Bigfoot Encounters.com

San Jose Mercury News "West" Magazine
by Tracie Cone

December 13, 1998

*** Bob Everett of Trinity County, Northern California Bigfoot Society, pictured with a Bigfoot track he found near Tim Ford's camp site on Dubakella Mountain.  [Looks a lot like Patty's footprint of PG fame.]

*** Jeff Meldrum and his recent expedition into the Siskiyou National Forest and his 1995 sojourn to the Blue Mountains near Walla Walla.Jeff was quoted: "'I'm getting ready for my real coming-out' he says. 'I've submitted an abstract for the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, so my real coming out will be if my abstract is accepted and I get to present my data in Cleveland next spring.'"  Jeff has found some interesting features in the footprints he's come upon, e.g. mid-foot flexion and 4 bones in the little toe.

*** John Horrigan, president of the Big State Bigfoot Society, "(motto: Twice the B.S. of Your Usual Bigfoot Organization)".  Since Arvil was wondering about this guy, here's some scoop from Tracie Cone:

"Horrigan, an English major who lives in Massachusetts, travels the world trying to disprove things such as the Loch Ness monster and UFO crashes.  He says Bigfoot believers come in three varieties: those just plain old mistaking a bear for a Bigfoot; those out to deceive people for some financial benefit; and those "X-Files" fanatics who believe mystical things as the millennium approaches."

"'In some cases this is just loggers trying to scare people out of certain areas,' he says.  'If you want to keep someone out of a pristineforest you intend to log or mine, create a monster story.  It's better than a No Trespassing sign.  Yes, Virginia, there is no Bigfoot.'"

"Horrigan says that when zoologists and others from accredited academia start coming forward with evidence, he might change his mind." [Now that's conviction....]

*** Some old Trinity County Bigfoot reports I hadn't heard of before, e.g. an 85 year old Trinity County woman who left a diary entry dated 1956 describing a Bigfoot encounter while on a deer hunt.  And another with Bill and Eunice Guill while hauling a trailer loaded down with hay in September of 1947 on their way in to Redding.

*** Grover Krantz, who is slow to grant interviews these days: "'It would have to be done by somebody who knows more about anatomy than I do, and I think there is no person out there [who does],' he says."

*** Tim Ford's encounter at Old Logger's Camp on the banks of Dubakella Creek an hour from Weaverville last August 26th, with Tom Morris of Pleasant Hill, Danny Perez of Norwalk, and Bob Everett at the site with Tracie Coon (with photos).  The event is described as follows:

"The hunters had pitched their tents on the banks of the creek, next to the two 4x4 trucks they had driven along winding dirt roads to get here.  About 9 p.m., Ford and buddies heard footfalls and branches snapping."

"'It was in that area,' Morris says, pointing from camp to a clump of trees 10 feet across the creek.  'They said they saw a big
gorilla-type thing and jumped in their cars.  They hunkered down in their vehicles for a few hours while it circled the camp.  The women were crying.  They could hear screams.  A couple camping next to them in a trailer took off."

"'After a while when it got quiet, Tim got out to turn on a lantern that was hanging here,' Morris says, pointing to wire hanging from a tree.  "That was when he saw it crouched over here,' he says, bending his torso and swinging his arms apelike in the brush.

"'They waited in their cars until the crack of dawn, at which time they broke camp and took off.'"

*** The shooting of the PG film and Al (last name withheld to avoid embarrassing his son), a former store owner in Willow Creek and now working on the museum.

*** Ohio Sate University's Department of Molecular Genetics, who "have an Internet posting asking that anyone who gets samples send them to the school."

Posted by Michael Reed Krein krein@musicaseria.com 12-17-98