Run Bigfoot Run

We Washingtonians love us some bigfoot.

Last month, the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma opened its “Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch” exhibit, running through June 27th.

On June 5th, Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Discovery Channel expert and professor, and Robert Gimlin, of the infamous Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot film will speak at the Museum.

I saw a mobile version of the exhibit when it was in Olympia several years ago, but will get up to T-Town before to long to check out the exhibit and report back.

From www.washingtonhistory.org

Explore the Sasquatch mystery, set in the Pacific Northwest region said to be home to these ape-like creatures. The exhibit examines how scientists attempt to explain and investigate the Sasquatch phenomenon. It also looks at hoaxes and popular cultural interpretations of Bigfoot. A look at tribal legends and masks provide yet another insight into this elusive being.

This exploration of Sasquatch stories looks at the Pacific Northwest environment, which provides a rich setting for the folklore surrounding these unexplained creatures.

Physical evidence collected by anthropologist and famed Bigfoot researcher, Dr. Grover Krantz, and Discovery Channel expert and professor Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, are on display.

Maybe its the new exhibit that has brought a recent rash bigfoot stories out in Washington.

On January 27th, www.thenewstribune.com ran a story titled “Bigfoot believer shows his proof Sasquatch print: Not everyone agrees with Bothell-area man” detailing Bothel resident Cliff Crook’s bigfoot encounter 54 years ago and lifelong obsession with bigfoot.

Crook appeared on the front page of The News Tribune in 1990 when some hikers found what they believed to be Bigfoot footprints near the Nisqually River. He contacted The News Tribune recently to announce more Bigfoot footprint news, what he called the biggest find in 30 years.

Critics have called Crook a hoaxer and an attention grabber. He estimates he’s made more than $100,000 selling Bigfoot memorabilia and talking about the creature at RV shows and elsewhere. He also served as a technical adviser on the 1987 main stream sasquactploitation movie “Harry and the Henderson.”

More information on Crook’s quest for bigfoot from his website.

Next we’ll travel south to Lewis County and an article in the The Chronicle.

From the www.chronline.com

Based on sightings reported by BFRO’s (Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization) Web site, Washington state is effectively Bigfoot central, more specifically the densely covered Cascade foothills of Southwest Washington. The group believes Sasquatches live in complex communities with advanced social norms and complex forms of communication, including their own language.

You remember the BFRO. They were the ones I suspect played part in the set up of Tom Biscardi in August of 2008 (note, that post was written before it was released that the RickMat bigfoot was a hoax).

The Chronicle article also tell the tale of Ray Wallace, former Lewis County resident. It is said Wallace created fake sasquatch tracks that helped coin the term “Bigfoot” in a headline of the Humboldt Times in Eureka, CA in the 1950s. After he died in 2002, it is said giant foot print molds were found among his belongings, but this has never been confirmed to be the cause of the prints from the 1950s.

Also from the article

The following are Bigfoot-related news snippets from The Chronicle’s archives:

April 12, 1982 — A retired Toledo logger said he helped create the legends of a Bigfoot creature around Mount St. Helens. Rant Mullens, 86, said he and his uncle were returning from a fishing trip in 1924 and decided to throw a scare into some miners in the area. They rolled rocks over the edge and hightailed away. Later the three miners from Kelso reported seeing huge, hairy, apelike creatures that hurled boulders down upon their cabin. The miners said they fought off the creatures with rifle fire.

Mullens said he built on the legend four years later, when he whittled giant feet out of green alder wood and a friend stomped around the banks of the Muddy River, leaving tracks for berry pickers to notice.

“I tell you, people will believe just about anything,” the solitary, retired logger said from his home in Toledo.

April 19, 1982 — H. Woodman, Napavine, wrote a letter to the editor saying he saw a Bigfoot creature in 1953.

“Going home one evening on the Rutledge Road in the Littlerock area, I drove around a corner and saw a single animal — I thought it was a bear standing on its hind legs in the road. It was taller than a 6-foot man and was brown in color. It ran across the road, leaped a split rail fence and was gone in four or five seconds.

“Sometime later, I read some literature and remembered this sighting. The animal had hind legs that were of human proportions. A bear’s hind legs are short compared to its body. When it ran away at great speed it did not run on four legs but ran erect as a man would. A bear would run on all fours… I know what I saw and the only proof I need is to remember that it was erect when it ran away.”

Feb. 10, 1997 — Ruth Steele, 73, was convinced that a Bigfoot creature was roaming the hills near her home in Dryad.

“No question about it, I seen it … I’m not hallucinating — I’ve got a good mind.”

She believed she had seen either a Sasquatch or some kind of alien three times in six months. She didn’t carry a camera with her those times, but she had begun to. All the sightings took place near rural Doty and Dryad on the semiforested River Road.

The 7-foot-something tall humanoid was covered with gray, white and sometimes black fur, she said. The animal’s face appeared pink skinned. The furry creature walked upright and wore no clothing. In the most recent sighting, in January, the creature heard her car, turned and looked directly at her. Its eyes shone red.

“It shocked the devil out of me when I seen it,” Steele said. “I thought what in God’s name is that? … He wasn’t no human. He’s never nothing I’d seen in the woods.”

During a recent sighting her daughter, Debra Steele, 41, also saw the creature. “It looked me right in the face — it scared the pants right off of me,” the younger Steele said.

Aug. 5, 2001 — The public had its first chance to see the Skookum Cast, a plaster casting of what might be Bigfoot. Wildlife biologist Dr. LeRoy Fish, Oregon, said the heel had what appeared to be a callus.

The 3½ by 5 foot chunk of plaster held the reverse imprint of what Fish and Kevin Lindley of Mossyrock said was an unknown primate.

The impression had been discovered in Skookum Meadow in Skamania County in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, between Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams.

Bigfoot skeptics say Wallace could have been behind famous tracks found at the Ape Cave near Mount St. Helens.

And what if all this has gotten you all worked up and ready to look for bigfoot? There are plenty of Washington based bigfoot search groups for you to check out.

The Washington State Sasquatch Search Group has several DVDs for sale so you can search for bigfoot from the comfort of your own living room.

If you are more interested in getting out in the woods in your quest for sasquatch, you might check out the Washington Sasquatch Research Team – WASRT. They have an online video archive including

With one of the greatest disclaimers ever “Pardon the lack of video focus for a couple of minutes in the beginning.”

N.E.W.B.R.U. Look Like Nice Folks

Or you can try North East Washington Bigfoot Researchers Unlimited. N.E.W.B.R.U. has some photos online. Leonard Stigall Sr. is the team leader. He has been interested in Bigfoot since 1967, but it wasn’t until September of 1998 that he found evidence that convinced him of Bigfoot’s existence. While bear hunting in eastern Washington, he found a track that looked like a human footprint, except it measured 16 inches in length.

The other members of N.E.W.B.R.U. include Stigall wife Doris, his sister Laura Lorton and Jean Reedy.

Are there more Washington State bigfoot groups?

Of course there are.

If fact, if you have one, contact us with your info and we’ll post your information online.

And of course, don’t forget Batsquatch…

Dr. Karl P.N. Shuker's Mysteries Of Planet Earth: An Encyclopedia of the Inexplicable

Buried among the books on a shelf in my home sat a copy of Dr. Karl P.N. Shuker’s Mysteries Of Planet Earth: An Encyclopedia of the Inexplicable. When my wife was cleaning, she stumbled on it and left it out of the gardening and cooking books it had shared its shelf with, wanting me to add it to my collection of UFO, cryptozoological, and other weirdness books that live in my office. I opened it up and thumbed through to a chapter called “Weird Encounters on the Wing”. The first line of this chapter mentions a much loved and incredibly under documented cryptozoological beast, Batsquatch.

According to Shuker’s Batsquatch story, on April 19th, 1994, at 9:30 AM, 18 year old Brian Canfield was driving a truck near Buckley Washington, in the foothills of Mount Rainier. Canfield’s truck came to a sudden and abrupt stop as a mysterious creature appeared no more than 30 feet in front of him.

The creature was described at 9 feet tall, with blue-ish fur. It has a wolf like face, yellow eyes, tufted ears and a large mouth filled with sharp white teeth. Its feet were described at bird like and on its back were two wings, attached to the shoulder.

After an undetermined length of time, the creature unfolded its wings and took off with such force that Canfield’s truck shook with the disturbance of air. The truck started again, as abruptly as it had stopped and Brian Canfield drove home. Canfield later returned to the site of the encounter with his mother and a neighbor in hopes of finding some sort of physical evidence of the encounter, none was found.

Local newspaper reporter C.R. Roberts of the Tacoma News Tribune interviewed Canfield and was convinced of his sincerity.

Brian Canfield's Batsquatch Sighting Was Near Lake Kapowsin In The Foothills of Mt Rainier

I presume this is the source of the mock article posted on www.batsquatch.com that I declared a total hoax on a previous post because of fictional information in the report. It seems the owner of batsquatch.com, a Yelm Washington resident, adapted Canfield story, mocking the young man’s report.

Canfield’s creature description is a mix of cryptozoological beings, physical size of sasquatch, the unexplained stopping of the automobile has an alien abduction flavor, with hints of The Beast of Bray Road or The Michigan Dogman in the wolf like face and the creatures wings and flight are quite MothMan like.

What did Brian Canfield see that morning in rural Washington State?

Is this the origin of Batsquatch or will more reports surface in the future?

Read the first Whales In Space post on Batsquatch

Highlights would have to be the Tom Biscardi’s RickMat Bigfoot Press Conference and when it was revealed to be a hoax. Whales In Space was able to get a reporter to the conference and cover the event as it happened. I still think there is more to this story that was never discussed, except in the private conversations between cryptozoologists and and those who pay very close attention to these things. Also the Blossom Goodchild October 14th UFO prediction stands out as one of the most interesting stories of Whales In Space’s first year.

The February 15th Texas Fireball caught on video and the amazing number of other Fireball sightings and mysterious sonic booms before and after wards also caught the worlds attention.

Also in the first year, we saw the rise of sasquatchploitation, multiple black balloon cluster UFO sightins, two Montauk Monsters and the possible return of batsquatch or at least some clarification to the story.

And still going one, with reports still coming in, the Orange Ball of Light (ORBL) sightings over the UK. If these are just chinese lanterns, I would suggest buying some stock in a chinese lantern company, because sales are up.

A big thanks to everyone who read a post, who made a comment, who sent in photos and stories and tips. A big thanks to everyone who linked to our site.

In the first year we had 200 posts exploring the weirdness of aliens, UFOs, exopolitics, cryptozoology, other paranormal fortean phenomenon, and ultraterrestrial activities. I expect the next year to bring weirder yet stories.

It wasn’t until late 90′s that the Batsquatch story really got odd. The sequence of events is not very clear. At some point the website www.batsquatch.com, taking a comic, mocking approach to the batsquatch phenomenon, posted a ‘news clip’ and other information, that is repeated in multiple places on the internet and thought to be factual. I have reasons to believe the reports and information on www.batsquatch.com is a total hoax and has polluted the internet with phoney and damaging data on the batsquatch.

Yelmidians take cover under shadow of suspicious creature. Mountain News

Fear continues to dominate the men, woman, and children of this town as a dark shadow looms overhead. Suspicions persevere and rumors spread as far too many sightings of “a winged bat-like creature” go unexplained. It started as childish rumors after the May 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens and has spread to community horror as the truth Batsquatch over Mt Rainier continues to emerge. While preparing for a climb in early 1994, local mountaineer and liquor store owner Butch Whittaker managed to take several pictures of the beast during a rare midday flight (see left). Butch Whittaker, expert in paranormal activity and unexplained phenomena, considers himself lucky to experience this encounter but adds, “I’m not surprised. These things happen to me all the time.” Although government officials deny the existence of any photographic evidence, our staff experts closely scrutinized all photos and found no reason to hold this position.

To date four goats, five chickens, two cows, and our prized pig are unaccounted for. No humans are reported missing but this is no measure of the never-ending toll placed on this community’s pride and mental well-being. All Pioneer Day festivities were canceled last week and with the recent loss of Priscilla Pig, scheduled dancing this Saturday presumably will fall prey to this monstrous being as well. Neither Police Chief Durhamm nor our Mayor will estimate potential long term effects of continued attacks but both were obviously saddened by the loss of Priscilla.

Editor’s note. If you have seen this creature, report to the nearest Unexplained Flying Kinetically Retaliatory Animal office immediately

So now Batsquatch has moved 60 miles to the north to Mount Rainier, specifically to the town of Yelm, WA in Thurston County. Reference to “Police Chief Durhamm” is probably referring to a former Chief Glenn Dunnam and “Pioneer Day festivities” is not the annual Yelm celebration, which is actually called Prairie Days. Also, the local Yelm newspaper is called the Nisqually Valley News, not the Mountain News. There is no other archives of this article and it is my belief it is completely fictional. Also posted on the www.batsquatch.com site is a report claimed to have been sent February 3, 1998. The fake news clip pretty much totally discredits this report in my view.

The fake newsclip and sighting also adds an extra element to the batsquatch, that of a connection to animal abductions and/or mutilations. The creator of www.batsquatch.com seems to be combining stories here, possible pulling from mid 1980s stories of UFO related animal mutilation in the Yelm area.

I have attempted to contact the website creator by email and have not gotten a response back yet.

Yet the Batsquatch saga doesn’t end there. An early April 2009 article by Paul Dale Roberts on www.unexplained-mysteries.com describes a phone call he got from someone who had seen a creature fitting batsquatch’s description while hiking around Mt. Shasta. Mt. Shasta is in the same mountain range, the Cascades, but a considerable distance to the south, almost 550 miles from Mt. Rainier. Mt. Shasta is also known for its weirdness, being a UFO hotspot and spiritual center.

Three mountains in the Cascades, spanning over 500 miles, all with other weird reported phenomenons, with ties to batsquatch.