A Decade of BLC Bigfoot Banners

Okay, we've haven't been around ALL decade, but 2010 does mark the beginning of a new one. This next decade is going to be a blast, if 2010 is any indication! Starting with the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium we have a lot of other surprise Bigfoot projects we are planning on sponsoring next year!

As we look forward to where we are going, lets reminisce about where we've been. These are the banners Bigfoot (Researcher's) Lunch Club has had over the decade. You can click on any image to enlarge and see more detail.


Who doesn't love harry? But, although it was slightly altered, we felt it was plagerizing.

Even if we put a fork in Harry's hand, it still felt unoriginal, we did introduce the byline, "A tasteful pursuit of Bigfoot discovery." get it? "Tasteful?" "Lunch Club?" Hoo boy!

Introduction of our mascot "Elsie" makin' tracks!

We wanted to focus on the fork in Elsie's hand, so we added sparkles and lost the tracks.

The forest panorama that is still used today. that icon on the bottom left is what we referred to as our badge.

We added the picnic table to the forest and the "universal" picnic sign in the foreground.

Today's banner, we kept the picnic table and dropped the word "researchers" from our URL, so we dropped it from the banner as well. <--That rhymes!

Thank you all for making this our most successful year ever. As we continue to grow, we hope you continue to share with us, "a tasteful pursuit of Bigfoot discovery!"

Happy New Year!

TOP 5 VISITED POST of 2009

The list below is based on traffic from this last year alone. Some of these post were written before 2009, but they still resonated with readers this year.


Harvey's exclusive showing of art on our site was the biggest hit of the year!


Just a list of Bigfoot Movies rated by IMDB


Our image analysis of the Dauphin County photo.



Our ever popular interactive world map.


This is one of our personal favorites, the Cain/Bigfoot/Mormon connection.

Sylvanic Bigfoot Project: Populated Bigfoot habitat found

FULL DISCLAIMER: the pic above was enhanced to delineate the alleged Bigfoot and the Rocks in the foreground. You can see the actual unaltered footage in the video futher down the post. Besides we have no horse in this race anyway.

Alberta native Todd Standing is a columnist for www.unexplained-mysteries.com. He is the resident skeptic at Sylvanic Bigfoot Project. The other three in this group included; a biologist from Great Falls, Montana; a Cree Nations elder representing the First Nations People; and a paramedic fire fighter from Calgary, Alberta.


Sylvanic Bigfoot Project's goal is to obtain enough physical evidence to implement government legislation that will ensure the survival of Bigfoot. Who isn't? That's breakfast conversation for us at BLC. We thought the health care bill should have extended to all bipeds, thus covering Bigfoot.

There is a difference between Todd and ourselves. He has found Bigfoot a community of them. This is good, because according to his website, sylvanic.com, that was all he needed; physical proof.

On March 5/ 2007 Alberta native Todd Standing and his team received confirmation from Danielle Lessard of the Clerk of Petitions for Canada (613-992-9511), that our second submission to get protection for the species commonly referred to as Bigfoot was certified. Mike Lake had the petition Tabled before the House of Commons. We received a response on May 12, 2007 from the House of Commons as to their decision on protection of the illusive species.

They responded by giving us the name of a department and a list of scientists employed by the Canadian government that decides whether a species becomes a protected one. This department said, "Show us a body and we will give you your species protection". Not hair, blood or feces, or even a finger or leg, but a fully intact and recently deceased body.

After a tremendous amount of time and dedication we have discovered a new domicile that is regularly inhabited by the species commonly referred to as Bigfoot and are making preparations for the study of this domicile.

Bigfoot videos 2 and 3 were no fluke. A great deal of planning, preparation, and hard work went into getting in position to film these animals.

Here's the rub, they are not finished with their research and do not want to devulge the exact site in order to protect the species. In his own words:

Our goal is to carefully gather as much information about this species while adhering to our first priority, which is to ensure we do not compromise the research site in any way. This species has zero tolerance for any sustained human presence. When a habitat is compromised, not only do we lose a valuable research site, these animals lose their home. Loss of a habitat means loss of life. Our priority now and always will be the welfare of this species. If we feel our work in any way leads to the detriment of these animals our work will stop immediately.

Our ultimate goal is to discover an intact body that has expired due to natural causes.

He does provide some video evidence (below) and narrates his motive and methodology.



LINKS:
You can read a column Todd wrote in 2006 about the Sylvanic Bigfoot Project here.
You can listen to a December 28, 2009 Interview with Todd in at Blog Talk Radio here.
You visit the Sylvanic Bigfoot Site and purchase Videos 2 & 3 for $5 a piece here

2009 BLC Blog Pics in Review

Some posts don't have the right imagery to go with 'em. This means we have to manufacture them. Our art dept is so dedicated to the right visual message they would be doing these with a xerox machine if they didn't have Photoshop.

You can see our pics at our Facebook Fan Page as a slideshow here

Or scroll down below


OCT 20th -- Celebrating the 42nd anniversary of the Patterson/Gimlin film.


SEP 17th -- What color is Bigfoot's World?


NOV 18th -- Panda as elusive as Bigfoot


NOV 2nd -- Cryptozoology 101 at Bigfoot University


NOV 6th -- Playing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon and Bigfoot


NOV 26th -- Cavemen Roasted Birds Too


OCT 23rd -- Yippy! yeti on Monsterquest!


DEC 9th -- Porcupines point to Bigfoot


NOV 27th -- How do Creationist See Bigfoot?


???? Sorry can't remember post for this one.


OCT 31st -- Global Warming = Bigfoot Migrates North


DEC 16th -- History of the Blobsquatch

Promoters of $1M Hunt 4 Bigfoot Contest Weigh-In

We received a Comment to our previous post via WhalesInSpace.com that seems to close the case of the $1,000,000.00 Hunt for Bigfoot. We decided it deserved its own post. Rick Lewis, of Bigfoot Central/Legend of Bigfoot Museum and promoter of the Hunt 4 Bigfoot event has provided the comment below.

The primary purpose of our Hunt for Bigfoot event is simply to gather together four hundred or more other Bigfoot enthusiasts, for a few days to enjoy the Great Outdoors of the San Juan region of Colorado, promote our business-Bigfoot Central and Legend of Bigfoot Museum, show off the town of Silverton in which we are located, and let everyone enjoy an evening together, Bigfoot'n at our planned $1,000,000.00 Hunt for Bigfoot closing party.

Over 17,000 people visited our Legend of Bigfoot Museum this past season and we have had many a request for such an event. With (7) recorded sightings nearby this year and a long history of encounters in this region, Bigfoot excitement is in the air and the response to our planned event has been very good. For those one or two skeptics-and there always seem to be some in a crowd-we encourage them to stay home. The $1,000,000.00 Hunt for Bigfoot event is for imaginative and fun enjoying people only.

-- Bigfoot Central/Legend of Bigfoot Museum

Great Job WhalesInSpace.com!

You can still register to participate in The Hunt For Bigfoot at www.hunt4bigfoot.com

Skamania County Bigfoot Ordinances

ORDINANCE NO. 1984-2
PARTIALLY REPEALING AND AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. 1969-01

WHEREAS, evidence continues to accumulate indicating the Possible existence within Skamania County a nocturnal primate mammal Variously described as an ape-like creature or sub-species of Homo Sapiens; and

WHEREAS, legend, purported recent findings, and spoor support This possibility; and

WHEREAS, this creature is generally and commonly known as “Sasquatch”, “Yeti”, “Bigfoot”, or “Giant Hairy Ape”, all of which terms may be hereinafter be used interchangeably; and

WHEREAS, publicity attendant upon such real or imagined findings And other evidence have resulted in an influx of scientific investigators as well as casual hunters, most of which are armed with lethal weapons; and

WHEREAS, the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county in regard to firearms and other deadly devices used to hunt the Yeti and poses a clear and present danger to the safty of the well-being persons living or traveling within the boundries of this county as well as to the Giant Hairy Apes themselves; and

WHEREAS, previous County Ordinance No. 1969-01 deemed the slaying of such creature to be a felony (punishable by 5 years in prison) and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that Board of County Commissioners; now, therefore

BE IT HEREBY ORDAINED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF SKAMANIA COUNTY that a portion of Ordinance No. 1969-1, deeming the slaying of Bigfoot to be a felony punishable by 5 years in prison, is hereby repealed and in its stead the following sections are enacted:

SECTION 1. Sasquatch Refuge. The Sasquatch, Yeti, Bigfoot, or Giant Hairy Ape are declared to be endangered species of Skamania County and there is hereby created a Sasquatch Refuge, the boundaries of which shall be co-extensive with the boundaries of Skamania County.

SECTION 2. Crime-Penalty. From and after the passage of this ordinance the premeditated, willful, or wanton slaying of Sasquatch shall be unlawful and shall be punishable as follows:
(a) If the actor is found to be guilty of such a crime with malice aforethought, such act shall be deemed a Gross Misdemeanor.
(b) If the act is found to be premeditated and willful or wanton but without malice aforethought, such act shall be deemed a Misdemeanor.
(c) A gross misdemeanor slaying of Sasquatch shall be punishable by 1 year in the county jail and a $1,000.00 fine, or both.
(d) The slaying of Sasquatch which is deemed a misdemeanor shall be punishable by a $500.00 fine and up to 6 months in the county jail, or both.

SECTION 3. Defense. In the prosecution and trail of any accused Sasquatch killer the fact that the actor is suffering from insane delusions, diminished capacity, or that the act was the product of a diseased mind, shall not be a defense.

SECTION 4. Humaniod/Anthropoid. Should the Skamania County Coroner determine any victim/creature to have been humanoid the Prosecuting Attorney shall persue the case under existing laws pertaining to homicide. Should the coroner determine the victim to be an anthropoid (ape-like creature) the Prosecuting Attorney shall proceed under the terms of this ordinance.

BE IT FUTHER ORDAINED that the situation existing constitutes an emergency and such this ordinance shall become effective immediately upon its’ passage.

REVIEWED this 2nd day of April, 1984, and set for a public hearing on the 16th day of April, 1984, at 10:30 o’clock A.M.

Note: Became law on April 16th 1984.


Buy the tshirt that commemorates the law! As seen on TV, this design was showcased on NatGeo's "Bigfoot: The New Evidence".

As seen on TV! You may have seen this design on the recent NatGeo show. "Bigfoot: The New Evidence" A tshirt that commemorates Skamania County writing the first law to recognize and protect Sasquatch.

Be the envy of  your family and friends with this collectors edition of the Skamania County t-shirt commemorating the first law to recognize and protect Bigfoot. This Bigfoot T-shirt is the perfect gift for your favorite bigfooter--even if that favorite bigfooter is yourself.

Skamania County was the first to write a law recognizing and protecting Sasquatch

A closer look at the design (click to enlarge)

These are limited edition t-shirts made with the finest Gildan tees and printed with stretchable ink that will last longer than your average tee. Artwork by Guy Edwards.

Perfect for birthdays or the upcoming Holidays, show your favorite Bigfooter you care and impress them with you knowledge of Bigfoot lore.

Limited quantities, better buy now! Only $19.99 + $5.00 shipping

Sizes

XXL XL L M S

Bryce Holland Bigfoot Documentarian

"Nestled in the heart of the Kiamichi Mountains of Oklahoma is the town of Honobia; a place that has managed to survive with the help of the one of the most infamous creatures of all time."


Fans, last week we introduced you to terrific trailer. It was for a documentary about the Honobia Bigfoot Festival in production at Dense Films. This week we would like to introduce you to director behind the effort. His name is Bryce Holland, he is a director, editor and writer. Like many aspiring directors he cut his teeth on the horror genre. Many modern directors we now enjoy started in the horror genre; James Cameron of Avatar did Piranha II, Sam Raimi of Spiderman did EvilDead, and even Peter Jackson of The lord of the Rings did Braindead.

Bryce Holland's newest project, The Town That Bigfoot Built, is a slight departure from his earlier short films. Its a documentary and he takes an open approach to the subject. You can tell from the trailer that this guy can edit, his pacing is so good I think this documentary will be a hit out of the ball park. He put three years of his life in to this, we can surely give him three minutes of ours. Without further ado here is the trailer again for your pleasure followed by our interview with Bryce Holland.

The Town That Bigfoot Built TRAILER from Bryce Holland on Vimeo.

BLC:You say your primary interest was this neat festival tucked away in OK, but did you also have a strong interest in Bigfoot before the filming of the documentary?

BH:Absolutely. My dad has always been really into stories about weird phenomena and conspiracies and things like that. While other kids were watching cartoons, I was usually watching old re-runs of "In Search Of" or the latest episode of "Sightings" or "Unsolved Mysteries." So, naturally, this led to a huge interest in the "unknown" that just continued to grow as I got older.

BLC:We assume after 3 yrs your opinion of Bigfoot had to have been shaped in some degree or another. Has it? and how?

BH:Well, for the longest time I would say that my opinion of the whole phenomenon was really just shaped by a love of the mysterious. I mean, I'd never had any type encounter or anything remotely like that. I just loved the idea of a weird monster or animal lurking in the woods. But, as I got really into filming, and I began spending time with these Bigfoot researchers and began to hear stories about encounters they had had, my opinion began to shift greatly. The way these guys would talk, with just the utmost conviction and absolutely no care whether I believed them or not just really sat with me. I think there's this stereotype that a lot of these researchers are just looking for attention, but getting to talk to them really showed me that most of them are incredibly passionate individuals that have clearly experienced something extraordinary. That's something I can really respect. I still can't say that I have any kind of encounter, but after the things I have heard I definitely keep my ears and eyes open when I'm in the woods.

BLC:Was Jeff Meldrum as nice to you as he was to us?

BH:He was amazing. Just one of the nicest guys that we got to meet. We actually didn't have anything scheduled with him, but at the last minute, after one of his lectures at the festival, we just walked up to him and he gave us one of the most incredible interviews. Hearing him talk about Bigfoot is what I imagine it's like to have heard Einstein talking about physics.

BLC:Like you, we are huge fans of David Lynch, what are some of the other filmakers you enjoy.

BH: I'm actually a huge fan of horror movies, so some of my favorite filmmakers in that realm are people like John Carpenter, George Romero, Dario Argento, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, and a lot of more modern horror masters like Eli Roth, Takashi Miike, Neil Marshall, Greg McLean, and Ryuhei Kitamura. Outside of horror though, some of my favorite filmmakers include Guillermo Del Toro, Park Chan-Wook, Kevin Smith, the Coen brothers, Sam Raimi, Stanley Kubrick, Mario Bava, Quentin Tarantino,James Gunn, Edgar Wright, and so many others. I could really go on forever talking about filmmakers I love. I've got pretty eclectic tastes.

If you get a chance you can visit Dense Films here
And you can see some other clips Bryce is responsible for here.

$1M Contest to Capture Bigfoot Legit?

Our pals at WhalesinSpace.com are doing some great investigative work into the legitimacy of the $1,000,000.00 Hunt for Bigfoot.



According to the website www.hunt4bigfoot.com:

The Hunt will be held in the San Juan Region of Colorado on July 10-14, 2010 with Hunt Headquarters located at Bigfoot Central in Silverton, CO. approximately 50 miles North of Durango, CO. on Hwy. #550. Many sightings of Bigfoot have been reported in this area over the past 200 hundred years, with recent credible reports of sightings and personal encounters during 2009. Registered participants will be given (96) hours to locate and photograph a live Bigfoot within the Designated Hunt Area of a 100 mile radius of Silverton, CO. The first photograph presented to the Promoter and authenticated by it's designated specialists, will win the $1,000,000.00 reward. Additional prizes will be awarded for photographs of Bigfoot Physical Evidence, i.e. tracks, shelters and the like as well as for Best Photographs of selected animals in the wild.

Registration is through this website. The $1,000,000.00 Hunt for Bigfoot is limited to the first (400) entries and Registration will close when available entries are filled. Entry Fee is $250. for (1) Designated Hunter. Additional T-Shirt/Museum/Party tickets are available for Family Members/Friends at $75. per person. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or Discover Card are accepted through our secure Google Check-Out.

A commenter at Whales In Space question the legitimacy of the contest due to the domain registration of huntforbigfoot.com. The contest site does seem unfinished or incomplete, in fact, the only link that works on the site is the link to purchase tickets. The jury is still out.

We recommend going over to WhalesInSpace.com as they begin to connect the dots on this mysterious contest. Whales in space has a lot more detail and some evidence that may sway your opinion.

Stan Courtney is Making a List and Checking it Twice

Stan Courtney's audio recordings have solved one philosophy's oldest questions, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Quite an accomplishment. An accomplishment one could rest their laurels on, but Courtney didn't stop there, he also built the most useful online list of Bigfoot web sites. The page is called SquatchMarks, The name comes from a hybrid of the two words Sasquatch and Bookmarks. We would even go as far as calling it the Google of Bigfoot sites, but, honestly, its better.

When you search for "Bigfoot" on Google you get 4x4's, Computer networks, and people with genuinely Big feet.


Squatchmarks filters out all of those false positives and then even categorizes them for you. Dont take our word for it, here are few quotes from other sites.

...a treasure trove of links to just about every Bigfoot/Cryptozoology website in existence --southeastsasquatchassociation.weebly.com

...an attempt to collect as many Bigfoot / sasquatch links as possible in one list. --Alliance of Independent Bigfoot Researchers.

...has an extensive links page,and I'm glad he does because he sends quite a few visitors to BigfootSightings.com

...Wow Stan..that sets a standard! Nightwing a member at BigfootForums.com

...Stan Courtney's Squatchmarks put us on the map! BigfootLunchClub.Com

We owe a special gratitude to Stan Courtney. In 2007 when we were a small isolated blog, one person noticed us, and all of the sudden we started getting traffic from a page called Squatchmarks at Stancourtney.com the rest is history, everybody at BLC would like to thank Stan for putting us on the map.

We were fortunate enough to track Stan down and ask a few questions. He generously lent his time to do an interview with us. Not only does he talk about his creation of the best online list of Bigfoot websites ever. He also shares what drives his craft, discusses various opinions on call blasting, the Sierra Sounds, and a possible bigfoot language.

QUESTIONS REGARDING YOUR AUDIO

BLC:You are known by many regarding your Bigfoot sounds, but you have an impressive library of bird audio. Where does your interest in bird sounds come from? Ornithology, birdwatching or just a fan of the different sounds they make?

SC: I have always had an intense interest in birds, and especially bird songs. However, my first audio recordings were of frogs in the Williamette Valley where I lived in the late 1960's.

BLC:I Love the sound of the Red-winged Blackbird, and was glad to be able to see you had a recording. Whenever I hear it, I always look around to see if I can catch it in flight. Do you always have the luxury of seeing the bird you are recording?

SC: I use several different techniques in gathering wildlife sounds. I always carry a recorder with me in the woods, I also am currently attempting to record 24/7 from two different locations. And then I also use a 24" parabolic microphone. So some of my sounds I record while I see the subject but most of my sounds are recorded remotely.

BLC:When it comes to technology and technique, you are awful forthcoming and very helpful on your site. Is this a philosophy you developed on your own? or did you also have a generous mentor when you first started your craft?

SC: My goal has always been to share my sounds and to encourage others to share their sounds as well. I am always more than willing to try and questions about recorders, techniques or sounds in general. Many researchers in the birding community are very helpful in this regard.

QUESTIONS REGARDING BIGFOOT

BLC:You have some sounds in the unidentifiable category, but I assume they all don't all fall into the Bigfoot column or do they?

SC: I have always been very careful not to label any sound as being Bigfoot related. To my knowledge there are no videos showing a Bigfoot making a vocalization. Whatever "Unknown sounds" that I have recorded are just that, unknown. And I would assume quite a few sounds that I have labeled as "unknown" are not Bigfoot related.

BLC:Is there a distinctive Bigfoot Sound and do you have any on your site?

SC: I have heard roars, screams, whoops, whistles, howls all at very close range. I think most researchers would have labelled them as being sasquatch. Unfortunately, for several different reasons, I do not have recordings of them. At this time, although I have some recordings that were very close, none of them would fit the category as being typical Sasquatch type vocalizations.

BLC:Birds generally use calls to attract mates, primates vocalize usually to declare territory; do you think call blasting is useful to Bigfooting?

SC: Call blasting has been used extensively by many researchers. If used in a prudent manner I think it can have startling results.

BLC:Do you have an opinion regarding the Sierra Sounds, or the proposed language found on them?

SC: I am convinced that squatches have a language. One of my primary goals is to record close-in vocalizations that would be useful to compare to other researchers recordings.

QUESTIONS REGARDING SQUATCHMARKS

BLC:Squatchmarks is the definitive go-to page to find Bigfoot sites, blogs, chatrooms, radio shows, forums, audio, videos--everything Bigfoot on the web. It’s better than Google if you are looking for a Bigfoot site. Not only is it the largest list on the web, but it is extremely user friendly; clearly labeled and categorized like a spreadsheet on a single page. Has this page always been like this, or did it evolve over time

SC: I first got on the internet in 1997 and have always searched for a decent start page, with no advertisements. Squatchmarks as you see it today has basically always been the same.

BLC:Did you build Squatchmarks primarily for yourself and hope it would be useful to others?

SC: I guess I built it for myself. As most of the items on my webpage they are a resource to keep things organized so I can find files that I use.

BLC:Did you know you were building a research tool that would become indispensable to other Bigfooters?

SC: I have been surprised by the number of people that use squatchmarks. It is a constant effort to keep it updated. I rely on other researchers to send me new links and delete broken ones.

Thank you Stan for taking the time to do this interview. We appreciate your contributions to Sasquatch research and everyone here at Bigfoot Lunch Club salutes you.

Its worth your while to check out Stans Cortney's Site here.
And make sure you check out Squatchmarks, here.
And you can follow him on Facebook

Yes Virginia, there is a Bigfoot

"Dear Bigfoot Lunch Club: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Bigfoot.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Bigfoot?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Bigfoot. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion and the coelacanth exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Bigfoot. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Plus, Dr. Jeff Meldrum has several high quality casts of tracks and Loren Coleman, who has debunked many of monsters, still pursues the elusive Bigfoot. Yes Virginia, there is a Bigfoot.

Today fans we provide you with a bounty of Bigfoot for the little feet.


Let's Start with the Carolina Pad Company. They have a whole line of "green" products with Sasquatch as their official spokesperson. If you care about the environment and you want your kids to have the eco-friendliest stuff go to www.find-sasquatch.com. plus they have a Games and a Fun Stuff section.


Next, we have our dear friend Linda Newton-Perry of Bigfoot Ballyhoo. She has a Bigfoot Blog just for kids. She is the co-author of three Bigfoot children's books, which are EYE OF THE BEAST, LOCK YOUR DOORS COUNTRY FOLK and THE LITTLE RED CAR AND BIGFOOT. You can buy her books here. Check out her Bigfoot Fancy 4 Kids site here.



Finally we have something for the young adult. If you have a tween interested in the wonders of science the rigors of research and the adventure of new discoveries, the folks at the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center have what you need. They offer free (they request you become a member) online courses to teach all the knowledge and discipline you will need to be a Jr.Field Researcher. The bonus is they don't stop there, if your serious about research and analytics, they have several more courses for members.

Oh and what about online games? We have two yeti games.
Penguin toss
Facebook App Gift of the Yeti
Snowdrift a game you can play in your browser.

2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner Writes Bigfoot

Kim Murphy, LA Times journalist, just won her second Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her eloquent, wide ranging coverage of Russia’s struggle to cope with terrorism, improve the economy and make democracy work.

We stumbled across an article at The Exile, a russian-based newspaper, that seems less than pleased. They go as far as calling her Kim "Bigfoot" Murphy. Mocking the fact that she wrote a great article about Bigfoot. Like that's an insult anyway? I can speak for everybody here at the Bigfoot Lunch Club, we would love to have the middle name "Bigfoot." Then it would match our ankle tattoos we all got that night when we decided to have one of our club meetings in a pub (trust me, it wasn't the worst idea that night--another pint and you would be logged in to "Bigfoot Lunch Pub" instead.)

All kidding aside, we would like to share the Bigfoot article written by a two-time Pulitzer prize winning journalist Kim "Bigfoot" Murphy.

To read the full Bigfoot article, "Science Is Hot on Heels of Bigfoot Legend" by Kim "Bigfoot" Murphy, just click on "Expand Full Post" below.



Science Is Hot on Heels of Bigfoot Legend
January 21, 1996|KIM MURPHY, TIMES STAFF WRITER
WALLA WALLA, Wash. — Stories have always been told about things that happened along old Mill Creek Road, the trail of bumps and switchbacks that winds up from the farms of southeastern Washington to the hushed and empty ranges of the Blue Mountains.
The large, human-like footprints found along the creek. The sounds heard late at night outside the lonely cabins on the upper end of the road. The man who was riding his motorcycle and saw something in the brush, 10 or 12 feet tall, making a weird, high-pitched scream.

As far back as the 1920s, there were reports of a family of huge "man-creatures" skulking up near homesteads along the nearby Coppei River. Six dairy cows were said to have been herded away by the beasts. One by one, the homesteaders left and moved back to town. But the stories persisted. As long as anyone remembers, it has been an item of belief for many here that Bigfoot walks the Blue Mountains.

"Up north here, we growed up with this thing. People would say, 'Look out for the wild man.' Man, how can you doubt it when you still got diapers on and they got a picture of you pointing at a Bigfoot track?" said Wes Sumerlin, a Walla Walla mountain man whose alleged sighting of two ape-like creatures about seven miles off Mill Creek Road last summer has led to hopes of the first scientific evidence of the legend.

Sumerlin and two colleagues came back with clumps of hair that Ohio State University researchers are testing for DNA comparisons. The tests, said Oregon primate zoologist H. Henner Fahrenbach, "could legitimize, to my mind at least, the sightings, the footprints, everything. It would put one item of concrete evidence behind all the circumstantial evidence."

Grendel, Snowman
From Northern California to the dense forests of British Columbia, the legends of Sasquatch have been handed down over hundreds of years, a Northwest version of the fearsome fable--from the Grendel of "Beowulf" to the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas--that is as old as the forest and the night.

Now, years after much of the forest has given way to suburbs, the Sasquatch is in resurgence all over the Northwest, a cultural phenomenon that is at least as remarkable as any scientific evidence uncovered in the DNA labs.

Two books were published last year, one documenting Sasquatch legends, the other an attempt to trail Bigfoot across the Dark Divide, an area of the Cascades in southern Washington and northern Oregon.

Bigfoot now commands two sites on the World Wide Web; a well-funded research project has been launched near Oregon's Mt. Hood to exhaustively document and prepare a computer analysis of all plausible Bigfoot reports; a pair of hotlines are in place to collect Bigfoot sightings; the Western Bigfoot Society, the largest of a host of interest groups all over the world, meets monthly in the basement of a used bookstore in northern Portland, Ore.; a Bigfoot symposium is scheduled this summer outside of Vancouver, Canada.

"Something is definitely afoot in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Either an officially undescribed species of hominoid primate dwells there, or an act of self- and group deception of astonishing proportions is taking place. In any case, the phenomenon of Bigfoot exists," Washington naturalist Robert Michael Pyle wrote in "Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide."

Mainstream scientists have scoffed at reports of a man-ape lurking in the forests of the Northwest, something akin to the great apes that dwelt in East Asia approximately half a million years ago. Not only is it unlikely that one wouldn't have been seen and clearly photographed by now, but it would be difficult for so large an animal to find adequate food in the wild lands that remain, they say.

On the other side are a handful of anthropologists, zoologists and others who say that it is possible that the great apes could have crossed the Bering Sea along the ancient ice passage into North America--and survived by cunning, brawn and shyness in the huge tracts of forests in the Northwest.

"We have an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence. We have footprints by the tens of thousands. . . . I have a giant footprint that is 22 inches. And they go bigger than that. The second thing we have is sightings, and they number in the thousands. They're from people in all walks of life, from game wardens to loggers, plain old grandmas, police officers with 20,000-candlepower searchlights," said Fahrenbach, who teaches a course on Bigfoot science at Portland Community College.

To Kill a Bigfoot
Gordon Krantz, anthropology professor at Washington State University, estimates that there have been about a quarter of a million Bigfoot "events" over the past 40 years. He said he has tracked nearly identical reports from the Northwest into western China and the former Soviet Central Asia, supporting his theory that the ancient gigantopithecus--the greatest ape that ever lived, about 8 or 9 feet tall--did not die off in Asia 400,000 years ago but crossed over into North America and survived in small numbers.

Krantz has touched off something of a controversy in Bigfoot circles by openly advocating the view that a specimen should be hunted down and killed.

"Someday down the line, 50 years from now, somebody by the rare chance might just stumble across the skeleton of a Sasquatch, and then the government sends out masses of [chimpanzee researcher] Jane Goodall's granddaughters, and establishes definitely, they were there, but they're extinct," Krantz theorized. "Everybody will be standing around wringing their hands saying: 'If only we knew they were real, we could have saved them.' Well, they could have been saved if only we would blow one away now. The first one who bags one should get a big, big prize. The second one should be hanged."
One opponent of Krantz's view is Peter Byrne, director of the Bigfoot Research Project at Mt. Hood.

Byrne is a big-game hunter in the classic tradition--Irish, with a good head of white hair and a penchant for khakis and wool sweaters. He spent a good part of his hunting-and-tracking career in Nepal before developing an interest in the Sasquatch and undertaking the first major organized Bigfoot expedition in Oregon in 1960.

It failed to produce a Sasquatch, but Byrne hasn't quit looking. He now spends much of his time tracking down witnesses, carefully probing their stories for holes, sending investigators to look for corroborating evidence, then entering the results in a computer database. So far, 103 sightings going back 50 years--none of them outside the Northwest--have been deemed credible by the four-member team working at Mt. Hood. The project is sponsored by the Academy of Applied Science in Boston.

All told, Byrne figures that he has spent 16 of the last 35 years looking for Bigfoot. He still has never seen one, although like many other Bigfoot researchers, he has heard that shrieking cry in the forest, in the dead of night, that doesn't sound like any other known animal. He only heard it once.

"It was a kind of screaming roar. Very, very powerful. It lasted about five seconds, there was an interruption of four or five seconds, then it happened again. I've heard elephants. I've heard tigers. I've never heard anything like this."

Whatever is finally found in the woods, Byrne said, shouldn't be shot.

"There are those people who say: 'Shoot one, cut off the head and send it to me, it's all over.' We realize that could be the answer. But these things have never harmed anyone, and they've never demonstrated any kind of aggression, and we feel that any attempt to shoot one would be criminal," Byrne said.

The Bigfoot story last August in Walla Walla started with some youths who said they had heard screaming sounds up in the mountains. A local rancher said all his cattle had come down off Biscuit Ridge, where the good feed was, and gone over to Black Snake Ridge, where there wasn't any feed.

Smell of Sasquatch?
The rancher talked to Sumerlin. "I said, 'What about the deer, the elk?' He said, 'I haven't seen any of 'em for about a week.' He said, 'Hell, there aren't even any birds up there.' There ain't nothing sticks around when those critters are there," Sumerlin said.

Sumerlin talked to Paul Freeman, who has spent much of the last several years looking for Bigfoot, and Bill Laughery, an ex-game warden. The three decided to drive up and have a look the next day.

Freeman started out taking the two other men back to where he had seen some tracks earlier. They hiked in off the main road and started climbing into the highlands. Then, Sumerlin said, he got "a whiff of something."

"Smelled like somebody skinning muskrats. And then I thought, 'Hell, there ain't nobody skinning muskrats up here.' " Freeman had gone on ahead, but Sumerlin called Laughery back.

"I stood there just a second or two, and all of a sudden I smelled it: a real pungent, heavy odor like an animal that's in rut. Like you can smell a bull elk or a buck deer," Laughery said. The two men were interviewed separately but gave identical accounts.

Clumps of Hair
Sumerlin and Laughery said they moved together into a clearing, where they found a number of small trees twisted and broken, so fresh they were still dripping sap. There were large clumps of long hair, some black, some dark brown, caught on the trees where they were broken.

Laughery started to walk on when Sumerlin said he saw something moving in the trees. "It's like you can't see it, but you can see the daylight breaking behind it," he said. "Bill was there--he packs those sneaky little spyglasses around--and he said, 'Wes, I see something, but I can't put a head on it.' . . . I got down by him and he was talking about it while I was walking toward it, and then he said, 'Hell, it's gone.' I was looking at the back of the critter, I was just seeing part of it. But he was looking on the other side, and he was getting a good look at it. But basically we saw the same thing. It was a big, hairy critter, about 7 foot tall, I'd say, covered with hair."

"It was 7 to 8 foot tall, buckskin brown, I could see it well enough to see fringe about 1 inch high, a little, on the top of the head," Laughery said. "We were 87 feet away and we stood and watched that for four or five minutes, and it didn't move at all. I looked it up and down. I couldn't see its face. . . . I got a quarter-view. And then the minute I turned to Wes to say something, it took off."

Laughery and Sumerlin said they believe that there were actually two creatures, one that moved off down the canyon, another that headed down a small trail. They both saw the big one jump the trail, 15 feet in one leap, and they got a better look at it. They followed it down 60 to 70 yards through ferns and low bushes.

At about that time, they said, Freeman came running up and kept moving toward the car. "Paul said, 'Let's get the hell out of here,' " Sumerlin said. But the three of them sat down, quietly.

Ties to Fakery
"We sat down three or four minutes and started hearing that brush snapping," Sumerlin said. "We heard a snip, and then we heard another snip, and every time we heard a snip, we'd point. We didn't say nothing. And pretty soon we got up and went over there and we could hear it breathing. Just a real heavy breathing. I looked over and the hair was standing right up on Bill's arm."

From far down in the canyon, they said, there was a whistle. And then from where the breathing was, a grunt, and a crash of bushes, and whatever it was was gone.

The three men went back to collect the hair samples, and the twisted tree branches.
Their story has been discounted by some Bigfoot investigators because it involves Freeman, who is believed to have faked some Bigfoot evidence in the past. But Sumerlin and Laughery said they know all the stories about Freeman and he could not have faked what they saw.

Sumerlin has a good reputation in the Blue Mountains, even among skeptics. "Wes Sumerlin's one of the better mountain men around here," said Del Klicker, who was born on a farm on Mill Creek Road. "It's always been kind of the thing around Walla Walla, that we've got Bigfoot up here, but I've been around here and taken care of cattle, and I've never seen a track."

The hairs will finally tell the tale, Sumerlin and others believe.
Paul Fuerst, associate professor of molecular genetics at Ohio State University, said technical problems have delayed completion of the tests until at least the end of this month. Fuerst said the tests, if they can be completed, "will either show that it was something we know, a bear or a squirrel, or they will show whether it is in fact an unknown species."

Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times

Ask Fairdale Bigfoot

At consuminglouisville.com there is an advice column titled "Ask Fairdale Bigfoot." We decided to ask one of the most important questions regarding Sasquatch conservatism. We were not disappointed by the answer.

Read below or visit the "Ask Fairdale Bigfoot" Column here.

How could we seriously get Bigfoot on the Endangered Species list? What is the process for known animals? What is the governing body of the process?

Epic Gilgamesh
Portland, OR
www.bigfootlunchclub.com

A bigfoot lunch club? Count Fairdale Bigfoot in! Lunch is Fairdale Bigfoot's favorite meal. Well, that or lunch's kissing cousin, brunch. Fairdale Bigfoot is happy to see a social club formed around sasquatches and mid-day meals. Fairdale Bigfoot is even more pleased to see that your club is thinking of protecting bigfoots instead of clucking your tongues about fur samples, uprooted radish patches and mutilated cows (wasn't me, honest).

Now, how to get bigfoots on the endangered species list? Well, tighten your monocle and swallow your crumpet, you're in for a difficult ride. Sasquatches are notoriously shy and blurry (we've all starred in a few amateur films we're not proud of), and are unlikely to appear in public. For a scientist to approve our place on the endangered species list would mean appearing in public and subjecting ourselves to scrutiny.

Plus, the list is under the auspices of too fickle a governance. No sooner would bigfoots have protected status than than the blue dogs would pass an act of Congress to strip it away so Dick Cheney could shoot us in the face.

Plus there's the reproduction aspect. While most missing links would love nothing more than a peer-reviewed, scientifically-approved horizontal mambo, Fairdale Bigfoot has no interest in getting freaky in a zoo. It's not the size of the cage that prohibits the shaggy shagging (there's a musky Ford Pinto in Shively that proves Fairdale Bigfoot right on this one), but the onlookers. Men in safari hats with clipboards, children crying, teenagers throwing peanuts. That's not Fairdale Bigfoot's scene.

So, thanks for the help with the protected status, but Fairdale Bigfoot will take his chances with former Vice Presidents for now.

Thankyou Fairdale Bigfoot and everybody here at the Big Foot Lunch Club Salutes you!

2009's Top Scientific Breakthrough; a bridge to Bigfoot

The journal Science has named the top scientific breakthrough of the year as the unveiling of "Ardi," a skeletal reconstruction of a 4.4 million-year-old fossil. Ardi (pictured), possibly the oldest known human ancestor, offers scientists a "Rosetta stone" in helping decipher our ancient family tree.

We reported early on in October regarding the discovery Ardi in our post Aridi did descend from apes

There is a great article at Science Magazine
And an update at the Cosmic Log at MSNBC

There is a great video at The Journal of Science here.
Below is a great NBC clip announcing the Ardi News.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

St Nick + Yeti = Santa

Okay, we have been accused of comparing Bigfoot to the European Wildman, The Jolly Green Giant, Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh, even the werewolf. But Santa Clause? Come on BLC you go too far! Well, I can assure you, "Oh no we did-ent!"

The blame/honor/responsibility goes to Jeffrey Vallance of LA Weekly. In an article aptly titled "SANTA IS A WILDMAN!" he writes a riveting tale in the exploration of Santa's Origins. From the Bishop-become-Saint Nicholas to The Snämannen(snowman) a dark, Scandinavian ape-like creature covered in thick, dirty, stinky hair — more like the abominable snowman.

So you see we can hardly be blamed for making such an association when Mr. Vallance did it so eloquently himself.

Heres an excerpt about St. Nicholas:

ACCORDING TO ECCLESIASTICAL LEGENDS, St. Nicholas (A.D. 280-343) was born in Patara, Lycia (Turkey today). Nicholas became Bishop of Myra and was known for performing many miracles. One story tells how Nicholas preserved the chastity of three young girls. The saint discovered that a poverty-stricken man was about to sell his three virgin daughters into child prostitution. In the night, Nicholas threw three orbs of gold down the man's chimney, thus saving the girls from their unspeakable plight. From this source we now have Santa going down the chimney as well as the gleaming, orb-like Christmas-tree ornament.

In A.D. 540, an ornate basilica was constructed over St. Nicholas' humble tomb in Myra. In A.D. 800, the saint's legend was brought to Scandinavia by the Vikings, where it merged with much older pagan myths of trolls and elves.

And here is the Yeti-like Creature of Scandinavia:

A TYPE OF WILDMAN, THE SNÄMANNEN (snowman) purportedly inhabits northern Scandinavia in Lapland, including the Arctic regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as Russian Lapland (the Kola Peninsula) and Siberia. The Lapp Snowman is not to be confused with the Christmas character Frosty the Snowman, a huge snowball with coal (soot) for eyes and mouth, a carrot for a nose, holding a broom like a chimney sweep. The Snämannen is described as a dark, ape-like creature covered in thick, dirty, stinky hair — more like the abominable snowman. His face is broad with prominent brow ridges, nose pressed flat, and a mouth that juts out from a huge jaw. His arms are larger than a man's, and his feet are enormous, with hairless soles. In mountainous regions, the Snämannen's coat turns silver or snow-white in winter. Snämannen's favorite food is cranberries.

Like the miraculous relationship between Peanut butter and Chocolate, those Scandinavians also saw the awesome value of combining two great things made even better by combining them:

When I first arrived in the Land of Hoarfrost, I was puzzled by the enigmatic heraldic symbol of Lapland, the wildman — a hairy, reddish, bestial character dressed in leaves, wielding a gnarled club. To me he looked like a typical prehistoric caveman or the Jolly Green Giant. I collected vague reports of an actual Swedish wildman (Snömannen), a yeti-like creature believed to inhabit the remote areas of the forest. One day when wandering through the wilds of Lapland, I beheld an astonishing thing: a colossal statue of the wildman painted bright red with a snowy white beard. From a distance it looked like Santa Claus. As I stood at the base, staring up at the Herculean statue, it hit me like a hunk of red-hot ejecta from Mount Hekla: Santa Claus, the wildman and Snömannen must spring from the same ancient source. I determined to find the connections between these enigmatic characters.

Still not conviced? Jeffrey Valance even produced a lovely Santa Family Tree. Click to enlarge.


I insist you read the original LA Weekly Article here
And you can read Mr. Vallance's other articles here

Mr. Jefferey Vallance Bigfoot Lunch Club Salutes you!