An article that is not dismissive or tongue-in-cheek. A nice refreshing look at squatching, or Bigfooting as we prefer here at BLC. The great thing about The Chronicle, a newspaper serving Lewis County Washington, is it a great introduction for those not familiar with Bigfooting, while remaining fair and balanced.
Here's an exerpt below.
ELBE — He stands 9 feet tall with stringy brown fur all over his body and glowing red eyes, and if he truly does exist, he probably lives in a forest near you.
The ape-like beast known as Sasquatch is mere legend to skeptics, but to members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, he is a legitimate scientific conundrum. The group regularly scours areas in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and other wooded parts of the state in search of “squatches” — that’s right — plural Sasquatch.
Based on sightings reported by BFRO’s Web site, Washington state is effectively Bigfoot central, more specifically the densely covered Cascade foothills of Southwest Washington. The group believes Sasquatches live in complex communities with advanced social norms and complex forms of communication, including their own language.
“These people who live here, if you could get them to talk to you, they would tell you, ‘We hear them all the time,’” said Scott Taylor, a particularly active member of BFRO who led a group of eight people on a research trip near Mount Rainier National Park last Saturday. “We try to come out to places like this to meet the witnesses and sit and talk and let them get it off their chest, because many of them have been bottling it up for years.”
The group’s claim to fame is the “Skookum Cast,” a body impression of an ape-like figure found in the Skookum Meadow, in the southern portion of the Gifford Pinchot. It was unveiled in 2000 and studied by the late Washington State University anthropologist Grover Krantz, who dedicated much of his career to studying Bigfoot, along with the Kennewick Man — skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on the Columbia River in 1996.
The article even touches on the subject of Ray Wallace, although it may be an oversimplification.
Wallace died in 2002, but is survived by family still in the area. Bigfoot believers generally don’t buy the Wallace hoax because its announcement came after his death when family members found the foot pressings after sorting through his old junk. The Bigfoot faithful also take particular umbrage with what they say are fabricated quotes in a 2002 article by the New York Times calling Wallace’s passing “the death of Bigfoot.”
Overall we appreciate the tone of the article, it even highlights The Chronicles past coverage of Bigfoot and has a list of sightings in the Lewis County Area. to us that means theres enough information there that some reader will get the "bug" and be the one that helps us find Bigfoot.
EXTERNAL LINKS
The Chronicle Article: In Search of ’Squatch
NY Times Article at BigfootEncounters.com
Bigfoot Did Not Die by John Green
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