Are we closing in on Bigfoot?

[evancj]

I have had some run ins with bears, luckily they were just as scared of me as I was of them.

[keninsc]

I've seen a few black bears in my times, never saw any grizzlies, well except one dead one or rather it's skeleton. I managed to get all the long claws off it. Those darn things are huge. I still have them which I think is actually illegal but I think I have to actually try and sell them or trade them before it's an issue from a legal stand point. Unless I was a Native American on a reservation, then I could sell them to the highest bidder. I'm told it's a cultural thing but it sounds a whole lot like Capitalism at it's finest to me. But then, I'm an engineer, not an economist.

In the Spring when they have small cubs is when you really need to be on the lookout for them, a she bear with a cub, regardless of species, is a force to be reckoned with and the last thing I want to do is have to drop the mother and have the responsibility of orphaning a very young cub. However, I find dying and becoming bear poo isn't a really great option either.

Edited December 11, 2012 by keninsc

[Q-C]

I must admit I do find myself looking for any sign of the big guy some times.

D***, I hope bf poses for you. You take awesome photos!

No worry of a blobsquatch there. What would the bigfoot world do?

If that fails a nice pic of the Bigfoot Blimp as it sails by would be cool too.

[coolguy]

We are geting close to finding him.bigfoot is just some kind of ape.

[keninsc]

Ok, everyone please go give a listen to the interview from Dr. Melba Ketchum I just posted on another thread.

[scowl]

Was it this one?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078203/

This isn't the one but it's still great. I'll save someone three bucks with a long summary.

It starts with a POV scene of "Bigfoot" stomping through the forest while wildlife in stock footage appear to see Bigfoot coming and run away. It only takes five minutes before you see the Patterson footage.

How can you argue with narration like this?

Under the supervision of North American Wildlife Research, investigators began feeding data into computers. After months of computerized research on behavior patterns, migratory movement [?], and eyewitness descriptions, the computer began answering the many questions surrounding these mysterious creatures. By programming the data from hundreds of sightings, the computer drew us a picture of Bigfoot. It corresponded with the Patterson film.

What do we see here? A plotter drawing a cartoon that looks something like a guy in an ape suit. I guess the computer is right! Furthermore, these advanced computers have narrowed down the very area where the Sasquatches are living in complete solitude and the researchers are going to go to this remote area to capture one. Will they succeed?

Lots of stock footage of the British Columbia forests. Introduction of the team which includes who you would expect in 1977: your standard floppy hatted "mountain man" smoking a pipe, your "Indian with leather headband", your "camp cook" who looks like a gold prospector from 1849, and of course the bearded researcher. There is also Bob Vernon of "National News Service", a reporter for "a major news source". He's actually a bad actor delivering stiff monologues at the researcher:

That's right. I don't believe in Bigfoot. I'm here because I'm good at my job and the pay is enough to be practical. If not desirable. I'd much rather be on the streets of New York City. Where the enemy is visible. And real instead of chasing some mythological boogie man in the woods.

"His negative attitude disturbs me" says the narrator. What disturbs me is that he sounded like he was reading his lines off of a cue card.

Then lots of filler with horses and the "reporter" looking villainous at the Bigfoot hunting heroes. He going to kill them all in their sleep. They ride along as miles and miles of stock wildlife footage is intercut with them. How lucky! They just happened to come across a wolf nursing her cub, then a badger gets to close and they fight just ten feet from the camera. This happens every time I go hiking. I hope they have enough film to shoot Bigfoot when they find him!

Even more scenery of "this primitive country" mixed with even more stock footage of animals. Mountain Man suddenly yells "Hold up! Bring yer binoc'lars! It's grizzly!" Shoot, I thought it would be Bigfoot. The "reporter" pretends to take close up photos of the bear with a tiny lens. The community theater rejects continue to play their characters with the "Cook" fixin' up some salami sandwiches and the Mountain Man saying "I figger it'll be 'bout three weeks" until they get to Bigfoot country. The "Indian" tells us, "That particular area of B.C. has been taboo for my tribe and others as long as Indian history goes back."

Jeepers, they're being stalked by a cougar! We see the evil creature's POV through the bushes. Do cougars like salami sandwiches? I guess they do as an actual trained cougar "attacks" our heroes as seen in several takes of it jumping at them. Now the dogs are chasing the cougar up into a tree. WTF! They shot the cougar in a tree! "It would have stalked us and followed us!" Right. The cougar falls from the tree and plays dead proving it's the most trained actor so far.

Day for night scene of Reporter asking Mountain Man if he's seen a Sasquatch. Nope, he's only seen tracks. "Some biggens. Some littlens." Oh no, this leads to a flashback of miners on Mount Saint Helens back when the top was still on it. More community theater rejects play the miners who are stalked by the camera/Bigfoot. We see some shaggy legs. Oh, then we see the outline of Bigfoot on top of a hill! Bigfoot is blurry! And I think he's p***ed about something. Did Bigfoot claim this gold already? We see Bigfoot through the window as the miners sleep in the cabin while it's bright as day outside.

Then Bigfoot attacks! A fist through a window not visible on the exterior and he's got a miner by the neck. Another Bigfoot appears to drop stones on the cabin in support. He smashes another window. Blam blam blam from the guns. "Went on fer moster the night" but they didn't hit a one! "That's some story, Josh" mumbles the reporter.

More stock wildlife footage. A bear cub swimming a river which is adorable but not worth the three dollars I paid Amazon. Narrator rambles on about how nature is so pretty and people shouldn't mess it up. Oddly no Bigfoot tracks yet. Stock footage of marmots sliding down the hills in the snow. They're cute too. Uh oh, the Mountain Man looks confused as he consults a crude map drawn on what appears to be a handkerchief. Was this movie the inspiration for the Blair Witch Project?

Oh we hear growling! Is it Bigfoot? No just more stock footage, this of two bears fighting. Or mating. I can't tell. It goes on for about two minutes. After that, they "continued on the game trail" to more stock footage. OK, they're going to cross the Peckatoe River into "Sasquatch country". Reporter takes more shots with tiny lens. Oh no, the Wikipedia entry for this movie says the river doesn't even exist and it was all filmed here in Oregon. No wonder this looks familiar. Damn, I should have read that before paying for this.

More hijinks with the Cook and some cute trained animals, I mean "varmits", stealing his food. The shirtless Indian won't cross the river because it's taboo. I guess they'll just leave him. Day for night Mountain Man says Teddy Roosevelt saw Bigfoot. Of course this leads to a flashback. A small flaw in the story is that it's just something Roosevelt heard. Summary: a bear wrecked their camp. About midnight they shot at a bear. The next day we find one of the fellows dead. From a bear attack. Bring on Bigfoot already.

OK, back to crossing that river that doesn't really exist. Uh oh, the Indian's horse fell over in the water. I guess that's why they're forbidden to cross it. The Cook falls into the drink too and nearly drowns in his own stupidity. Everyone's OK. The Indian has his shirt back on. The narrator waxes about how different everything is on the other side of the river:

There was an abundance of game everywhere! More than I had ever seen before! And none of the animals seemed afraid of us! Perhaps we were the first horses and men they had seen.

Of course we see a trained raccoon playing with our heroes in a stream.

Narrator says that research showed that Bigfoot eats lots of vegetation. That's news to me. They should be easy to find then. A horse gets stuck in the mud. When this happens just beat the living crap out of it until it finds a way out. Now the Reporter is tired of taking orders. "Aye aye, captain." I told you he was going to kill them all.

Now a day for night bear attack. The bear attacks the Reporter for being a jackass in the last scene. The Wikipedia article is right -- it's really a bear eating candy off of a guy's shoulder while he's screaming. This was worth the three bucks. Now I know not to put candy on my shoulders when I'm hiking.

Lots more day for night scenery. Indian mumbling something. The Indian is out on guard while talking to the camp on a CB walkie talkie. The Indian radios "Something is approaching! Do you hear anything?" "No" the Narrator responds.

"Then it is already here!" That line would have been in the trailer for sure. The horses are freaked. The dogs are freaked. Then a "howoooool" sound followed by a low "hwwwaaaahhhhh!" More, "Hwah! hwah! Huuuwah!" The Cook runs around with toilet paper. "It had to be a Sasquatch! Nothing else sounds like that!" That goes into the trailer too.

Now Josh the Mountain Man is missing from camp. Whoa! Hold on a damn minute! In the Blair Witch Project, Josh also goes missing. It's the same damn movie! Ed Ragozzino should have sued them for millions! Oh wait, the Mountain Man just didn't have that "radio gizmo turned on." I guess it's not the same movie.

The next day they find tracks! They are the typical Bigfoot tracks where Bigfoot carefully presses down evenly on the ground so the shape of each toe is clear and distinct. "They're about four hours old" says someone from CSI: Miami. "After all this time!" the Investigator acts with awe. They try to follow the tracks but it leads to huge mountains, then the wind blows. It starts to rain but they find more tracks, just two or three hours old they know somehow. They find broken trees which is how Bigfoot marks his territory. "From here we go with danger" says the Indian, sounding like Kwai Chang Caine from the old "Kung Fu" series.

Getting close to the end. They set up camp and the vaguely-described "electronic monitoring device" which was designed to detect Bigfoot. Actually it's just eight thin wires strung between trees. They're locked and loaded with tranquillizer guns and the day for night should make spotting Bigfoot a cinch. Wire four has been broken! Now wire three has been broken! The stomping of feet! The "hoooowwwrrrah" and the "hwah! hwah!" is back. Someone on the radio says "He's just mighty close!" "He circling the meadow!" "I can hear it breathing!" Jeepers there's more than one! Someone is walking through the trees. Oh that's Bigfoot? Okay, I'll play along. He approaches in the traditional "bogah bogah" pose with his arms up in the air. Is he surrendering? Nope. more rock throwing!. Now Bigfoot is trashing the camp. A brief glance of a Bigfoot mask. The tranq guns put two trees to sleep. Blam blam blam go the more traditional firearms! Nothing doing. Bigfoot strolls around like he owns the forest.

"He is gone. We can go home", mumbles the Indian. "It looks..." says the Investigator. Then a minute later he finishes the sentence with "...like we're finished here." The Narrator admits they hadn't learned anything but there will be more investigations! You can run but you can't hide, Bigfoot!

[orangepeaceful79]

This isn't the one but it's still great. I'll save someone three bucks with a long summary..................

That was pretty damn entertaining, scowl. I bet your synopsis was better than the actual feature.

Edited December 11, 2012 by orangepeaceful79

[Rafterman]

That's a valid point, what with the potential money to be made from TV and the media in general, expeditions, training seminars, lectures, books, tee shirts and all other like mannered things, actually finding a Bigfoot might well shut down the cash cow. Although, I can't help but wonder if you could do full time investigation with proper equipment and a good group of people with a fair amount of woodsman skills, if that wouldn't make a difference?

That's always one of the laughable issues about these "expeditions". Rarely do they include folks who actually know what in the hell they are doing. If I were a serious Bigfoot researcher, instead of bringing on the likes of Bobo, I'd fill my group with local hunters and off-duty game wardens.

Frankly if those guys/gals couldn't find a lumbering man ape, no one could.

[Rafterman]

I think it might be so I'll have to check it out. It's only $2.99 on Amazon Instant.

If it has the woman opening her front door and seeing Bigfoot standing there like he's delivering a package, I'll know this is the one. That was scary.

There's also the one about the miners who were attacked by Bigfeet. I recall a scene where they were throwing boulders down on their cabin or something like that.

[blind pew]

In recent years, we've seen the use of trail cams, FLIR technology, and what seems like more and more people actively looking for the hair bugger. So, the question is, what do you think? Are we getting closer? Yes? No?

This of course assumes by default that there is something to discover at all, but this is straight up speculation, so let's don't start splitting hairs.

Please see my topic cosmic joker

[scowl]

There's also the one about the miners who were attacked by Bigfeet. I recall a scene where they were throwing boulders down on their cabin or something like that.

This is the one (or one of them). That's the scene of the miners on Mount Saint Helen's. I don't know where Bigfoot was getting all those rocks.

The one I remember was more of a professional "In Search Of" production, not this student film. It was mainly dramatizations of famous Bigfoot sightings. It had a theatrical release. It showed a map of the U.S. and how many Bigfoot reports each state had. People in the theater gasped when they showed how many Oregon had.

[evancj]

D***, I hope bf poses for you. You take awesome photos!

No worry of a blobsquatch there. What would the bigfoot world do?

If that fails a nice pic of the Bigfoot Blimp as it sails by would be cool too.

Thanks QuiteContrary,

I didn't make it out last weekend (3 day snow storm) but I did get out 2 weeks ago. It was an interesting hike. I found and photographed a dead moose, a dead badger, and a dead deer. Did not see any living animals but birds. I was going to post my death hike photos but didn't want to dig up the old topics related to how no one ever finds dead animals. Still looking for a dead bigfoot.

[Stardrive]

Evan, were you able to determine the cause of death of the animals you found?

[keninsc]

Ha! You killed those animals to cast doubt on the truth that no one ever finds dead animals!

Confess your sins now or be forever known as the man who hikes among his own dead.

[Q-C]

Thanks QuiteContrary,

I didn't make it out last weekend (3 day snow storm) but I did get out 2 weeks ago. It was an interesting hike. I found and photographed a dead moose, a dead badger, and a dead deer. Did not see any living animals but birds. I was going to post my death hike photos but didn't want to dig up the old topics related to how no one ever finds dead animals. Still looking for a dead bigfoot.

bolding mine

Not so fast, evancj. Bigfoot don't recover, bury, or eat their dead. Bigfoot shapeshift after death!

Case solved. Next!

Edited December 12, 2012 by QuiteContrary

[evancj]

The moose was a female yearling, around the size of a full grown cow elk. It was still intact probably dead less than a week. I looked for gunshot or arrow wounds and did not see any. I didn't see any sign of it bleeding out where it was laying. There was no signs of trauma to the neck or head like what you would see with a cougar, there was no sign of trauma to the legs; front or back like what you would see with wolves. The only tracks I found were from coyote, magpies and ravens. While a coyote or coyotes could not physically bring down such a large animal with brute force, they can separate a young inexperienced calf from it's mother and cause it to panic, resulting in an mortal injury (broken leg), or running it into heat exhaustion. I have observed coyotes attempting to do this with a young moose and deer before. The moose was being eaten from the anus which is the easiest and most direct route to the good parts.

The badger, I don't know what happened to him he was pretty chewed up by the time I found him I ID'd him from the skin and hair. I use to trap and skin them in my younger days so I'm pretty confident with my ID.

The deer was a very small yearling nothing left of it but a couple legs, and a rib cage it could have been cougar, bobcat, wolf, coyote, or bear that killed it.

I will post the pics if it's alright with keninsc

Edited December 12, 2012 by evancj

[evancj]

Ha! You killed those animals to cast doubt on the truth that no one ever finds dead animals!

Confess your sins now or be forever known as the man who hikes among his own dead.

You know I kind of like that title. It's a bit long but I think I can make it work.

[Stardrive]

Thanks evan, the reason for my inquiry is because I recently found the remains of 4 whitetails, in close proximity. 3 of the deer I was able to determine were discarded after a hunter skinned it. It is hunting season here afterall. 1 looked like it could have been a kill by a predator, possibly a mountain lion. Nothing unusual about them really. The only puzzling thing I found was a deer leg that appeared to have been snapped off (not twisted) lying on the ground all by itself about 50 yards from the kills. The hide on the leg was still intact. Could have been anything that caused that, no unexplained mystery there. Just found it odd.

Yes QC you are correct, there is no such thing as a sasquatch. No need to heckle. Oh I know, I'm always up for a good time also.

[Q-C]

Thanks evan, the reason for my inquiry is because I recently found the remains of 4 whitetails, in close proximity. 3 of the deer I was able to determine were discarded after a hunter skinned it. It is hunting season here afterall. 1 looked like it could have been a kill by a predator, possibly a mountain lion. Nothing unusual about them really. The only puzzling thing I found was a deer leg that appeared to have been snapped off (not twisted) lying on the ground all by itself about 50 yards from the kills. The hide on the leg was still intact. Could have been anything that caused that, no unexplained mystery there. Just found it odd.

Yes QC you are correct, there is no such thing as a sasquatch. No need to heckle. Oh I know, I'm always up for a good time also.

Yes, I joke because I do not believe in either, but it does make sense to me for the shapeshifting or skinwalker crowd of bigfoot believers. It was a serious post but one I, yes, find unbelievable.

[Stardrive]

Well if you're looking for a dead one, where would you look? And really, since they don't exist anyways, why bother? Seems like it would be a ginormous waste of time.

As usual you're right again QC. Shapeshifter.... HA!. The ultimate chameleon. Next thing you know it'll have angel dna.

[scowl]

Well if you're looking for a dead one, where would you look?

I would follow the circle of scavenger birds who are often the first to find a large corpse. Wolves will often tear a corpse apart and spread the bones around.

Even a single Bigfoot femur would be unlike any bone you'd find in the forest and would be undeniable proof it exists. Sad that all researchers need is just one damn bone yet no one has found one.

[Stardrive]

Even a single Bigfoot femur would be unlike any bone you'd find in the forest and would be undeniable proof it exists. Sad that all researchers need is just one damn bone yet no one has found one.

But without the creature being catalogued, it would just be considered an oddity, or the bone of a human with a genetic defect. Inconclusive at best if found in North America.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Stardrive

[Q-C]

I would follow the circle of scavenger birds who are often the first to find a large corpse. Wolves will often tear a corpse apart and spread the bones around.

Even a single Bigfoot femur would be unlike any bone you'd find in the forest and would be undeniable proof it exists. Sad that all researchers need is just one damn bone yet no one has found one.

If I was artistic, which I'm not, I'd draw a line of happy porcupines, carrying off the giant femur, like ants. And devouring it like a school of piranha.

[scowl]

But without the creature being catalogued, it would just be considered an oddity, or the bone of a human with a genetic defect. Inconclusive at best if found in North America.

Yeah a human that had a genetic defect... that made him nine feet tall!

Hey are there any missing nine foot tall people who were last seen in a forest?

[psyche101]

Well if you're looking for a dead one, where would you look? And really, since they don't exist anyways, why bother? Seems like it would be a ginormous waste of time.

As usual you're right again QC. Shapeshifter.... HA!. The ultimate chameleon. Next thing you know it'll have angel dna.

Creeks and river banks - freshwater of course and with steep banks. When drought hits and they dry up a bit animals try to get to water and often take a fall breaking a leg or something, or can get stuck in mud.

Or a sheep farm. Sheep are small and are more easily preyed upon. I have stumbled across many a skeleton on creek banks and in sheep paddocks. Sheep are easy to spot too, the wool blows around and makes quite a nasty mess.