Smithsonian: Yes, We’re Actually Still Looking for the Yeti

Smithsonian picked this pic not us, we assume its a Mogwai-Yeti Hybrid

The Smithsonian is no stranger to the topic of Bigfoot. In fact, in 1988, due to a high volume of inquiries on the subject of, The Smithsonian developed a formal Bigfoot response letter. That's what a movie like Harry and the Hendersons (1987) can do to 142 year old scientific institution. (click the following link to read Smithsonian's Formal Bigfoot Response Letter) 

Earlier this year they blogged about the Giganthepiticus, and acknowledged it was the best candidate for the null-hypothesis as a Bigfoot ancestor. the Blog was titled Did Bigfoot Really Exist? How Gigantopithecus Became Extinct. the irony is Dr. Jeff Meldrum commented on the article, and his comment was more fascinating then the article.

Smithsonian takes up Bigfoot again, actually the Yeti, because that's the reference Bryan Sykes from Oxford University uses. Below is a decent piece on Bryan Sykes Bigfoot/Yeti DNA research, or as it is officially called, "Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project". If you really want to learn about the project we recomend a post we did earlier this week titled, "Everything You Didn't Know About the Bryan Sykes' Bigfoot DNA Research"

Yes, We’re Actually Still Looking for the Yeti

Posted By: Rose Eveleth 

Many scientists make their careers out of searching for the seemingly unfindable. The Higgs Boson, dark matter, the secret, hidden pieces of our universe. Other scientists search for things that probably aren’t real at all. Like yetis. Researchers are about to embark on a quest to determine once and for all whether or not Yetis exist.

That’s right, a Yeti hunt. It’s got a fancier name – the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project – but it’s a serious, scientific, Yeti hunt.

The project focuses on DNA analysis. They’re accepting submissions of samples from pretty much anyone who thinks they have evidence of a Yeti. People send the material in to them, where it’s tested for DNA. That DNA can tell them a whole lot about whether the mythical beast exists.

Now, there have in fact been DNA tests on supposed Yeti samples before. Every time they’ve come back as being human. But DNA techniques have gotten better, and the scientists are willing to give it one last go. Well, at least some of them. BBC Futures sums up the scientific atmosphere:

It is likely that the project is the biggest and most comprehensive attempt yet to probe suspected “remains”. “Nothing like this, on this level, has been done before,” says Richard Freeman from the Centre for Fortean Zoology in the UK. But therein lies the rub.  For people like Freeman who devote their lives to looking for these creatures, it is the biggest signal yet that after years out in the cold mainstream science is finally taking the seriously. But for some scientists, the whole venture is an embarrassing curiosity to be held at arm’s length.

One of the scientists involved in the project, Bryan Sykes, sees this as a catch all for those who claim science brushes them off. ““It’s one of the claims by cryptozoologists that science does not take them seriously. Well, this is their chance. We are calling for people to send us their evidence, and we will test it through DNA analysis,” he told the BBC.

This DNA evidence will certainly not be a nail in any sort of Yeti coffin. Even if they find no evidence whatsoever of the yeti, many will still believe. Last year, the Huffington Post reported that some scientists were “95 percent certain” that they had found evidence of the Yeti. Before that, bigfoot “researchers” asked people in California for money to test whether the creature left residue behind on a pickup truck.

Even the director of the International Cryptozoology Museum is skeptical of many of these claims. He told The Huffington Post:

“This does not seem to be any more than what you hear about from weekend excursions in North America that go out, discovering some hair of undetermined origin, calling it ‘Bigfoot hair,’ then locating some broken branches and piled trees, saying it was made by Bigfoot, and finding footprints that look like Sasquatch tracks. These are not ‘proof’ that would hold up, zoologically.”

But even for Sykes, the geneticist behind the project, this is all a bit far fetched. He’s not ruling out the possibility of a new species – we discover new species all the time, many of them quite large. But he acknowledges that there will need to be some evidence. The BBC says, “he is also keen to point out that he is not – nor intends to become – a cryptozoologist. ‘I don’t not want to become completely eccentric,’ he adds.”

SRC: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2012/08/yes-were-actually-still-looking-for-the-yeti/

Bigfoot County's Walter Higgins Revealed

We may not know who Walter Higgins is, but we know who registered his Domain Name

A movie previously titled Siskiyou County, later changed to Bigfoot County has been described by Variety.com as "Deliverance" plus "Blair Witch" meets Bigfoot. 

In the same Variety.com article, director/writer Stephon Stewart is quoted as saying, "I went up to shoot a movie on Bigfoot, then a local I met with presented me with evidence that blew my mind. After seeing this film, you will begin to believe what many have doubted since the 1967 Patterson/Gimlin Bigfoot Footage was released." 

Notice in Stewart's quote he refers to a local. Could that be Walter Higgins? We got in touch with Walter and asked him a few questions.

BLC: How did you initially get in touch with the man from LA that stole the video from you?
HIGGINS: He found me through contacts he had while coming out to Sisikiyou County to do a small project on Bigfoot.

BLC: Can you name the person who you talked to?
HIGGINS:Stephon Stewart.  At least that is the name he told me.  Though there is evidence to believe he may be impersonating someone.  

BLC:Is there a Bigfoot in your found footage? Is there a way you can share a screenshot of the bigfoot with us.
HIGGINS: Yes.  That will be forthcoming.  Based on how Lionsgate reacts.  I am givng them until Wednesday before I release more footage.

BLC:Can you give the latitude and longitude of where you found the video?
HIGGINS: I did not track this.  If I go back out there again, I will see if I can track this.

BLC: How much footage is there? Minutes, hours?HIGGINS:over 10 hours.

BLC:Is there anything you want to say to the Bigfoot community about your footage?
HIGGINS: I want to say that, I am still very very upset about this matter.  I am a man of God, of trust, and, trusting others has gotten me into too much damn trouble in my life.  This Stephon character told me he was going to use the footage for a small short type bigfoot doc, then, he pieced together what I had, which had moments of people being attacked by bigfoot and and other aspects I will hold back from stating until I hear back from Lionsgate one way or another, then it seems he has cashed in on an upcoming feature after he tricked me into signing paperwork that he states clears him to use the footage.  This Stephon character is a fucking asshole.  Sorry.  Just really pissed off right now.  If anyone out there knows how to get in contact with him via email or phone, please do so,  He has been changing his email/phone around, avoiding me.
Though I know where he works.  I think I'm going to make a trip out to visit him. 

BLC:Thank you for your time. 
HIGGINS: ok, thank you.  God bless. 

You can watch Walter Higgins' rant in the video at the very bottom of this post. There is only one concern we have with Walter's latest video. The last 10 seconds reveals a domain name BelieveBigfoot.com if you type it in your browser it quickly forwards to WalterHigginsBigfoot.com. Who registered that first domain name that flashes only for a second? Non other than Stephon Stewart. See the Domain registration information below provided by Go-Daddy.

We sent an email to Stephon for comment, but did not recieve a reply at the time of this post

Registrant:

Stephon Stewart
Studio, California 91604
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BELIEVEBIGFOOT.COM
Created on: 01-Jun-12
Expires on: 01-Jun-13
Last Updated on: 01-Jun-12

Administrative Contact:
Stewart, Stephon stephonxxx@xxxx.com
Studio, California 91604

Interview of Sasquatch Movie Maker Christopher Munch

Screenshot of Letters from the Big Man website

"Much later I came to acknowledge a deep and atavistic connection to sasquatch which I am only now beginning to understand, small piece by small piece, even while my commitment to their “cause” grows more steadfast every day." -- Christopher Munch; Writer/Director of Letters from the Big Man

Jeffery Pritchett, known for his radio show ChurchOfMabusRadio.com has recently posted an excellent interview with Christopher Munch, director of the true-to-life depiction of Sasquatch in Letters from the Big Man. You can buy the DVD at the Official Letters From The Big Man website.

Pritchett does an amazing job asking questions that get to the heart of Christopher Munch's journey from script to screen, a few of our favorite questions and answers are below.

1. I have to say your movie about Sasquatch entitled Letters From the Big Man is one of the best Bigfoot films I've ever seen. What was the inspiration behind it exactly?

Christopher Munch: The project literally showed up on my doorstep in 2005, punctuated by a Christmas gift of the humorous book In Me Own Words. Prior to that I had not considered the subject to any great degree one way or the other. I must have had a vague awareness that “they were out there,” and indeed had fond memories of the Ronald Olson 1977 docudrama Sasquatch, which I saw in the theatre as a teenager, and also the famous episode of In Search Of, my favorite TV series.

Much later I came to acknowledge a deep and atavistic connection to sasquatch which I am only now beginning to understand, small piece by small piece, even while my commitment to their “cause” grows more steadfast every day.

After being bitten in early 2005, I took the plunge and devoured every book, every issue of The Track Record, and every prior film that touched on the subject that I could get my hands on. Paralleling my developing interest in sasquatch was an interest in a particular area of southern Oregon where a drama had been unfolding surrounding salvage logging of Federal lands burnt in the 2002 Biscuit Fire. I became fascinated by the so-called Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion, an ancient, biologically diverse, and mysterious land elegantly chronicled by David Rains Wallace in The Klamath Knot, a book that inspired the tone I hoped to achieve with my film.

As I developed the screenplay with an esteemed New York producer, Paul Mezey, whom I had known for many years, various stars (who would have enabled us to finance the picture at a larger budget) hovered around it. Every time I came close to setting the project up, however, invariably I ran up against the unwillingness of Hollywood to think in anything but the most cliché and untruthful terms when it comes to sasquatch. There had been intriguing smaller productions, independently financed – such as the Little Bigfoot series and the animated Legend of Sasquatch with William Hurt – that had slipped in some fascinating and seemingly truthful tidbits of information. And despite its unlikely premise, Harry and the Hendersons played the very important role of defusing monster stereotypes and opening the door to a more reasoned understanding of sasquatch. I believe this is why it is beloved by so many to this day. (Joan Crawford had made the same pleas in a different and campier way decades earlier in Trog).

Because I was seeking at all costs a truthful depiction of sasquatch, it seemed that the best way to do it was against a realistic backdrop, sacrificing suspense if necessary for the sort of detail that would ground my heroine’s emotional journey. Indeed, her journey paralleled mine at every step.

Early drafts of the script were focussesd less on Sarah’s internal life and more on external circumstances, culminating in our hero-sasquatch showing up, messiah-like, in downtown Portland and making a big public splash: a rousing but not terribly realistic conclusion. He even hopped a freight train to get there. :)

2. With all the horrific movies about Bigfoot out there that depict Sasquatch as a horrific creature it was great to finally see a movie that got it right. Who were some researchers that you took from that helped you to make sure you got Sasquatch depicted on screen correctly and especially positively instead of negatively?

Christopher Munch: My first advisor was Thom Powell, whose book The Locals was the one I most admired from my early reading. He very generously took me into the field and introduced me to his trusted friends, Kirk Sigurdson (Kultus) and Joe Beelart. Thom and Kirk encouraged me to put myself in places where I could conceivably begin to have experiences of my own – something which, at the time, I assumed was beyond my understanding or ability. My actress friend Jeri Arredondo (who, along with Thom, Kirk, Kathleen Grevie Jones, Dee Odom, Andrew Robson, and Jann Weiss, is featured in my documentary Sasquatch and Us), also encouraged me to forge further by opening my heart to the mystical aspects of sasquatch as she understood them from her childhood in the Mescalero Apache nation.

A year or so into the project, I corresponded with and met Kewaunee Lapseritis (The Sasquatch People, The Psychic Sasquatch), who advanced my understanding further. As a consultant on the film, he accompanied me in the field and opened a number of doors. I have consistently found his information to be truthful, and if he was ever unsure of an answer to a question, he would never hesitate to say “I don’t know,” rather than speculate too wildly. He steadfastly honors sasquatch. While he has paid a high price for being at the vanguard of “the fringe” over the past 30 years, thankfully “the fringe” is now becoming un-fringe as many others recognize the value of his methodology, and realize that the only way to connect with sasquatch is through the heart.

Close to the start of production in 2009, I began to work with an exceptional interspecies communicator, Kathleen Grevie Jones, whose strong capabilities as a trance medium facilitated a more rigorous communication with sasquatch, and in fact resulted in the voice-over lines spoken by our hero sasquatch in the film. The words are theirs.

Read the rest Jeffery Pritchett's interview at the Examiner.com. If you like, we have probably the most extensive Letters From The Big Man Coverage from it's premier at Sundance to the launch of the website. Speaking of the website, you will definitely want to buy the DVD at the Official Website for Letters From The Big Man. Oh and don't forget to tune into the Church of Mabus Radio: Saturdays 11pm EST/ 8pm PST