGFOOT: ENOCH Now Available

See below for more on the epic journey and evening at the OSS. For now, read onward, valiant reader....

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CONVERSATIONS WITH BIGFOOT 
A HOAX? Yes, Indeed, It Was!

If you're unaware of the contents and background of this little booklet that passes itself off as the "true story" of a Bigfoot Being conversing philosophically with a Human Ornithologist, then read our PREVIOUS POST HERE on the topic. It's fun. It's illuminating. It may even inspire you. But is is NOT a true story. Unlike the somewhat far out but believable account of Human-Skunk Ape interaction told in Williams' book, above, this one just struck us as obviously fictional and utterly unbelievable. We'd written to Humboldt County writer and HSU professor, JIM DODGE, and just now got a response. We quote the entirety of Dodge's email to us, of June 26, 2010:

Dear Steven,
Pardon my hideously tardy response but two things conspired against my usual alacrity: your message came to my HSU machine after the semester ended, and at a time when I was having some odd medical issues. . .odd enough, anyway, that they commanded my attention.

I'm stunned, flabbergasted, and incredulous that anyone--in any world, much less the "Bigfoot world"--would claim this piece I wrote on Bigfoot years ago (originally for a free street-sheet I was doing at the time, along with Jerry Martien, Mort McDonald, and other co-conspirators, called UNJUSTIFIED MARGINS) could take it as a "real and true" account. They are, at best, poor scholars, as even rudimentary research into the various claims made by the purported author couldn't survive minimal fact-checking; at worst, they are guilty of a willfully deliberate ignorance, as dangerous to good faith as it is damaging to those, like me, who enjoy using the imagination to illuminate reality.

"Conversations with Bigfoot," as you accurately discerned, was a literary lark, a bit of an elegy for nature, and a little tweak directed at media and American culture. As to your passed-along question: In my 50 years of roaming the Northern California back country I have never seen a Bigfoot creature, no sign of one (scat, footprints, hair), nor met anyone who has--granted you don't meet many folks out in the wilds. That doesn't mean I dismiss the possibility that a Bigfoot might exist, but just that I'm one of those flinty old-school realists who only believes half of what I see and nothing of what I hear without reliable verification from a few trusted informants.

I hope this unequivocally clears up all questions of fact regarding "Conversations with Bigfoot" for your readers. Again, my apologies for the tardy response.

Truly, Jim Dodge

Well, that about SETTLES it, doesn't it folks? But will NABS relent and admit it? Only Enoch knows.

BIGFOOT BOOKS in Willow Creek has one copy of this little booklet for sale, and we will be making a wholesale order for some of the remaining copies that the publisher has in the near future. You might also be able to obtain it from the bookseller/publisher, Michael Sykes at:
Floating Island Books
P.O. Box 276
Cedarville, CA 96104
1-530-279-2790
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The OREGON SASQUATCH SYMPOSIUM, Journey to the Meet-and-Greet, Friday Night.


Photos and Travel by Steven Streufert, with assistance from "Crazy Ian," who did most of the laborious driving, and tolerated our Squatchkitsch-documentation.

Here we collect our photos and a few travel observations on our trip up to the OSS. Higher quality, larger format versions of these photos are available upon request, to the right people. Click to enlarge, or else right-click and open in new window to view larger images.

ON THE ROAD
It seemed that we, along with our traveling partner and sometime interview and research partner, C.I., were about an hour late for just about everything we did this entire weekend. We departed about an hour and half later than we'd thought would be adequate for the trip. Ah well. The ramifications for this, later, would  prove a bit tragic; but let us tarry onward. Our first decision was to travel the Squatchy Way to the conference. We took Highway 96 out of Willow Creek, through Hoopa and the Bluff Creek area, to Happy Camp, and then over Indian Creek Road into Oregon, landing at Cave Junction from the over-5,000 foot mountain ridge.

No Bigfoot activity was observed in the Bluff Creek zone (see our previous blog entries for plenty of photos of this area! HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE for starters), though we did notice that Bluff Creek Road on the southern end is open, and Fish Lake is accessible (customers at our shop confirmed this). Word is that upper Bluff Creek backcountry roads near the P-G Film site are still closed. Also, the old Bluff Creek Company building, where Roger Patterson is said to have bought supplies for his filming expedition, is still standing, despite threats from the owner last year to tear it down.

Happy Camp is a small town that is trying to rival Willow Creek as the "Gateway to Bigfoot Country." In actual fact, there is room for two of them, as they are at the extreme upper end and we at the lower end of the officially titled "BIGFOOT BYWAY." They don't have a top-notch Bigfoot Museum like Willow Creek, nor do they have Al Hodgson; but they are doing a very good job of adding Bigfoot kitsch to their townscape.

The first thing that stands out is a massive metal Bigfoot statue looming on the north side of town. Its "fur" is made out of clipped pieces of that galvanized steel fencing material one sees in metal fences.The barrel-like metal beneath is brownish with rust. The thing looks somewhat menacing for such a small town, and for a "welcome" mascot, but it is pretty impressive.

Even the post office and the grocery store have Bigfoot statuary or signs. Is this post office statue meant to convey "Official Government Support" for the existence of Bigfoot? Who knows?

Right across the street one finds an RV park, outlet store, kitchenettes business, and a towing company, all featuring Bigfoot, within a short two block length of street.

Bigfoot Towing is especially impressive, with a fine cartoonish map of the area featuring "Bigfoot Country."

Across the street there is an unexpectedly good little diner, called Our Place. They make hot sandwiches on homemade bread. Tasty! The kitchen is actually in a metal truck trailer to the side of the building, reminding us of a shack we once lived in in the mountains above Blue Lake, CA. Bigfoot greets visitors as they enter.

Heading out of Happy Camp on Indian Creek Road one follows the creek up into a fine forested mountainous setting, with a gradual prominence of cedar trees among the firs, and a dramatic view from the summit down to the southeast into the Klamath Wilderness and the Marble Mountains still peaked in snow.

 

At a vista point on the top one may view an interesting display featuring the landscape as well as the concept of JEFFERSON STATE. This is not Bigfoot-related, but it could be if one places the emphasis on "wild and free." Here one finds out that one is on the unofficial "State of Jefferson Scenic Byway."

Cave Junction, on the Oregon side of the border and mountains is an interesting little place. We saw eight hitchhikers within a two or three mile distance at the edge of town. We also saw a gigantic caveman (Bigfoot-related?) statue at the north end. The highlight of the place is definitely a little tavern called the BIGFOOT CAVERN. The owner of this place is, according to the displays on the walls, a real Sasquatch aficionado. Outside there is great signage and door etchings, while inside there is a gigantic wooden Bigfoot statue bearing an American flag, carved by Terry Tessmer of Medford, OR. There are even big foot-shaped rest room door signs. By all appearances this is a great place to stop for a beer and hang with the locals. We, however, had to get on down that road.

AT THE OREGON SASQUATCH SYMPOSIUM, EUGENE, OREGON:

DAY ONE, MEET-AND-GREET AND KARAOKE BAR

The Red Lion Hotel was expecting us Squatchers, and the karaoke party went OFF. Up the spiral staircase in the lobby, in a surprisingly small meeting room, we found a densely packed crowd of Bigfooting Illuminati, notables and field researchers.

There he was, the grooviest cowboy and world's most famous Bigfoot witness, BOB GIMLIN. Bob signed our copy of Roger Patterson's book. Tres cool!

Despite only knowing each other on the phone and by email, the wonderful AUTUMN WILLIAMS recognized us and gave us a sweet hug. Her mom, SALI SHEPPARD-WOLFORD, and her both signed our copy of VALLEY OF THE SKOOKUM for us.

There was JEFF MELDRUM, as always, holding down the scientific basis of the Inquiry. It seemed our conversation continued right from where it left off last we saw him at the Yakima Bigfoot Round-Up. He signed our copy of SASQUATCH: LEGEND MEETS SCIENCE.

Author of THE LOCALS, THOM POWELL, was there, as ever, expressing wry wit and humor, looking a bit scruffy. He signed our copy of his book, and hammed it up for the camera.

It was great to find ourselves known and remembered in the Bigfoot world, and have folks recognize the work we've done on our blog. Among these friends were independent field researcher, CLIFF BARACKMAN, who was hanging out with crypto-linguist SCOTT NELSON.

Also present was the ever-present CRAIG WOOLHEATER of the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy and owner of the fine Cryptomundo web site. He, in fact, offered us a guest blogger position on that web site. What an honor!

Bay Area researcher JERRY HEIN was there, as always, with his cool collection of Bigfoot knick-knacks, crafts, signed photos, and cool Bob Gimlin and Autumn Williams button pins. SHARON LEE, The Bigfoot Field Reporter, was there (background) doing a live broadcast for her BlogTalk Radio show.

Also, we were pleased to meet more at length than last year hard-rocking Squatcher, PAUL GRAVES, who was one of the Yakima Three organizers, with Tom Yamaron and Bobo Fay.

Last but certainly not least, we got to meet in person the tireless organizer of the OSS, TOBY JOHNSON. It's always great to put a real face to all the folks we may know through the internet or only over the phone. Toby did an amazing job--here's to to him, and to NEXT YEAR!

And after that the night the party went off with a wild karaoke night featuring many of the Bigfooting crew, including a singing battle between Sharon Lee and Autumn Williams. It went on late into the night, and really, way too many beers were consumed for people who had to get up around 7:00 to get to the horrendously early 9:00 a.m. keynote presentation by Ms. Williams.

A good time was had by all, BELIEVE ME!

(Sorry, we just had to post this last photo again.)

After the bar closed Paul Grave's room at the Red Lion was chock full of partying Bigfooters. Thom Powell, Cliff Barackman, Jerry Hein, Beth Heikkinen, we and others, and another fellow on guitar whose name we never caught, plus others, talked it through into the wee hours--and we paid for it the next day!

 OK, then, that's it for now. We'll have our stuff on the actual conference coming up soon!

Images, above: By Steven Streufert, or taken with his camera, save the last one, shot on video by Henry May, and lifted from YouTube before the stunning and hilarious vampy version of "Do Me, Baby" was taken down from the site.

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One More Thing: Mystery of Mysteries... Right on the heels of their first show in over a year, THE BIGFOOT SHOW has suddendly appeared with yet another show, #13. Two in one week? What is going on? Check it out via iTunes, or download the MP3 HERE.

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ANGRY BIGFOOT SPEAKS!

All of you all argue all the time about me being ape or maybe hu-man. What insult! Me NOT ape. Me NOT hu-man. Me MY OWN MAN, um, me mean APE, no, I mean, I ME OWN BIGFOOT! I no follow rule. I am ashame to even be on same family tree as you, hu-mans. Me SHAKE tree, me snap trunk, me toss it and all of you into lake! Then we see who related to who, hu-man!

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This blog is copyright 2010 by Bigfoot Books and Steven Streufert, save for a few photos here and there borrowed for "research purposes only." The views herein are solely those of the mysterious source of these writings, and have no actual connection with any group, like the BFRO, that we are in any way affiliated with, and should not at all be considered as representative of those groups and their founders or members. We are our own voice, howling in the wilderness of free speech, and want to keep it that way, and want you to know it. Images and text may be quoted and borrowed with citation, acknowledgment, and a link to this blog, along with gifts of beer and fine tobacco. Thanks in advance!

BIGFOOT MISCELLANY 4: Meeting Jay Rowland, Bluff Creek Contractor; 2010 Bigfoot Days, Odds and Ends; A Bold Statement out of Oregon

MEETING MR. ROWLAND, LONGTIME BLUFF CREEK WORKER. 

INTERVIEW PLANNED.

On a tip from Al Hodgson, we spoke briefly a few days ago with local old-timer, Mr. Jay Rowland, as he was clearing blackberry brush on our off the beaten track dirt country road. It's funny that all of this information was living right next door, basically, to our cabin all of this time. We've said it so many times before: do your Bigfoot hunting where you live! Or move to where you can Squatch.

(If you haven't yet read our transcribed two and a quarter hour long, three part INTERVIEW WITH AL HODGSON, Bigfooting elderstatesman, click this link to begin with Part One.)

As you might recall from our interview with Al, he is the one who revealed to us that the elderly couple living just diagonally down the hill from our own hilltop cabin home was a man who was THERE in Bluff Creek back during the vital, early days of Bigfoot reports in the area. He confirmed to us that he worked up there with the Wallace brothers, Ray and Shorty, in the late fifties. He actually lived part-time (weekly and seasonally) on the site in a trailer, essentially at Louse Camp, from the early sixties to the early seventies. According to him there was NO WAY those guys faked all of the tracks found up there. He agreed that the Wallace brothers were not even necessarily at the site during the times the most famous footprints were found, in 1958 and 1967, and many more tracks were found that have not been publicized.

He has agreed to do an interview with us sometime soon, on the record, regarding Bigfoot and the history of Bluff Creek, about which he knows apparently a LOT. He also confirmed to me that he KNOWS that Wallace didn't make those tracks, as he has seen them after Wallace died (he might have been talking about "Shorty" Wilbur Wallace there, not Ray Wallace).

Image: The man himself, at the bottom of Panther Road in Willow Creek, 2010. Photo, Steven Streufert. All images CLICK TO ENLARGE. Also, historical photos of tracks in the ground and castings that look suspiciously like Ray Wallace's footprint stomper, middle. Also included, one of Ray Wallace's faked Bigfoot photos, this one of his wife in an ape suit.

He told us of a time when he was up on the Bluff Creek road construction project and a massive slide had blocked the road in to the work site. He had stayed the night up on the other side of the slide. No one else was around, and no one could have gotten in there without a major long nighttime hike; and yet, footprints were found by him the next day, before he had to go down with the Cat and clear the slide from the top end. Another time he had slept out on the ground one night, alone up there again, and awoke in the morning to find huge footprints going all around his sleeping bag. "It was as close to me as I am to you," he said to us, as he moved forward to within three feet of where we were sitting in the car.

As we mentioned briefly in the interview with Al Hodgson, we spoke a year ago with another local Willow Creek guy with a similar background, Joe Ramos, now sadly dead but who was 92 when we interviewed him (this interview was done OFF the record, unrecorded, and we have only handwritten notes). Mr. Ramos had said he'd seen the footprints and such, too, but that he felt the whole thing was "99% a hoax." What about the other 1%, then, we said? This got a bemused chuckle and a shrug of the shoulders.

Ramos worked one creek over from Bluff Creek, in the Blue Creek and Red Mountain area, on another crew than the Wallace one. He felt that all of these reports of footprints and equipment vandalism were just shenanigans, not caused by "Bigfoot." He admitted, however, to feeling tremendously spooked late one dark night while sitting alone in his truck up on Bald Hills Road, for absolutely no reason at all. There was just "something" out there, he said. Mr. Rowland laughed at this story, but somehow didn't know Ramos. There are a lot of these Bigfoot-connected old-timers still living around Willow Creek. Some come into our Bigfoot Books store with their stories. Many of them are jokers and tall-tale tellers who like to pull your leg; but Jay Rowland stands in contraction to this tendency, insisting the tracks were real, not hoaxed, and seeming utterly sincere while saying so. Rowland told us he started living at the Bluff Creek site in 1960 or thereabouts, working on logging projects in the same area as and sometimes with the Wallace company.

We are hoping to explore any firsthand things about the Jerry Crew finds of 1958, as he knew Jerry and the others working up there then. He worked in the area all through the major Patterson-Gimlin Film (PGF), Blue Creek Mountain and Onion Mountain events and thereafter until 1972. He was there in 1963 when Al Hodgson cast tracks at the Notice Creek-Bluff Creek confluence, and he knows why Al's track cast has a crack line in it--the cast was dropped on the way up out of the creekbed.

The very next day on our way to work we talked again, off the record, to Jay Rowland, for  a full two and a quarter hours. Sorry to all the folks who may have stopped by the bookshop, but Bigfoot made us late! He's a literal goldmine of Bigfoot information. He told us the last thing he's ever going to do is spread around a bunch of lies, and that he hates "bull" more than anything else. He was actually a bit angry at John Green, though, after all these years, as Green had promised to mail him a copy of SASQUATCH: APES AMONG US, as Rowland had done a three hour interview with him way back in the day. John, if you're reading, Mr. Rowland is still waiting for his copy of your fine book.

Oddly, despite all of the tracks he's seen, he never actually SAW a Bigfoot, and he doesn't believe the PGF is authentic. He was in the area that year until November 1967, with his trailer set up at Louse Camp, just downstream from where the two famous guys camped, and did not see Patterson and Gimlin once. Odd, indeed!

Images: Above, Ray Wallace, known Rascal--but did he fake the prints or just copy the shape? Next, Roger Patterson and a quite differently shaped track cast. Below, Roger in one of his Bigfoot expedition camps. Historical.

Then later, strangely, he claimed that "they made $20,000,000 on the film," and that "the other guy with the film" (could he have meant Al DeAtley instead of Bob Gimlin?) was a member of "The Syndicate." Ummm.....? Rowland made sure to emphasize that by "Syndicate" he meant Organized Crime. He must have meant someone else, as Gimlin has said repeatedly that he never really made even one red cent off the film, and besides, he has always worked for a living driving trucks and managing horses, never displaying any inordinate forms of wealth. Patterson himself died poor, owing people money. So where does this twenty million bucks come into the picture? News to us, we say, a thing that we hope to get to the bottom of later. Mr. Rowland promised to do a full, on-record, recorded interview soon, so keep your eyes on this blog for further explorations, and we hope, new revelations.

Interested in seeing what an utter NUTCASE Ray Wallace was? Check out David Paulides' and NABS' absurdly credulous presentation of his oddball letters to Ray Crowe and the Western Bigfoot Society HERE. Prepare yourself for UFOs, and oh so much more inane lunacy. We promise, you WILL be entertained. They're fun, but please don't take this crap seriously, folks. Ray Wallace was some kind of a hoaxer and crank, but almost certainly not one good enough to fool John Green, Rene Dahinden and for that matter Jeff Meldrum.

Just look at the old photos of the other, ridiculous "footprints" that Wallace tried to sell in his roadside stand. Will Paulides come out as a Alien-Bigfoot believer next? We eagerly await it. Dave, just because some old story has a Native American telling you something about a Bigfoot, doesn't make it necessarily literally true. If it did, we'd expect NABS to believe in a shape-shifting Sasquatch, too.

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ODDS AND ENDS AND NEWS:

Here, you can see the "BIGFOOT CAGE" at the Bigfoot Motel in Willow Creek, formerly known as Wyatt's Motel. This is where Tom Slick and the Pacific Northwest Expedition, including John Green, Rene Dahinden, Bob Titmus and Peter Byrne met up in 1959. They stayed in the motel rooms, not the cage, by the way. The cage didn't catch Bigfoot this time, but rather our own kid, Denali Brown, who is growling furiously.

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We are working on a new project which we are calling "LETTER TO A YOUNG BIGFOOTER" (after Rilke). Actually, a middle school kid from Southern California sent us a letter asking questions for a school project about the world of cryptozoology, Sasquatch, Bigfoot research, and what it's like to be a part of it. What, basically, is it like to explore things that the majority of society views as crazy? We started by thinking the answer to this would be a simple few short sentences per question, but now we find there are no simple answers. Look for that in an upcoming blog entry.
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MATT MONEYMAKER POSTS ARTICLES ON BFRO

For those of you who may not have noticed, the founder of the BFRO has been quietly adding some very interesting new content to the BFRO website. He doesn't put his name on the main page as a byline, so it might be easy to miss. The site has recently been subtly updated, so check it out! Articles by Matt address important current issues, including the inaccuracy of the Wikipedia Bigfoot page, false claims of hoaxing the PGF, and the re-emergence of notorious hoaxer Cliff Crook (appropriately named!). Of particular interest is Moneymaker's legal argument for the prosecution of hoaxers like those involved in the Georgia Bigfoot Body debacle.

* Hoaxer Cliff Crook Promoting Phony Photo, Again
* Good Arguments for a Federal Statute Prohibiting Hoaxes Targeting Televison News or Radio News Broadcasters
* Was the Patterson-Gimlin Film Ever Proven to Be a Hoax?
* Problems with Wikipedia's 'Bigfoot' Article
* Also, new to us anyway, is the BFRO DISCUSSION BOARD, "The Blue Forum"
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Images, above and below: 2010, Steven Streufert.

Willow Creek is starting to gear up for its annual Labor Day Weekend BIGFOOT DAYS. This 2010 year will be the 50th Anniversary of the event. Recently a preliminary poster appeared in the window of the Willow Creek Community Service District calling for contenders for the Bigfoot Days King and Queen Contest, the winners of which are referred to as "Little Miss and Little Mister Bigfoot." Al Hodgson is working on a photo collection for display during the event, and wants to get John Green to come down to be master of ceremonies and give a talk, health permitting. If you would like to speak at the event or participate in any way you might want to call the number on the poster (530-629-3805, click to enlarge poster) for information, or drop us an email at bigfootbooks@gmail.com and we'll try to help with the connections. Read our previous blog entries on Bigfoot Days in Willow Creek HERE and HERE.

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Image: Also found at the WCCSD is this cool "BIGFOOT LIVES" poster, prominently displayed at the front desk to announce the District's formal belief in the Creature. Steve Paine, who manages the parks and utilities District, told us he used to interview famous Bigfooter elder Al Hodgson every weekend for several hours, talking about local history. He showed us a file folder several inches thick that was full of transcripts, photos, and notes from Al. What a gold mine! He spoke enticingly of having a whole big box of Bigfoot material, too, but we have yet to see it. Another goldmine, containing only Paine knows what!

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HAPPY CAMP TRACKWAY FOUND! Or NOT?

Bigfoot Field Reporter Sharon Lee blogged on her great blog about a new footprint track find by formerly Biscardi-connected Tara Lee Hauki, on February 2, 2010. It looks dubious to us, though, in extremis. They claim dermal ridges were left in melted snow, which we find simply not at all credible. How BIG were they? How long was the step/stride? None of this information is given. Take this report with a several gram serving of salt. For those who may not know, Happy Camp is a town at the north end of the Bigfoot Highway from Willow Creek. Folks, if we are going to report such things, let's at least get the details! Otherwise, this is just some guy's melted boot prints on a snowy road. OK?

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BIGFOOT TATTOOS!

Recently our daughter Denali set up a tattoo doodling service in our Bigfoot Books shop. For a friend of ours she custom-designed the permanent ink pen Bigfoot arm tat seen to left. This fellow's girlfriend seems to have been inspired by this, as she now has a real tattooed Patterson-Gimlin Film frame 352 on her own arm. On the other side of her arm is a redwood forest complete with owl and moon.

The grand scheme is that ultimately Bigfoot, along with other cryptids, will be included in this tattooed forest habitat on human skin, and most of the arm will be covered in this comprehensive design. Very cool! We'll keep this blog posted when new images that follow reveal further progress. Talk about wearing your heart on your "sleeve." But then, I'm told she does not even believe in Bigfoot....

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A REVOLUTIONARY STATEMENT IN BIGFOOTING EMERGES FROM OREGON.

 In other news, Autumn Williams of Oregon Bigfoot has come out with a VERY interesting, and we must say, quite refreshing view of the Bigfooting field, in her recent blog. She calls it "Professional Suicide" (click the link to read the introduction and encounter her three-part, very heart-felt YouTube video declaration), but we would like to at least see a question mark on the end of that title, Autumn. In our view, this public statement makes her immediately one of the most interesting (though certainly controversial) figures in the field of "Bigfoot Research" today. This statement--whatever your reaction or position you take on it--really needed to be made; and we, personally, are glad that she has said it. Click the image box below to view Part One of Three video blog segments.

She says that there is something, for apparent lack of a better term, "icky" about the Bigfoot research field today. We'd have to agree, so far as all the egotism and interpersonal recrimination involved; but further, one has to wonder why the search for an unknown creature would require so much machismo, gear and guns and big trucks, traps and tricks, camouflage, and "paramilitary" behavior. How, Williams asks, does this bring us CLOSER to these creatures? Are we not just driving them, and the witnesses of them, away? She goes so far as to imply that there is something somewhat perverse about the fixation on evidence, spoor and proof of Bigfoot. We ourselves have often felt there is indeed something kind of pornographic about the obsession with Bigfoot artifacts, something conquistadorial and predatory about the pursuit of the Creature and the fixation on its image. There is a strong desire to "capture" the mysterious, to "own" and possess it. Autumn Williams speaks as a "witness advocate," aruing that we should respect witnesses, not judge them, nor "interrogate" them as if they were members of the Taliban. She suggests (as we take it) that we, rather than "hunting" Bigfoot, should become more sympathetic with it and its way of being. The failure of decades of aggressive pursuit of the Sasquatch is telling. These efforts have mainly failed to "prove" the Creature, she argues, and this may be because of its macho tactics and (as we interpret her words) aggressive imposition of the human modality upon nature.

We agree, in great measure. No one has really ever understood nature and the Mystery of the world around us by conquering, killing and dissecting it. Squatch where you live! Think (and feel) like a Squatch. Live like someone that a creature such as Bigfoot might actually want to get to know. Otherwise, we are just out there possibly scaring them further away into the remaining corners of a diminishing habitat. Aggressive Bigfoot "hunting" is something like a "colonial" incursion into the domain of another Being, one of apparent grace and intelligence--do we really want to repeat this process again in this country? Be an explorer, not a conqueror. Think of how Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey found and studied the gorillas and chimpanzees--through patience, subtlety, compassion, and gradual understanding, they learned how to dwell with the creatures without offending them, how to be more than human, in a way, and accepted by them. Bigfoot/Sasquatch does not need for us to prove anything to the world; but can we prove ourselves worthy of them? What Autumn is proposing includes awareness, openness to new experience and the “unknown,” a participation in the world rather than against it. We'd bet anything that she is largely right–that it is more important to be sensitive to the reality of Sasquatch than to “hunt” them.

We say: by all means, get out there in the field. Seek encounters. Find evidence where it may be. Show the world that Sasquatch is real. But, don't do it at the expense of the witnesses or the Creature or your own human dignity (hint, hint, GCBRO!). Seek to find the natural ways in yourself--this will bring you closer, and make your research all the more effective. Field research IS important, but we must always consider tactics and whether they actually work. What will bring us into the Mystery, rather than bringing the mystery, diluted, dead or corrupted, to us? We are all "witnesses," if we open our eyes without presumption. And if we are to be "researchers," we should be careful not to put the cart before the horse, our presuppositions over what actually IS.

Autumn was a repeated childhood witness, with her mother, on the family's rural Washington land. These were encounters demonstrative of habituated interaction with the Creatures, as documented in her mother's book, VALLEY OF THE SKOOKUM. At the age of 16 Autumn herself became dedicated to the field of serious Bigfoot/Sasquatch research, eventually founding the Oregon Bigfoot organization and website, and hosting the show, Mysterious Encounters. The latter show was produced by Doug Hajicek of White Wolf Entertainment (Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science), for the Outdoor Life Network, 2003-2004.

Going to the dictionary, we find...
re·search
Etymology: Middle French recerche, from recercher to go about seeking, from Old French recerchier, from re- + cerchier, sercher to search; Date: 1577
1 : careful or diligent search
2 : studious inquiry or examination; especially: investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised theories or laws
3 : the collecting of information about a particular subject
and...
wit·ness
Etymology: Middle English witnesse, from Old English witnes knowledge, testimony, witness, from 2 wit; Date: before 12th century
1 : attestation of a fact or event: testimony
2 : one that gives evidence; specifically: one who testifies in a cause or before a judicial tribunal
3 : one asked to be present at a transaction so as to be able to testify to its having taken place
4 : one who has personal knowledge of something
5 : a: something serving as evidence or proof: sign; b: public affirmation by word or example of usually religious faith or conviction

A Few Other Views on This Matter... LINKS.

The Blogsquatcher: Autumn Williams' Witness: Allowing researchers access to bigfoot like letting pedophiles into a daycare.
BigFootForums Thread: Autumn Williams says she is no longer a BF researcher, Video Blog "Professional Suicide"
BFRO Forum Thread: Autumn williams hangs up her "Researcher" hat!
Oregon Bigfoot: FEEDBACK Autum has received from supporters.
Skookum Quest diatribe: Autumn Williams melts down. (Scroll down about a page.)
Linda Martin's Bigfoot Sightings: Bigfoot: to Research or Not to Research?
CRYPTOMUNDO posted something on this early Tuesday morning, but now the link is dead. Did they chicken out, or what? All we know is what we can retrieve from the FaceBook posting they did: "Autumn Williams’ Message May Be A Warning Sign. Look more deeply than you have been asked to by the supposed hostile intent of the new videos." OK, Loren, the mystery... thickens.

In any case, think for yourself. We are seriously wondering at this point how this will play out at the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium, coming up in June in Autumn Williams' home town! We'll be there, sitting in the very same room as David Paulides. OMG.

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ANGRY BIGFOOT SPEAKS!

How many more fake blobs and hu-man in monkey suits me have to see? Joker hu-man think he funny, make movie of self in costume, think he fool hu-man. He not fool me. Laugh at Bigfoot? Mess with Squatch? Me know difference between Bigfoot baby and porcupine in tree! Me see shadow or stump and know it shadow or stump! If me see porcupine me eat! But if me see hu-man me go far away. They so stupid and stinky me never imagine actually eat one. I could, but me not going to. They think I "gentle giant" not hurt fly, that why me no eat hu-man. They wrong. Me not hurt human because me just no like, and me know it taste bad like rotten dumpster!

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