2003 BIGFOOT Symposium (Collection of article)

Bigfoot Encounters

The Bigfoot Symposium 2003

Willow Creek, California September 2003

To follow are several newspaper articles, all covering
The Bigfoot Symposium held in Willow Creek
(Photo below)
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Bigfoot Poll in San Francisco Chronicle:
The Question: - " Do you believe Bigfoot is real? "
21% said Yes.
64% said No
16% said they were waiting for conclusive evidence
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Wednesday September 17, 2003 Herald Tribune.com
"Bigfoot symposium lumbers into Humboldt County" The Associated Press
Willow Creek, California -- An international conference on the furry, apelike creature known as Bigfoot wraps up today in Humboldt County. Participants are visiting Bluff Creek, an area known for Bigfoot sightings and where a famous 1967 film clip showing a big, hairy creature walking among felled trees was shot. The weekend conference drew more than 200 people from as far away as Great Britian and Russia. Yesterday, they met at an elementary school in Willow Creek to discuss behavioral and physical traits of the legendary beast, basing their discussion on past accounts and photos from around the world.
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"Bigfoot symposium examines evidence of creature's existence" by Erin Miyabara, Lumberjack Staff -- September 16, 2003 Http://www.media.humboldt.edu
Humboldt University's Newspaper, The Lumberjack

About 220 scientists, researchers and enthusiasts flocked to Willow Creek for the International Bigfoot Symposium last weekend to discuss the probability that the creature exists. People gathered from 22 states, Canada, Russia, Belgium and Great Britain to hear experts presenting evidence regarding the creature's existence.

"[Bigfoot is] really one of the most intriguing questions in natural history," said Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University.

Thomas Steenburg, author and Canadian Sasquatch investigator since 1978, pointed out that regardless of the interest garnered by the subject, Bigfoot is still reduced to the tabloids and that the most important question has to be answered first. "Is it nocturnal? Is it omnivorous? Does it need protection?" he asked. "None of that is important 'til question one is answered: does it exist or doesn't it?" Though that question may never be answered, many attendees had their minds made up before making the trip to Willow Creek.

Chester Moore Sr. of Logan Port, Louisiana, described his Bigfoot sighting several years ago in northwestern Louisiana. He said he and some friends were in a pickup truck when they saw a Bigfoot about 70 yards away. After running to the place where it was seen and measuring pine trees nearby, they estimated its height to be around 7 feet, 6 inches.

"If I had any doubt, it's done gone," he said. His son Chester Moore Jr., field researcher and author of "Bigfoot South," said he doesn't believe in Bigfoot creatures because he knows they exist. He uses the term "Bigfoot creatures" because the word Bigfoot implies that there is just one creature.

The symposium began Friday with a keynote address from John Green, author, journalist and Bigfoot investigator for 44 years. "People are starting to take a serious look at the evidence that humans are not the only bipedal primates on earth," Green said. "And in my opinion, that's the current development that holds the greatest promise for the future of Bigfoot/Sasquatch investigation."

Retired wildlife biologist John Bindernagel of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, described similarities between the descriptions of the Sasquatch from over a hundred eyewitness accounts and anatomical features found only in the great apes of Africa and Asia. He pointed out behavioral similarities apparent in the chest beating reported by Fred Beck in the 1924 Ape Canyon account and the throwing of projectiles also found among chimps.

Dr. Meldrum presented his take on the evolution of hominid bipedalism, stating that the mid-foot flexibility apparent in casts of Bigfoot tracks suggests these creatures walk on flat, flexible feet, which have been the norm for the majority of hominid evolutionary history.

Jimmy Chilcutt, crime scene investigator and latent fingerprint examiner from Conroe, Texas, focused on evidence of vertical dermal ridge patterns found on casts from Northern California, Walla Walla, Wash., and Elkins Creek, Ga., which suggest they came from the same species of animal. "From my examination, there is a North American great ape," he said.

Doug Hajicek, natural history filmmaker and producer of the Discovery Channel's "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science" program, described the process he used to examine the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film of a female Bigfoot. He pointed out the unusual gait particular to Patty--the name given to the Bigfoot--and the supposed hernia visible on her right thigh.

The second day continued with Sonora-based forest archaeologist for the Stanislaus National Forest, Kathy Moskowitz, who described the "Hairy Man" legend of the Yokuts tribe. She estimates the story could be almost six thousand years old.

One story says that after creating humans, Hairy Man started to cry because people were afraid of him. The pictograph on Painted Rock on the Tule River Indian Reservation shows Hairy Man with lines coming out of his eyes, representing tears. This painting is the only known Bigfoot pictograph in California.

Richard Noll, Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization curator and member of the September 2000 Skookum Expedition, described the expedition and Bigfoot researching methods used, such as taped Sasquatch calls from a Tahoe recording, pheromone chips and thermal imaging. The expedition resulted in a 200 pound, much-disputed cast of what appears to be the lower torso of a hair-covered primate. Noll said he is not one hundred percent sure the Skookum cast represents Bigfoot. "I say no because I didn't see [Bigfoot]," he said.

After Dr. W. Henner Fahrenbach's discussion of the structure of primate skin and its appendages--such as glands and hair--a panel of pioneer Bigfoot investigators described its experiences beginning in the 1950s.

The symposium ended with an address by Russian author and hominology investigator Dmitri Bayanov, who ended his discussion of Russian Bigfoot finds by passing around a picture of supposed Bigfoot droppings, which measured 40 inches long and 5 inches wide. This was Bayanov's first trip to America, one which came as the "fulfillment of a prophecy." Years ago at a party, he drew a wish, somewhat akin to a Chinese fortune cookie, that said: "You'll get to America during a proletariat revolution." After reflecting on that statement, he realized that those who came to the symposium are the proletariats of the scientific community. "We are proletariats," he said. "We are starting a revolution."
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"BIGFOOT fans flock to Willow Creek" - Times-Standard, CA -- Sunday, September 14, 2003
By Sara Watson Arthurs The Times-Standard
From Siberian expeditions to Californian cave paintings, all things Bigfoot discussed at convention

WILLOW CREEK -- Dmitri Bayanov believes his trip to Humboldt County -- his first visit to the United States -- is fate. Decades ago, he picked up a "wish" at a party -- something akin to a fortune cookie -- which said "You will get to America during a proletarian revolution." This weekend the chairman of the Smolin Seminar on Questions of Hominology at the State Darwin Museum in Moscow is in Willow Creek for the International Bigfoot Symposium. During the flight, he said, he reflected on the scientific revolution the symposium represented.

"Then I realized, all these people are proletarians in the scientific community," he said.

"All these people" are Bigfoot researchers from around the country. Anthropologists, amateur detectives and those simply fascinated gathered in Willow Creek for the symposium, hosted by the Willow Creek-China Flat Museum and taking place there and at Trinity Valley Elementary School. And many of them do see it as a revolution in the way people think about Bigfoot.

"The whole point of this is to take an issue that's had problems with credibility, and give it the kind of academic credibility it's long deserved," said the museum's Rudy Breuning, the conference's master of ceremonies. "We're trying to break out of the fruitcake mold."

The conference drew 220 people from 22 states, Canada, Belgium, Scotland, Great Britain and Russia.

Presentations and talks on Bigfoot took place Friday and all day Saturday. Today the conference will conclude with excursions to Bluff Creek, where Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin made the renowned film they said was of Bigfoot in 1967.

Bayanov gave a presentation on how his field has evolved over time in Russia. Sightings of Yeti, the Eurasian name for Bigfoot, have been reported for a long time but investigations into them gained momentum in the 1960s.

Some took the stories more seriously in Russia. Bayanov quoted another researcher who said the idea of a wild man roaming Siberia or the mountains of Tibet seemed plausible but one tromping around California was "a little too much to ask even Californians to accept."

He said the collapse of the Soviet Union brought changes to Bigfoot research. Some areas where researchers had led expeditions are now politically unstable and therefore off-limits. At the same time, Bayanov said Russia's greater freedom of the press makes it possible for him to publish his books.

He added that he had tried to travel to Canada during the Soviet era, and was unable to get through the bureaucracy, instead communicating with his American colleagues only through correspondence.

"Today, here I am in front of you," he said. "If anybody doubts that Bigfoot is real, I trust that nobody doubts now that Bayanov is real -- who does not doubt that Bigfoot is real."

Kathy Moskowitz Strain, the Sonora-based forest archaeologist for the Stanislaus National Forest, gave a talk on the "Hairy Man" myths of the Yokuts tribe. She said they indicate that Bigfoot has been around for hundreds of years in several cultures.

After the creation of humans, one story goes, Hairy Man cried because people were afraid of him. In the only known pictograph of Bigfoot in California, he's drawn with lines coming out of his eyes believed to represent tears, Moskowitz said.

The painting, on the Tule River Indian Reservation, includes a male adult, female adult, and baby Bigfoot. She said the Yokuts refer to them as "Mayak datat," or "Hairy Man." Hairy Man figures in several Yokuts stories. He's said to have stolen food while it was being prepared, and parents tell their children not to stay out late or Hairy Man will get them, she said. But in most of the stories she shared he's more elusive than threatening.

One begins with the animals deciding what to do once humans began to spread out, taking over more of the land and food. Moskowitz told of each animal coming up with a plan -- the hummingbird seeking food from flowers, the dog by befriending people, Hairy Man by living "among the big trees" and hunting only at night.

Rick Noll of Edmonds, Wash., told the audience of an expedition in September 2000 to try to collect Bigfoot evidence. Armed with audio recordings meant to simulate calls, fruit to serve as bait, a thermal imaging camera and "very, very gross-smelling" pheremone chips developed from gorilla and human bacteria, Noll's team tried to lure a Bigfoot out toward them. They didn't see one, but they succeeded in making a cast of an impression that Noll believes to be of the torso of a prone Sasquatch.

Noll said some counties have passed ordinances prohibiting the hunting of Bigfoot and, in one case, attempting to declare it an endangered species.
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September 14, 2003 San Francisco Chronicle
By Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer
Simple woods ape? Bigfoot academics say not a chance
Symposium unites experts of the weird-footed mystery beast

Willow Creek, Humboldt County -- In the pantheon of legendary beasts, Bigfoot plays Rodney Dangerfield: a shambling hominid that doesn't get any respect.

Even here, in the heart of his putative stomping grounds -- where an international Bigfoot conference was held Saturday -- he is a mere shill rather than a point of pride, a leering caricature used to purvey everything from burgers to used cars. Few locals believe in Bigfoot, except as an effective way to hawk junk food or trinkets to gullible tourists.

For the most part, his champions have done more harm than good to his reputation. Some think he is no simple woods ape cast adrift in the evolutionary tide, but an interdimensional traveler, or an immortal if hirsute shaman whose mission is to impart Earth Knowledge to benighted humans. That makes it hard for more conventional people to acknowledge his existence.

Bigfoot, in short, needs rehabilitating. Which is why the International Bigfoot Symposium, held at Trinity Valley Elementary School in this tiny mountain town, didn't come a day too soon.

"Our goal was to turn the corner on this thing, to change it from the freak show it is now to the academic dialogue it deserves to be," said Rudy Breuning, a sponsor of the symposium. "We have to get beyond the stigma and look at the solid scientific evidence that exists."

The event drew about 200 people from around the world to hear Sasquatch authorities discourse on everything from the anatomical and behavioral characteristics of the creature to detailed analyses of still photographs and film that reportedly captured its image. There were few, if any, hard-core skeptics to be found.

FILM-CLIP DISCUSSION
A major topic of discussion was the 1967 film clip made by Yakima, Wash., residents Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. It shows a big, furry, obviously female primate loping through downed trees at Bluff Creek, a drainage about 35 miles from Willow Creek.

In many circles, the clip has been derided as a hoax showing someone in a monkey suit. Only last year, the family members of the late Ray Wallace, a logger who purportedly had told the filmmakers where they could shoot Bigfoot, said he had admitted to trickery.

But supporters of Bigfoot's existence are not dissuaded, and they continue to promote the film as prima facie evidence of Bigfoot's existence.

"Doug Hajicek, one of our speakers and a producer for the Discovery Channel, talked about recent digital analyses of the film, and concluded that fraud would've been virtually impossible," said Breuning.

Al Hodgson, a longtime resident of Willow Creek who is considered the godfather of local Bigfoot lore and arcana, recalled he received a call from Patterson a few hours after the film was shot.

"He said, 'Al, I got a picture of the son-of-a-buck,' " Hodgson said. "I really don't think it was a hoax. That film was made 37 years ago, and there weren't the advances in special effects then that there are now. I don't think a man in an ape suit could duplicate the body movement you see."

Another featured speaker was Jimmy Chilcutt, a crime scene investigator and latent fingerprint examiner with the Monroe, Texas, police department. He has assembled a database of primate fingerprints as part of an attempt to identify human fingerprint characteristics by race and gender.

Chilcutt -- who acknowledged that he endures some gentle ribbing from his Texas law-enforcement peers -- has studied plaster casts allegedly taken from Sasquatch footprints and found that the toeprint patterns from some "were completely different from either humans or any of the known great apes. On top of that, one had scars on the dermal ridges that puckered inward as finger or toeprint scars do naturally. It would be extremely hard to duplicate that, assuming you knew that's what scarring does to prints, which few people do."

Still, one indisputable fact of the Bigfoot phenomenon is that few people who live in its home realm make contact with it. It's always "researchers" from out of town or fortunate tourists who report the sightings.

WHY DON'T LOCALS SEE BIGFOOT?
Many residents point out that the one group of locals you would expect to find oodles of Bigfoots -- bear hunters, who roam the deep woods with packs of hounds trained to chivvy and corral any big, furry beast -- never report encounters.

"That's a fair assessment," said Marc Rowley, a co-sponsor of the symposium. "For that matter, my father worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the 1940s, surveying Bluff Creek -- the area where the Patterson-Gimlin film was made -- and he never reported any Bigfoot contact."

But for Dimitri Bayanov, a hominology investigator with the State Darwin Museum in Moscow, the evidence is clear: Bigfoot exists, and in considerable numbers.

.5 "They are not as common as bears, but (other researchers) have concluded that around 2,000 Sasquatch inhabit the forests of the Pacific Northwest," said Bayanov, a slight, intense man with a stubbly beard and heavy horn-rim glasses.

"That sounds reasonable to me," he said. "In Russia, we were convinced about Bigfoot's existence since 1973, when we concluded a detailed analysis of the Patterson-Gimlin film. We are even more certain now, with the evidence that has accrued since then."

Some of the attendees did not share Bayanov's rock-ribbed certitude, but they
still claim a strong bond to the possibly nonexistent simian.

Kai Roath, a documentary film maker from San Luis Obispo who led an expedition to Nepal in quest of yeti folklore, said he wants to believe in Bigfoot, "and I have another fantasy -- my taxes are going to be cut."

Jim Hiers, a strapping, long-haired ex-Marine dressed formally for the occasion in a camo-patterned kilt, said he thinks Bigfoot exists -- and he is seeking firsthand confirmation.

Hiers is a member of the Bigfoot Rangers, a squad of ex-military men who conduct long-range "recons" for Bigfoot. Evidence so far: A few rocks chucked at the group from a wooded covert.

"That's classic primate threat display behavior," Hiers said. "It's nothing that a bear could or would do, for example. In any event, it's a good excuse to go camping, and it adds some color to our mundane lives."

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
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Charlatan in a monkey suit? Bigfoot academics say no way
Symposium unites experts on the weird-footed mystery beast
Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer, © 2003 San Francisco Chronicle - September 14, 2003
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/14/MN303756.DTL

Willow Creek, Humboldt County -- In the pantheon of legendary beasts, Bigfoot plays Rodney Dangerfield: a shambling hominid that doesn't get any respect.

Bigfoot, in short, needs rehabilitating.

Which is why the International Bigfoot Symposium, held at Trinity Valley Elementary School in this tiny mountain town, didn't come a day too soon.

"Our goal was to turn the corner on this thing, to change it from the freak show it is now to the academic dialogue it deserves to be," said Rudy Breuning,

a sponsor of the symposium. "We have to get beyond the stigma and look at the solid scientific evidence that exists."

FILM-CLIP DISCUSSION
A major topic of discussion was the 1967 film clip made by Yakima, Wash., residents Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. It shows a big, furry, obviously female primate loping through downed trees at Bluff Creek, a drainage about 35 miles from Willow Creek.

But supporters of Bigfoot's existence are not dissuaded, and they continue to promote the film as prima facie evidence of Bigfoot's existence.

"Doug Hajicek, one of our speakers and a producer for the Discovery Channel,

talked about recent digital analyses of the film, and concluded that fraud would've been virtually impossible," said Breuning.

Al Hodgson, a longtime resident of Willow Creek who is considered the godfather of local Bigfoot lore and arcana, recalled he received a call from Patterson a few hours after the film was shot.

WHY DON'T LOCALS SEE BIGFOOT?
Many residents point out that the one group of locals you would expect to find oodles of Bigfoots -- bear hunters, who roam the deep woods with packs of hounds trained to chivvy and corral any big, furry beast -- never report encounters.

"That's a fair assessment," said Marc Rowley, a co-sponsor of the symposium.

"For that matter, my father worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the 1940s, surveying Bluff Creek -- the area where the Patterson-Gimlin film was made -- and he never reported any Bigfoot contact."

But for Dimitri Bayanov, a hominology investigator with the State Darwin Museum in Moscow, the evidence is clear: Bigfoot exists, and in considerable numbers.

"They are not as common as bears, but (other researchers) have concluded that around 2,000 Sasquatch inhabit the forests of the Pacific Northwest," said Bayanov, a slight, intense man with a stubbly beard and heavy horn-rim glasses.

Some of the attendees did not share Bayanov's rock-ribbed certitude, but they still claim a strong bond to the possibly nonexistent simian.

Jim Hiers, a strapping, long-haired ex-Marine dressed formally for the occasion in a camo-patterned kilt, said he thinks Bigfoot exists -- and he is seeking firsthand confirmation.

Hiers is a member of the Bigfoot Rangers, a squad of ex-military men who conduct long-range "recons" for Bigfoot. Evidence so far: A few rocks chucked at the group from a wooded covert. "That's classic primate threat display behavior," Hiers said. "It's nothing that a bear could or would do, for example. In any event, it's a good excuse to go camping, and it adds some color to our mundane lives." BIGFOOT lore: Legends of Bigfoot (or Sasquatch) have circulated among North American native tribes for hundreds if not thousands of years. White settlers quickly incorporated tales of the huge, hairy, smelly hominids into their own mythologies.

Bigfoot sightings have been reported from the Florida Everglades to Ohio, but putative sightings of "North American wood apes" have been particularly abundant in the Pacific Northwest. The Klamath Knot -- a vast, sparsely populated region of heavily wooded mountains and lush river canyons -- is considered a hotspot for the creatures. Bluff Creek, located about 40 miles from the Klamath area town of Willow Creek, was the site of a famous 1967 film clip allegedly taken of Bigfoot by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin.

No irrefutable evidence of Bigfoot exists, and skeptics are quick to point out that most sightings are made by tourists or urban "researchers," not woods- savvy locals.True believers estimate the Pacific Northwest's sasquatch population ranges from a couple of hundred to 5,000.

Bigfoot Vital Statistics: Height: 7 to 10 feet Weight

Weight: 350 to 500 pounds

Size of feet: Up to 16 inches long and 6 inches wide.

Physical Appearance: Extremely hairy, with long arms, thick shoulders and short neck. Walks upright, like a human being.

Diet: Omnivorous: Acorns, berries, orchard fruit, fungi, salmon, small mammals, reptiles, carrion.

Odor: Offensive. Often described as putrefying flesh.

Disposition: Generally retiring, though occasionally aggressive. Credited with tearing apart bothersome dogs.

© 2003 San Francisco Chronicle

Articles courtesy Vance Orchard, Walla Walla, WA.

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