KFSN - Whether you want to believe it or not, there are a lot of people in Central California who think they've had a brush with a Bigfoot, or Sasquatch.
Many won't talk about it for fear of being ridiculed. But others are convinced they are real, and think science is about to prove they really do exist.
Lurking in the forests of the high Sierra are people, like Bill Compton. A cell phone salesman during the week, he spends many weekends in search of the elusive Bigfoot. He says," I truly believe there is a bi-pedal primate roaming the terrain. I've seen too many footprints, seen beasts walk away from me on two legs that look like giant, hairy animals."
Bill and his partners regularly search an area in the Sequoia National Forest in Southeastern Fresno County. Bills tells us," In that area we've had a lot of activity, that's why we constantly go back to it." Local hunters and hikers have reported Bigfoot like sightings, along with what they think are the sounds and smells of the creature on the website of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization. 17 alleged Bigfoot encounters are listed in Fresno County. Web sites like this are full of pictures, videos and supposed eyewitness accounts.
Such stories are no surprise to the Native American tribes living in the Sierra. To them Bigfoot was just like the bear, mountain lions, wolves and coyotes. Ron Goode of the North Fork band of Mono Indians tells us, "We have an understanding that Bigfoot was here, is here. That he once he existed. The Mono's have two names for him. One that was in the mountains, Kooseekoosnow, and then one for the foothills is Kakownow, Kakownah." Goode says he hasn't seen a Bigfoot, but thinks he smelled one. "It had kind of followed me along and really scared the heck out of me because I was running for a little bit and I could smell this thing and it smelled terrible."
Another encounter near North Fork involved not smell, but sound. Susan Larson, an accountant believes she heard a Bigfoot outside her window one night. She says, "The scream was so scary, that you would no way in your right mind go out that door and go looking for it, and it's a shame I didn't have the guts."
Susan says she didn't know she'd heard a Bigfoot, until listening to a recording on a Bigfoot web site. Listening to the sound, "Ooooappp....ooooapp..." She tells us, "That's exactly what I heard."
She later took pictures of footprints she thinks could belong to Bigfoot, or maybe a bear. Casts of footprints, along with pictures, videos and other Bigfoot evidence is on display for all to see at the Bigfoot Discovery Museum near Santa Cruz. Museum owner and curator Michael Rugg says, "We are trying to come up with definitive proof that there are Bigfoot out there."
Rugg has wanted to prove Bigfoot lives ever since he saw one as a kid, while camping with his parents along a creek in Humboldt County. He recalled the incident. "Stepped out on a sandbar and there was a great big hairy man standing there looking at me and I looked at him and he looked down at me." The creature ran off when Rugg's parents called out to him. Rugg says he didn't realize he'd seen a Bigfoot until years later. After retiring as a graphic artist he opened the museum to help further Bigfoot research.
One of the few academically credentialed scientists who will acknowledge the possibility Bigfoot exists is Jeff Meldrum. A biology professor at Idaho State University in Pocatello. His book, "Sasquatch, Legend Meets Science," has been cited in some of the most recent documentaries on Bigfoot. He believes he has almost found a scientific basis for the legendary creature from a site in Ontario, Canada. Meldrum says,"We collected tissue, the remains of blood as well as muscle tissue as well as some hairs." Meldrum explains the creature stepped on a board with screws in it, leaving the flesh behind, giving researchers a sample from which to obtain DNA for testing. He says a preliminary test indicated a feature in a strand of DNA that appeared to put the creature somewhere between a human and chimpanzee.
Meldrum admits much more DNA testing is needed, but, says he thinks there's something out there. He says," Based on all the evidence I have seen it suggests this is an unrecognized species of great ape."
That however, is not a conclusion shared by most of the scientific community. Stephen Lewis is a professor of Earth Sciences at California State University Fresno. A Geologist he teaches a course on popular myths masquerading as science. He puts Bigfoot in the same category as UFO's and Power Crystals. He says, "This whole Bigfoot topic is what can be classified as pseudo science." He adds," There's really no credible evidence that's ever been turned up that a giant six hundred pound hairy, hominid creature, man-like except bigger, inhabits the Pacific Northwest, or Fresno County or anywhere else. There's just no evidence of that."
Many Bigfoot believers say "what more could you need?" They believe the evidence, from Indian legends to eyewitness accounts, along with film and videos is already overwhelming. But even those on Bigfoot's trail, like Bill Compton of Fresno, admit the absolute proof they need may be very hard to come by. He says, "We go to investigate and can't find anything. Very mysterious, it drives us nuts. " But he says, "I truly believe we have them in the Central Valley. Bigfoot's, and it will come out, someday."
The obvious question is, "Why can't anyone seem to find a real Bigfoot, dead or alive?"
The Native Americans believe the creatures live and die hidden underground, in tunnels and caves that run for hundreds of miles through the Sierra, and only come out to feed now and then. Others believe they're just too smart to be discovered. With the sensory skills of wild animals, and near human intelligence, they are presumably, incredibly elusive.
It will take actually finding one to convince skeptics they exist, but as long as there's no way to prove they don't exist, some people will keep looking for and believing in Bigfoot.
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Saturday, October 13, 2007
BFRO Investigator in Central CA - David Raygoza
chieftain - What’s David Raygoza’s idea of a good time? A full tank of gas in his Jeep, fresh batteries for his video camera and a bag of apples for bait.Raygoza, 49, is an award-winning principal at Central Unified’s Pershing Continuation High School west of Fresno, Calif. But for 14 years, he’s also had a secret hobby: tracking Bigfoot in Sequoia National Forest in the southern Sierra Nevada.
Raygoza admits his belief in the legendary creature makes him sound crazy.
‘‘It’s one of those things that you don’t talk to people about. I think mainstream America looks at it like UFOs or ghosts,’’ Raygoza said.
Also known as Sasquatch, Bigfoot purportedly is covered in hair and stands 7 feet tall. The creature roams remote forests, with most sightings concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, from north of Eureka, Calif., to British Columbia, said David Byrne, a high-profile Bigfoot hunter.
Raygoza had kept a low profile on his Bigfoot convictions until July, when he led a symposium on the creature in Hanford, Calif. Raygoza has several photographs of large footprints he believes could be from Bigfoot, as well as video he says shows glimpses of the creature. He said he once found an old nest Bigfoot may have used.
Raygoza’s interest in Bigfoot dates back to his senior year at Riverdale High School, when he read a newspaper article about a 17-year-old student in the Bay Area planning a Bigfoot hunting expedition.
‘‘I thought, ‘Wow. What a bold thing to do,’ ’’ Raygoza said.
Then, 14 years ago, while camping with a friend in the Sierra east of Fresno, Raygoza came across 17-inch footprints he could not identify. A science teacher at the time, Raygoza was hooked on tracking Bigfoot.
But he found no further evidence for 10 years: ‘‘I was really beginning to believe there was no such thing.’’
A chance meeting with a man in Coarsegold, Calif., at a gold-panning exhibit four years ago piqued his interest again. The man, an American Indian, said Bigfoot roamed an area near an old sweat lodge in Sequoia National Forest. He told Raygoza: ‘‘If you go there, you’ll find what you are looking for.’’
Raygoza and a friend made a trip to the location and found several sets of tracks Raygoza thinks were from Bigfoot. Over the past four years, he’s videotaped what he believes may be Bigfoot in the forest, although he admits the images are inconclusive.
‘‘Is it definitive? No, of course not,’’ he said.
Raygoza said he once filmed Bigfoot eating an apple he had put out as bait.
Stephanie Martin, a counselor at Pershing High, said she ‘‘didn’t have words’’ when she learned last summer that her boss believed in Bigfoot. She prefers not to discuss it with him; she said his stories sound credible, and she is scared by the idea that Bigfoot may exist.
‘‘I know it sounds kooky and crazy, and (Raygoza’s) obviously not,’’ Martin said.
Terry Cox, president of the Central Unified School District board, had not heard of Raygoza’s Bigfoot tracking but isn’t bothered by it.
She said she and her sons, now grown, have always enjoyed the Bigfoot legend. Her children belonged to Indian Guides when they were young and participated in several Bigfoot hunts.
One of the Indian Guide mothers made a Bigfoot costume that an older guide wore, running through the woods, allowing the younger guides glimpses of ‘‘Bigfoot.’’
One year, they forgot to bring the Bigfoot shoe coverings, so the creature ran around the forest in silver basketball shoes, Cox said.
Raygoza declined to be specific about where he searches in the Sequoia National Forest, saying that he’s worked hard tracking the creature and wants to be the one to come up with indisputable evidence that Bigfoot is real.
He has plenty of company hunting Bigfoot.
Byrne, the Bigfoot expert, has led three expeditions since the 1960s, outfitted with helicopters and infrared sensors. The work of Byrne and two other Bigfoot aficionados is part of a yearlong exhibit that opened last week at the State Capital Museum in Olympia, Wash., examining Sasquatch as a cultural phenomenon in the Northwest.
Several Web sites are devoted to the legend. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization lists hundreds of sightings, separating them into Class A or Class B reports. The organization says that Class B reports are not considered less credible or less important, but they have more potential to be something other than Bigfoot, such as bear sightings or practical jokes.
Byrne, though a believer, says that ‘‘90 percent of what we think we know is pure speculation. There’s no experts. We’re all students.’’
There are too many eyewitnesses to discount Bigfoot’s existence, Byrne said: ‘‘These are really good, down-to-earth people with no reason to fabricate a story.
‘‘I think there could be something out there.’’
But Denise Alonzo, a spokeswoman for Sequoia National Forest, is more skeptical. She’s worked in the area for 20 years, and ‘‘I’ve never heard or seen anything about a Bigfoot in the forest.’’
Stephen Lewis, chairman of the earth and environmental sciences department at California State University-Fresno, said that if the creature existed, trackers would have found ‘‘Bigfoot poop’’ and other forensic evidence.
His department offers a critical thinking course, ‘‘Facts, Fads and Fallacies in the Natural Sciences,’’ which explores the pursuit of mythical creatures such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.
‘‘My speculation is that people have a need to believe in magic and mystery, unexplained phenomenon,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘People enjoy the idea that there’s something out there that is mysterious and not yet discovered. They get captivated by all this stuff.’’
Raygoza is not bothered by the skepticism.
He said he’s enjoyed not only the pursuit of Bigfoot, but the beautiful wilderness he’s explored.
‘‘I’m going to continue looking until I get that shot that is definitive, where people won’t say, ‘That’s a bear,’ or until I can’t walk those hills,’’ Raygoza said.
California Central Valley / Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Encounters
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