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| A "typical" Western Bigfoot Society gathering at Patty's Home Plate Cafe |
A lengthy article with outdated information originally appeared in
Open Spaces, a quarterly Pacific Northwest magazine, then was reprinted on the online version of
Outside magazine. A
ND THEN, reprinted on Oregon Live as if Outside Magazine just recently visited Ray Crowe! All mis-information aside, it did peak our interest with the mention of Ray Crowe. At length, it is a generic article trying to persuade the public about the plausibility of Bigfoot. In short; it is filled with outdated information.
Ray Crowe, for the uninitiated, is the founder of the
Western Bigfoot Society and Editor of the newsletter,
The Track Record. Mr. Crowe is the type of man that would invite anyone and everyone to share his passion about Bigfoot. At the second annual Oregon Sasquatch Symposium, hosted by Toby Johnson, his name was mentioned several times as the man who introduced prominent researchers to Bigfooting. Before social media like Facebook Groups and Blogs, even before you could Google "Bigfoot", Rays Crowe's Newsletter,
The Track Record, was the social media Bigfooters used to gather and learn from. He's even been on camera with Stephen Colbert (see below).
Below is the excerpt from the article with our corrections underneath.:
In many ways, the Western Bigfoot Society is typical of the Northwest's numerous grass-roots Bigfoot organizations. It counts about forty people as members and meets on the last Thursday of every month in the basement of Ray Crowe's store, Ray's Used Books, just outside Portland, Oregon. Ray has decorated the meeting room with a mixture of large footprint casts, oddly twisted willow branches, a 21.6 cm. strand of cinnamon-colored hair, maps of nearby wilderness areas, with pins marking recent Bigfoot sightings, and tabloid headlines that the group finds humorous ( "Beautiful Women Help to Lure Bigfoot," reads one. "Sasquatch Likes to Study the Ladies."). Lately, Ray has taken to putting up photos from the group's occasional field trips, like the one to the nearby Primate Research Center, in Beaverton, Oregon, or the one to the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, in Rainier, Oregon, where Ray thinks the buzz of the power lines may act as a lure.
In the past, speakers at the meetings have included a dog trainer, who addressed Bigfoot's fear of dogs (a phenomenon often mentioned at Ray's meetings); a member of a local search-and-rescue team, who said that the media had neglected to mention that a three-year-old boy whom he rescued in the summer of 1989 from the forests around Mount Hood had credited a "large hairy man" for keeping him company during the long night; and a former paramilitary officer with the National Security Agency, who, on a top-secret mission somewhere in the rainforests of Mato Grosso, Brazil, photographed what he now thinks must have been a Sasquatch, only to have the film confiscated by higher-ups. On one occasion Ray even invited a U.F.O. expert who is a vocal proponent of the theory that Sasquatches have come from another world-a postulate that the W.B.S. as a group opposes. "They may be full of poop," Ray said, "but I figure I might as well let them have their say."
Like most part-time Bigfoot investigators, Ray, who is now fifty-five, got into Bigfoot hunting by accident; he was doing research for a novel that included a Sasquatch rape scene and then decided to research the Sasquatch beyond the scope of the book. Shortly afterward, in 1991, he founded the W.B.S., and then began The Track Record, a monthly newsletter containing Bigfoot gossip, inspirational quotes, and the latest sighting information people have related to Ray. Once in a while, Ray publishes letters, like the one that Erik Beckjord, director of the U.F.O. & Bigfoot Museum, in Malibu, California, sent him, which complimented the W.B.O.'s work, or the letter that Ray himself sent to the United States Forest Service, citing the Freedom of Information Act and demanding to see the Mount Hood National Forest rangers' Bigfoot log book, if it exists. (Ray thinks the rangers may keep a log of Bigfoot sightings.) A few years ago, on a spring evening, Ray had his first Sasquatch "experience," as he calls it, which began when he accidentally scared an elk away from his camp, at the end of an old logging road. "I was getting ready for dinner and while I'm standing there I hear what sounded like these two giant birds arguing," he told me. "I say arguing, but they were chattering, really. And, anyway, I just assume that they were two Bigfoot, just arguing with each other-p.o'd at me for losing their elk for dinner."
Corrections: Ray is older than 55, even though the article is dated 02/12/2014. The meetings still continue at Patty's Home Plate Cafe (8501 North Lombard Street, Portland, OR 97203).
You can read the full article at
The Men Who Dream of Bigfoot
As a bonus here is the video of Ray Crowe with Stephen Colbert.
