Finding Bigfoot Host, Cliff Barackman, Details His Bluff Creek Solo Adventure

Cliff Barackman looking for signs of Bigfoot

"From the southwest came a large boom, wood on wood, echoing from the valley below. It was distant, but unmistakeable: a huge response to my knock. They were there." -- Cliff Barackman

Fans, it is no secret that we think Cliff Barackman is doing the best field research out there. Some of his best research and findings don't make it to the show Finding Bigfoot, this is completely understandable, after all there are 3 other hosts and only an hour-long show.

Fortunately there is a place where you can get Finding Bigfoot video debriefs and well-written posts by Cliff himself on his blog North American Bigfoot. Below is a short excerpt from his latest post dated (SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2011):

After our first night investigation, Bobo, Ranae, and Matt went back to Willow Creek, leaving me out in the wilds. With me was Craig Flipy, who would be filming my “solo” adventure. I was thankful to have Craig there because he and I work together on a very regular basis. We film our after-episode video debriefs, and have made a number of short webisodes about our forays into the wild. I was also given four nights in the woods to make some good bigfoot TV, as opposed to the three nights originally proposed. A new feature for season two of Finding Bigfoot is that one of us spends some time with only a bigfooty cameraman to try to get a close approach by a bigfoot. The fact that I was given an extra night was good news, as was the fact that I got to do it in Bluff Creek, an area I'm intimately familiar with.

The first night was spent on the old Bluff Creek Road that parallels the creek right above Louse Camp. There have been two sightings on that short section of road over the last three years. Bedding down in the middle of the path seemed like a good way to have a bigfoot stumble over you, so I went for it. I only got quail on my game camera that night. It was still nice to sleep out under the stars.

During my solo investigation, there are lots of scenes of me walking through beautiful meadows. These are located at Laird Meadow, half way up the slope from Louse Camp to Onion Mountain. Laird Meadow is actually a broken chain of meadows that extend on both sides of the road for nearly a mile. Separating these meadow oases are woods, with dense, shrubby undergrowth. Laird Meadow is the site of some interesting footprints found back in October 20 of 1963. A Forest Service timber cruiser named Pat Graves ran across Roger Patterson on October 21, 1963 and told him about some nearby prints that he saw the day before on a logging landing (Roger wrote in his book that the prints were found in 1964, but the original casts had the date etched into their backsides, and clearly stated 1963). I go to Laird whenever I can. There are some excellent meadows for tracking, and there is certainly a ton of food and animals in the area to make it worthy of a look when I'm in the neighborhood.

Read the rest including the paragraph with the wood-knocking quote above at northamericanbigfoot.blogspot.com

Meldrum is Interviewed by NPR and is criticized by Wired Magazine

(Photo: Rachel Anne Seymour)

"...discrediting the study of creatures whose existence is unproven countermands the scientific commitment to explore the unknown" Dr. Jeff Meldrum

Radio-west-interview-jeff-meldrum by BigfootLunchClub

Above is an hour long interview with Dr. Jeff Meldrum conducted by Radio West. Radio West is broadcast on KUER public radio, a charter member of National Public Radio (NPR). Below is the critique of the interview by Wired blogger and science writer Brian Switek.

The Squid and the Ape (excerpt)
By Brian Switek December 10, 2011 | 6:14 pm |
For the November 11th show, RadioWest producer Doug Fabrizio interviewed Idaho State University anthropologist and Sasquatch devotee Jeff Meldrum. The stated point of the interview was to see how Meldrum applied scientific reasoning to the search for a creature that, at best, exists on the fringes of scientific investigation. That’s not what actually transpired.

Even though Fabrizio kept qualifying statements about the ever-elusive Bigfoot with “if”s, he was clearly sympathetic to Meldrum’s efforts to give the mythical North American forest ape an air of respectability. The show was more about how Meldrum became attracted to the cryptozoological celebrity and his feelings as someone trying to prove the existence of a creature that, as far as I am concerned, probably doesn’t exist and has been a persistent focus of interest due to cultural phenomena rather than actual evidence. (As I wrote in a story for WIRED Science, there comes a time in searches for missing or presumably extinct mammal species that returns rapidly diminish and that species is more likely absent than simply elusive. So many have searched for Bigfoot for so long without finding any unambiguous evidence that I don’t see any reason to think such an animal exists.)

Almost all of Fabrizio’s questions were uncritical. Some, such as when Fabrizio asked when the search for Sasquatch supposedly became academically taboo, were even sympathetic to Meldrum’s exceptional claims. When Meldrum retells the story of how he saw tracks that convinced him that Bigfoot was real, Fabrizio doesn’t ask about how Meldrum could tell that the tracks were from a real animal and could not have been hoaxed. When Meldrum goes off about how he has brought Bigfoot into the scientific mainstream through papers, talks at conferences, and the like, Fabrizio doesn’t ask “Well, which journals and conferences? What did you say? How was your work received by your colleagues?” Likewise, Fabrizio lets Meldrum state that there is a lot of photo evidence – albeit poor quality – of Bigfoot as well as hair and scat without digging into the details of those assertions and why those lines of evidence have not done more to confirm the supposed ape’s existence. I didn’t want Fabrizio to be actively hostile to Meldrum’s ideas, but the radio host did not seem prepared to challenge his guest on any point.

The interview was mostly about feelings. What Meldrum felt about this or that aspect of Bigfoot arcana was more important than the veracity of what he was actually saying. I don’t take issue with RadioWest having cryptozoologists or other people who make exceptional claims on the show, but, for FSM’s sake, hold them to account and push them to explain why they believe what they do. If someone keeps saying there’s really good evidence for Bigfoot, Triassic Krakens, ancient aliens, or whatever, we shouldn’t be afraid of pressing them on how good that evidence actually is. To say that evidence is good is one thing. To demonstrate the same is not as easy.

EXTERNAL LINKS
SRC of Radio West Interview
Wired Science Blog

James "Bobo" Fay Asked to do Conan O'Brien Show

James Fay is one of the co-host for Finding Bigfoot and is commonly, if not almost exclusively, known to the world as “Bobo.” The origins of that name are shrouded in mystery, as is much of Bobo's life, but it seems to have been born from a variation of the name, “Jimbo,” derived from the nick name “Jim.” Whatever the genesis, Bobo is his functional moniker today.

Bobo was born and raised in Manhattan Beach, CA, and has been interested in the bigfoot mystery for as long as he can remember. As a teen, he became interested in big-wave surfing, and this would take him to the best surf spots up and down the entire West Coast. Soon, he would take surf trips to bigfoot habitat in order to get a chance to maybe see a bigfoot from the beach.

On Bobo's facebook page he announced he was asked to do the Conan O'Brien show.

"just got axed if me and moneymaker want to do conan o'brien show. whats the over/under on how many words i'd be able to get in sittin next to moneymaker for a 6 min interview? i'm going with 18.

thanks for the congrats and advice everybody. i told people next tues but i just found out tuesday is preinterview w/producer. i've been rocking at pipe and i don't get reception here so i haven't heard the message yet about exact date."

Conan is no stranger to Bigfoot. In fact he discussed Bigfoot with Steven Colbert once.



In a transcript of Stephen Colbert, interviewed by Conan O'Brien, on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," Colbert talks about several Bigfoot pieces he did as a correspondent for "Daily Show." The interview was taped June 27, 2003

CO'B: ...Let's talk about "The Daily Show". On "The Daily Show" you are well-known for going out and getting these amazing interviews with strange characters from across America, and you've interviewed people that actually believe Bigfoot exists, are convinced that Bigfoot exists.

SC: Yeah, I've interviewed a lot of, uh, some of the biggest Bigfoot experts in the United States. Um, I've interviewed the people who believe that Bigfoot is endangered. I've interviewed the people who believe that Bigfoot, um, uh, that the Bigfeet, as they call them, are overpopulating and that they're destroying their environment...

CO'B: How does that become a...

SC: There's not a lot of consensus in the Bigfoot expert community.

CO'B: There's a lot of squabbling, yeah. But how could someone think that there's too many Bigfoots running around when noone actually has proof that they exist? How can someone make that argument?

SC: Um, I think a fair amount of Bigoot experts are, um, early-morning drinkers.

CO'B: Okay.

SC: I met somebody in Florida who believed that Bigfoot was in Florida, as opposed to the Pacific Northwest, and that Bigfoot was stealing his pot of lentil soup... that he would make... and this man greeted me at 10:00am stone drunk, shoeless, shirtless, wearing two albino Burmese pythons.

CO'B: And these are the people you're going to for credible scientific information on Bigfoot.

SC: Aaaaah, yeah, those are my experts.

CO'B: Very nice. I like the Stone Phillips way that you said that too. You just, uh, yeah...

SC: [imitating Stone Phillips, once again] They... are my experts.

CO'B: Very nice. You could hurt yourself with that.

SC: I think that's how he got the big neck.

Below is one of the clips from the "Daily Show" with Stephen Colbert talking about Bigfoot Preservation with Ray Crowe.

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