Ron Morehead Back with Pictures from Siberian Yeti Expedition in Kemerovo

Bigfoot Lunch Club had the honor of spending the evening with Ron Morehead and Thom Powell in Portland, Oregon last night. Ron had just returned from the huge Kemerovo Siberian Yeti expedition. Not only did he come back with a perspective not told in the mainstream media, but he came back with photos too.

In case you don't know, Ron Morehead is best known for his audio recordings of Sasquatch vocalization, known as The Sierra Sounds. The Sierra Sounds Volume #1 "Bigfoot Recordings" is self-described as a selection of audio clips captured by Morehead, that reveal very clear Bigfoot vocalizations captured on a crisp night at a remote wilderness camp.

We actually have enough content to span several posts. So we will start at the beginning and see how many posts it will take.

When we asked Ron how he was contacted, he mentioned he had met Igor Burtsev, one of the most prominent yeti researchers in Russia, at a previous Sasquatch conference. Igor asked if Ron was interested in doing some investigations in Russia and that conversation led to the most recent expedition.

Once Ron got there he mentioned over and over again how well they were hosted. There is no doubt to the locals whether or not Yeti lived in the area; from Senators to the indigenous tribe of the Shors, they had all seen enough evidence. Therefor Ron and others were given quite the red carpet treatment.

The Picture below is the blessing of the indigenous Shors people. Wikipedia describes them as:

Most of Shors live in the Tom basin along the Kondoma and Mras-Su Rivers. This region is historically called Mountainous Shoria...The Shors were mainly engaged in hunting, fishing, some primitive farming, and pine nut picking. Blacksmithing and iron ore mining and melting were also important (hence, the name "Blacksmithing Tatars"). SRC: Wikipedia

The purpose of the ceremony was an opportunity to get permission from the Shors to investigate the area--and yes there was a mascot there.



Below is a video with RT correspondent Marina Portnaya who was with the expedition most of the time.



Stay tuned for more pics from the cave, tree formations, the nest, and castings from Ron's further adventures after the expedition.

Tonight (October 17, 2011) Ron Morehead will be on the Q&A panel of experts after the screening of "Not Your Typical Movie at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon. More event details here.

Siberian Yeti in Kemerovo Attention is in Time for Yeti Day Nov 11th

For you fans that have been with us for a while, you will remember our post last year about the Kemerovo Yeti Day on November 11th. This day marks the beginning of Kemerovo's ski season.

Click the following link to read our entire Kemerovo Siberian Yeti Coverage.

On Nov 4, 2010, we referenced a Russian publication with the following quotes:

"...Several advertising and PR experts said that Bigfoot reports were probably teasers for attracting tourists to the region. Three months after the sensational news tourism agencies had introduced excursions to 'Yeti's Cave.'

'Every year Yeti Day celebrations will mark the start of the ski season with thousands of ski lovers from all over Russia gathering on Mount Shoriya,' Zauervayn said, adding that Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev is likely to take part in the Yeti-dedicated festivities..."

When the sensation in Kemerovo started this year we had added the caveat that this may be similar to last years ramp up towards the tourism and ski season in Kemerovo, but we were still excited about the group of people involved including Dr. Jeff Meldrum and Igor Burtsev.

While the tourism angle has eluded most of the media, it is refreshing to see a St. Louis Paper seems to have gone beyond the press release and talks about the economic motivation of the Kemerovo local government.

...The government of Russia's Kemerovo region said a two-day expedition last weekend by yeti experts had "collected irrefutable evidence" of the yeti's existence. Among the "irrefutable evidence": a couple of hairs, what was presumed to be a den and indistinct footprints.

Exciting though this news might be, it's important to remember that Kemerovo — in remote southwestern Siberia — has endured tough economic times since the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago. Yeti-based tourism and a government research center are among the Kemerovo government's goals...

SRC: STLToday.com

Do we care that tourism is the impetus of the sensational claims from Kemerovo? No. We think the mainstream attention towards the phenomena of Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti is a good thing. If the attention peaks the interest of one smart person willing to do research and dig deeper, its worth any number of ignorant ones whose minds would not have been changed otherwise.

Michigan Bigfoot Prefers Blueberry Bagels

This is a hodgepodge of several Sasquatch news items from the Discovery News Website. It has some updates from the Siberian Yeti, quotes from Jeff Meldrum and opinions from Loren Coleman and a Michigan story of habituation where a women claims to be feeding a family of Bigfoot.

Yes this story is all over the place, but it has a few updates of the Siberian Yeti Expedition.

NEW BIGFOOT SIGHTINGS: PROOF STILL LACKING
A Michigan woman says she feeds a bigfoot family blueberry bagels; others say a "snowman" roams Siberia.

By Eric Niiler

There are new claims of bigfoot encounters -- in Siberia and rural Michigan -- that will likely add to the debate over whether the creatures really exist, although neither holds the smoking gun of a photograph, tissue sample or other scientific evidence.

A group of Russians claim a living "snowman" roams the cold Shoria Mountain area of southern Siberia. Meanwhile a woman in Newaygo County, Mich., told Discovery News that she has been interacting with and actually feeding a large family of close to 10 Bigfoot-like creatures who live in the woods near her home for the past two years.

"They get fish every day, a bucket of fruit, a bucket of dry dog food," said Robin Lynn Pfeifer, a 47-year-old resident of Newaygo County, north of Grand Rapids. "Their favorite thing is blueberry bagels. If I'm not baking them, I go to different stores to buy them. I tell them they are feeding the wildlife."

She said she has collected casts of many large footprints, but says the creatures are too shy and too clever for her to get a photograph. She describes the Bigfoots as ranging from six to nine feet tall and looking like humans, except for hairy coats and broad noses.

"The biggest one I've sat and looked at for 15 minutes was nine and a half feet tall," Pfeifer told Discovery News. "The large male is all black. Others are beige and white. The biggest footprint is 18 and a half inches long."

Skeptics say that big claims need big proof, and so far that hasn't happened when it comes to Bigfoot. Natural history and evolutionary scientists also ask how these creatures could have survived for so long without being detected, and where the evidence is of their body or bones or DNA.

Loren Coleman directs the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine and has been studying and writing about strange sightings of creatures for several decades. He says he's skeptical of anyone who comes forward with tales of lengthy Bigfoot encounters without providing serious evidence.

"All the Bigfoot contactees -- for some reason they never take photographs," Coleman said. "There's a lot of interest in finding these things, but we have to look of the credibility of the people feeding us the stories. I'm always careful of two kinds of people, the debunkers who have no interest and the true believers who will not bring any critical thinking."

Coleman said he hasn't met with Pfeifer, but is doubtful, comparing her story to people who meet with aliens from UFOs.

"They really believe they are having these experiences," Coleman said. "I don't know if its hallucinations or a psychological state."

Pfeifer, however, is convinced her encounters are real and she said she realizes that most people will not believe her because of the lack of proof, such as scat, hair, tissue or a good photograph.

She says the Bigfoot clan began visiting her home shortly after she and her husband and three children moved into a 10-acre rural property back in November 2009. The creatures also engage in some unusual behaviors, she said. Sometimes they make knocking sounds underneath the family home's crawl space, twist and braid a rope used to tie the family's pony, or construct elaborate stick structures in the woods.

Pfeifer said she's tried to snap their picture, but she has not been successful. When she set up automatic cameras in the trees near her home, the creatures turned them upside down.

"I want people to realize that they do exist," Pfeifer said. "They are not aggressive, they are more human-like than an ape and I'm very protective of them."

Michigan has a history of Bigfoot sightings -- and a network of residents who post their findings on a website.

Pfeifer has been traveling in Russia to meet with other Bigfoot believers -- scientists and amateurs alike -- who gathered in the Kemerovo region recently to talk about the existence of a Russian "snowman" in the cold Shoria Mountain area of southern Siberia.

Igor Burtsev of the Moscow-based International Center of Hominology said that after the meeting, researchers from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Estonia traveled for two days to an area that has reported sightings of a large, Yeti-like creature.

Burtsev said he is 95 percent positive that he has evidence to prove the creature's existence: some hair found near a cave entrance, grasses made into a bed, large footprints, and tree branches that form a certain pattern.

"We were just two days in the forest and we found many things," Burtsev said. "We found a lot of confirmation that they exist there."

Burtsev said that he visited Pfeifer's home for a week in June but did not see any of the Bigfoot creatures. The next step, Pfeifer said, is to record the creatures' unusual vocal sounds.

Jeff Meldrum, professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, was at the meetings in Russia and has been sifting through the various claims about both the Russian Yeti in southern Siberia and Pfeifer's story of a Michigan Bigfoot.

"There's no substance to any of her claims," said Meldrum, who is an expert in the evolution of early hominid gait. "If there were 10 to 12 around her home, she should be opening up a museum with all the artifacts."

Meldrum also has questions about what Burtsev presented during the two-day trip to the cave in the Kemerovo region. He says when the group of scientists entered the cave, there were several large footprints along the muddy floor, but strangely enough, they were only imprints of right feet.


(Image provided by Jeff Meldrum)

"He must have been playing hopscotch," Meldrum quipped.

Meldrum says that while he's doubtful about the evidence for this particular creature, he is keeping an open mind when it comes to the possibility of a new species of hominid that could be alive today.

He points out that German scientists found finger bones from a new species of human ancestor known as Denisova hominin that co-existed with both humans and Neanderthals only 30,000 years ago.

That research was published last year in the journal Nature, using DNA sequencing to verify its age and identity. The cave where Denisova was found is 35 miles from the site where Meldrum and the other researchers were taken on their field trip.

SRC: Discovery News