Just got done reading a story about a woman who witnessed a bigfoot in CO while out camping (bfro.net- my other favortie website). Thought it was cool because she mentioned she had been playing pennywhistle around camp earlier, and I finally made the connection. So maybe this isn’t completely OT. Just wondering if anybody on this board has any cool bigfoot stories to share. Sadly, I don’t.
Here’s my bigfoot story. When I was in high school my aunt knitted me a pair of bright red argyle socks. I wore them to a dance in a neighboring town. At the dance they had a contest to see who had the biggerst feet. I took of my shoes, displaying the red socks and got my feetf measured. I easily won. Two milk shakes was the prize.
Steve
I don’t have any good Bigfoot stories. But there was a thread once:
While I’m thinking about odd phenomena, I’ll mention that I do know some people who have seen the Spooklight, which is over by the Missouri state line.
I’ve not seen it myself, other than a photograph in the local newspaper, but some of my relatives and other acquaintances have. There are some various spook stories associated with it, and of course, the famous swamp gas and foxfire explanations.
Here’s a map:
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Hey Kevin m!
I thought I was the only person here who read the Fortean Times!
Actually, more correctly I used to read it, but since it started coming out monthly rather than quarterly, most of the stories seem to be space fillers that don’t interest me. In other words, it’s gone popularist. Now I only buy it occasionally as something to read if I don’t have a good book on the go.
I guess although there’s of weird happenings in the world, not so many as can fill a monthly magazine.
Hi Martin, You took the word ‘Populist’ out of my mouth in describing the current trend in ‘Fortean Times’. Some old copies that I’ve seen were much more ‘in depth’. I dunno, perhaps programmes like the X-files has widened interest in ‘Forteana’,but at the same time watered it down,or even dumbed it down. I think that ‘Fortean Tomes’ books may have more to offer now. I see that that BBC2 t.v. posponed a programme about the ‘Neurological basis’ for religion last night,due to events in Iraq.Shame,it promised to be interesting.Funnily enough,it was reviewed by ‘The Guardian’ this morning-obviously their reviewer had seen a tape of the programme.The programme had details of Michael Persinger’s(of Laurentian University,Canada) work into the effects of electro-magnetic fields on the temporal lobes of the brain.Appparently,stimulation of these lobes can cause feeling of religious bliss,or waking nightmares,feelings of being joined by invisible ‘presences’ etc. These effects,which could be triggered in the brain by geo-magnetic fields or man made fields(for instance near high voltage power lines) perhaps explain ghosts(which usually ‘haunt’ the same spot) ufos,and alien abduction scenarios.Phew, 
wild and wierd stuff!
Oh yeah,to get slightly back onto the Sasquach track’ after my post above-a month or so back,some anglers at a Northumbrian lake reported seeing a strange hairy biped.The local T.V. reported that ‘the British Crypto-zoological institute’ or some such body were investigating.Apparently they planned to play the calls of various Ape and Monkey species through loud speakers in order to attract the elusive creature.I think that they might have stood a better chance if they had used a couple of bottles of ‘Newcastle Brown Ale’ as bait.Do I believe in the possibility of the existence of such a creature in the North-East of England? To use a native phrase “Haddaway and sh*te!” 
I grew up in northern California, the southern end of the territory that Bigfoot/Sasquatch is supposed to inhabit. You’d see Bigfoot stories fairly often in the local newspaper, usually written in a rather tongue-in-cheek style.
Except for a few outsiders (regarded as harmless kooks by the locals) nobody really took the stories seriously. Why? Because a fairly common stunt for bored teenagers was to carve a set of large, bare, feet out of a board, strap them on, and try to leave tracks in a muddy or sandy area. To get the proper distance between prints, you’d need to bounce along in a sort of slow lope. 
Not to say that such a critter couldn’t exist - but I’d put my money on bored country boys with time on their hands.
Pretty much what I expected. But I think to cast somebody aside as being a weirdo immediately is a rather hasty judgment, although I could probably be accused of doing the same thing. I don’t believe in UFOs visiting the Earth and abducting humans, or Loch Ness, or ghosts, or fairies, or any of the other popular “crackpot” 
notions. I suspect that these people need some lessons in Logic, Critical thinking, and the scientific method. Lessons I would happily provide them as an ex-philosophy grad student with experience teaching Philosophy of Science and MUCH, almost too much Logic.
Thing is, a bipedal primate living in the wilderness and on the outskirts of civilization is not an illogical idea and there is nothing to say that it couldn’t be possible. OF course this is not to use argumentum ad ignorantium, or even argue that simply because something is possible, then it could be the case. It is possible that I could be a millionaire, but I don’t believe this is the case.
The Sasquatch theory seems to me to be much different from many of the other legends out there. And I strongly believe that it is just a matter of time before it is proven to exist (although it is going to take much to convince scientists). But keep in mind thats not to say that it couldn’t exist. I do accept the notion that it might not be. But I think that given the high number of credible witnesses (many of whom wish to remain anonynous for fear of being labeled a nutjob: i.e. they have no motive to make a false report, many of them say simply that they had to tell somebody what the hell it was they saw because it changed their whole outlook on the matter; many thought it was a B.S. prank and then saw something one day that they realized couldn’t be imagination or a prank) who have had strange experiences and encounters with some large bipedal ape looking thing that looks sort of human, that smells really bad, that has loud vocalizations unlike any other animal known to exist, is nocturnal, and many other common reports from witnesses around the Pacific NW (and the country for that matter, sasquatch may be much more prevalent than we thought: notice that this is not to say that every single report is authentic).
I went to school in norCal, Humboldt State University, spent summers at Willow Creek (site of the famous Patterson Footage everybody has seen, still considered some of the best documented evidence yet, and no it hasn’t been proven to be a hoax), and in general have spent some serious time in the reputed area. No sighting for me, but most of the Willow Creek locals (who take it much more seriously than might be thought, i.e. they know it is not just some teenagers strapping on boards) believe that Sasquatch cleared out of the area a while ago, they aren’t seen much if at all around there any more.
The fact that the same kind of sightings occur around East Asia might also lend credibility. If its just a hoax, it sure is a big one. Not only do we have people running around making footprints and occasionally dressing up in a big expensive gorilla suit only to hike miles and miles into isolated wilderness and occasionally scare the bejesus out of heavily armed hunters who wouldn’t think twice about possibly firing a .30 caliber chunk of hot lead through your gorilla mask and your brain, well not only do they do this in North America, nah, too easy, some of them like to fly over into China, sneaking their suits and fake feet through customs so they can proceed to spook out the native CHinese. They’ve done such a good job of it that the CHinese Government is funding a scientific team to go out and collect evidence and possibly proof of a previously unknown bipedal primate living in the wilderness.
I could keep going, in fact I probably will write a book on this subject after spending a few more summer vacations from teaching exploring Sasquatch hotspots, but I will leave off for now. This is an OT thread. But I’m just tired of watching CNN. And maybe Sasquatch might be aroused out of hiding by the forest peircing melody of my Acorn D one of these hikes, eh? I’m kinda thinking that Banish Misfortune is a good Sasquatch alluring tune (SAT)… 
oooops, double post
I own a Field Guide to Wildlife of Western North America that I recieved sometime when I was in elementary school or junior high. It has an entry for Sasquach. Under “Enemies,” it simply says, “Intestinal parasites.”
Hee hee hee
TW
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She was terrifying.
I play whistle, and at work, we call my nasty-stab-you-in-the-back secretary “Sasquach” because she is real big and hairy, and will body slam you, kick you in the teeth, violate you, and kick sand in your face. . . but that don’t have anything to do with whistles, though. . .
Bigfoot Outlives the Man Who Created Her
January 3, 2003
SEATTLE, Jan. 2 - …it came as a considerable blow when the children of Ray L. Wallace announced that their prank-loving pop had created the modern myth of Bigfoot when he used a pair of carved wooden feet to stomp a track of oversized footprints in a Northern California logging camp in 1958. Mr. Wallace, 84, died on Nov. 26 at a nursing home in Centralia, Wash.
“This wasn’t a well-planned plot or anything,” said Michael Wallace, one of Ray’s sons. “It’s weird because it was just a joke, and then it took on such a life of its own that even now, we can’t stop it.”
Sasquatch? Sad story, that. I married her. Sigh.
Well, I personally don’t have any sasquatch/bigfoot stories, but sometimes you’ll hear the hunters talking about the strange and unusual things they’ve seen in the woods around here… (I live in the wilderness area in the Pacific NW… Small down in the middle of the mountains & forests…) Sometimes the stories get pretty scary, and other times, uncanny. It’s pretty interesting, to say the least.