High Desert Bigfoot Research Project

http://www.hdbrp.com/

Interesting Christian perspective

Giant Hairy Bipeds

by Gary Stearman

In particular, as we witness the waning influence of God’s Holy Spirit in these latter days, demonic influence will become progressively unleashed. As Paul put it in I Timothy 4:1, “ … doctrines of devils …” will begin to come to the foreground. Today’s occultic books and movies abound with unspeakable tales of titanic powers and monstrous giants, aroused as if from some long sleep. In fact, this is a prevalent theme among such productions. But they are only the precursors of the real thing that is shortly to come.

During the days of the prophets and on through the Christian era, the old giants receded deeply into the background of history. But they seem tantalizingly close to public realization once again. Beginning particularly in the last half of the present century, the world is hearing more and more about a class of creatures whose very existence is questioned. The prevailing belief is that giants will never exist again. Og and his people are gone forever.

But thousands firmly believe that they have seen, tracked and in some cases met, one or more of the giant creatures. In every case, these creatures seem to want nothing more than to be left alone. They flee at astonishing speeds when confronted by human beings. They are true giants, ranging in height from eight to twelve feet! Their footprints have been measured at fourteen to twenty-four inches or more!

These reticent anthropoids are known by many names: kaptars (Asia), yowies (Australia), yetis, or abominable snowmen (the Himalayas), kangmi (Tibet), sasquatch (northwestern American Indian), or bigfoot (western north America, Canada). Some naturalists simply term them Giant Hairy Bipeds, or GHB’s for short.

It is more or less widely known that these creatures exist. Their vocalizations (including a strange language) have been recorded. But their reality is curiously fleeting. This has caused many casual observers to dismiss the thought of their existence as foolish. But they do exist, in many cases acknowledged by anthropologists and attested to by convincing photos, hair and footprint evidence and even motion picture footage.

An entire pseudo-science, called crypto-zoology, has emerged. It is devoted to the study of these strange, giant man-apes.

In the fifties and sixties, hundreds of similar sightings were reported, as the “abominable snowman” became the rage of the world’s news media. Many hunting parties trekked into the Tibetan high country and the towering Himalayas to be the first to bring back a specimen worth millions. They all failed.

But in the late sixties, seventies and eighties, reports began to filter in from all over the world. Especially in the Western U.S. and Canada, tales about “bigfoot” were rife. And once again, the hunt was on. American Indians had long spoken about the “giant hairy men” who lived deep in the forests. In the northwest, the local tribes named them “sasquatch.” Indians believed that these creatures lived in family units, sought out remote areas, hated contact with humans, and were possessed of special “senses” that made it impossible to find them.

Actually, these massive and shaggy creatures have been reported virtually all over the world. In our country, sightings have ranged from coast-to-coast and border-to-border. But they are particularly observed in Washington, Oregon, California, Indiana and states throughout the Midwest.

Worldwide, there are literally thousands of similar reports, continuing to the present day. Usually, the creatures are accompanied by a retching odor that people describe as the worst thing they’ve ever smelled. This has led to another common nickname, “Skunk Ape.”

Back in the woods of the northwest and Canada, vigorous reports continue unabated to the present day. Such reports are so common that the creatures are now protected by law in many communities. They are thought to be so “humanlike” in appearance that it is considered a capital crime to kill one.

Enter the Demon

What is not widely known is that GHB’s are commonly accompanied by phenomena usually attributed to the race known as demons. Their appearance is likely to be accompanied by ghostly rapping in the homes of nearby residents, unidentifiable noises, the levitation or translocation of ordinary household objects, disembodied voices and flying lights in the night.

In one of the most famous cases, two GHB’s were seen walking away from a flying “bubble of light,” after it landed on the Pulaski farm near Greensburg, Pennsylvania. On the night of October 25, 1973, state police were summoned, after residents of the family farm were literally frightened out of their wits by the hairy giants who walked toward them. Stephen Pulaski tried to shoot them with a hunting rifle, but they seemed unhurt, and merely walked back into the woods.

Those who have studied the GHB phenomenon quickly realize that these monstrous animals exhibit all the transitory, will-o’-the-wisp characteristics described in traditional demonology. They are virtually always accompanied by the accouterments of the occult, the spiritualistic and the metaphysical. This is, of course, the most obvious explanation of their mysterious ability to resist discovery. Over the last forty years, literally thousands of hunting parties have vied for the honor of being the first to bring this “new species” into the light of society. To a man, they have failed. Sometimes, their hunts have taken place within very small tracts of woods. They have literally had the giants surrounded, but their ever-tightening circles converged upon nothing!

Demons Dead and Alive

Does this remind us of anything else? Yes indeed, it does. It reminds us of the long-standing belief that the demon is able to transition back and forth between different states of existence.

It can be both a spirit creature and a physical animal. And it also reminds us of the ancient Rephaim, who are named in Scripture, both as condemned spirit beings and as giants.

Modern man is bedeviled by many such phenomena. Hauntings, poltergeist phenomena, “psychic” behavior, and GHB’s all exhibit the vexatious tendency to avoid capture.

Thus, the “scientific” mind, operating with the prejudice that such things cannot exist to begin with, remains smugly satisfied. Respected scientific journals and media outlets never treat these common subjects with anything resembling objectivity.

And woe be unto the unprejudiced observer who, after an encounter with these “nonexistent” phenomena, must prove his sanity.

But you’re saying, “Wait a minute, the giants of the Bible were visible and real. They didn’t disappear like spooks.” And right you are, to a point. In fact, however, they did disappear into the dusty pages of history … for the second time.

The first time they disappeared was in the Flood of Noah. The Bible tells us that only Noah and his family came through the Flood.

Yet somehow, the giants came back again to plague Abraham, Moses and the Davidic kingdom. While we cannot be dogmatic, we would say that somehow, the demon interceded in fallen man’s development, producing the living Rephaim.

The Rephaim,

Both Spiritual and Physical

This would seem to provide an answer to the nagging question about why the Bible refers to Rephaim as both living and dead. Perhaps they are “shades,” or spirits, who are able to affect the physical world from time to time. This may particularly be true in societies given over to the worship of various evil spirits, including demons.

 Their two states of existence in Scripture may help to explain the basic and troublesome question mentioned above: How were the giants of Genesis 6 able to come back to trouble the world after they were destroyed in the Flood? Might they have later influenced man genetically in some way, causing him to become a mutant — a giant? One of the giants of Gath was said to have six fingers and six toes on his hands and feet. This would certainly indicate at least the possibility that there was some perversion of the human genotype.

Here, we become involved with the twisted world of the fallen angels and demons. In this dark and alien arena, we must proceed with caution. Still, though the subject may seem strange, there is ample information for a careful study. This should not be a theme unfamiliar to Christians. After all, even Paul writes to Christians about the truth of our spiritual battle:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12).

While it is impossible to be precise about the enigmatic order of the occult power structure, the three groups mentioned here are the rulers [Gk., archon], authorities [Gk., exousia] and lords of this world [Gk., kosmokratoras]. These are the demons who infest the globe under the direction of Satan.

Historical observation of this miserable race always yields one interesting and to some, perhaps unexpected trait. Namely, under great effort, when it suits their cause, demons are apparently quite able to manifest themselves in the physical world — in physical bodies.

Furthermore — given the proper spiritual environment and a little time — they are apparently capable of making their presence permanent. That is, by altering the human species, they produce beings who are more appropriate to their plans.

The Prophetic Conclusion

Those plans include the rise of a new era of despotism. Given their ancient behaviors, it is probably safe to say that they are even now involved in the malevolent practices that marked their past intrusions.

As earlier noted, we are now living at the end of the Christian era, a time when evil supernatural manifestations have been suppressed. The restraining power of God’s Holy Spirit is without doubt, the agency responsible for this blessed condition. Regarding the unveiling of latter-day evil forces, specifically the Antichrist, Paul writes:

“And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.

“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

“And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

“Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (II Thess. 2:6-9).

Paul tells us with extreme clarity that the Antichrist will be revealed on a wave of demonic activity, no doubt including the alien phenomena that we have discussed in this and other articles on the subject.

Today, the demon and his ilk are steadily re-emerging in more and more blatant displays of strange activity. Current stories of UFO abductions, grotesque animal mutilations, genetic experiments and pseudo-technological razzle-dazzle are capped off by the furtive manifestations of the GHB.

Just beneath the surface, these phenomena are definitely connected. There is a web of activity that will produce the same sort of evil that characterized the antediluvian era. We have only to remember that ancient historians linked the demigods of old with the intrusion of Satan and his minions with the Nephilim. The fallen ones of that day seem to have been the result of dark experimentation … a celestial attempt to link the unseen world with our physical reality.

1975 October 25th, North Union Twp, Fayette County

A man and two boys saw 2 tall, hairy bipeds walking along a fence line underneath a glowing white UFO. They had matted, dirty brown hair, glowing green eyes, broad shoulders and small necks.
They walked stiff legged giving them a robot like appearance. The man shot at the creatures. Although the witness felt he didn’t miss, the shots had little effect on the strange creatures. They simply turned around and traversed their way back along the fence line.  The witnesses left the area and returned later with a Pennsylvania State Trooper.
 

Brooksville Florida
An alleged UFO landing had occurred there in 1965 and throughout 1966 Florida was involved in a major UFO Flap.Mrs.Eula Lewis of Brooksville a police dispatcher, reported that residents were being disturbed by inexplicable shrill screaming sounds. One night after hearing her dogs barking she looked out of a window to encounter a “big hairy thing standing in the yard”. It turned to return to the woods where so many strange lights were observed with the dogs still chasing it.

Sun, Indiana (Ohio County).
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Lester Kaiser was without lights for 2 hours. They thought nothing of the incident at the time, although strange lights and weird flying objects were being sighted along a nearby ridge.
At 7:30 pm. on the following evening young George Kaiser was walking towards a tractor on the farm when his dog began to growl and bark. He looked up to see a grotesque figure about twenty-five feet away. Whatever it was it was the size of a man covered with black fur. The head sat directly on it’s shoulders and the face was dark black. The forehead was very short and the eyes were set close together. it was all covered with hair except the back of the hands and the face. The hand’s looked normal. Upon noticing George the creature made a “strange grunting sound “turned, and jumped over a ditch and ran down the road at high speed, quickly disappearing out of sight. Footprints were found in the dirt by the ditch. Plaster casts were made showing three toes plus a big toe.
The next night his neighbor Mr.Charles Rolfing, watched an Unidentified flying object for about 8 minutes shortly after 10:15 p.m.
So here we have a sequence of events. A local power failure on May 18;a creature sighting on May 19;and a Ufo sighting on May 20.
As Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger remarked,” Once is hap stance; twice is coincidence; three times is enemy action.

Ohio
On his March 26,2002 weekly Bigfoot radio broadcast, Robert W.Morgan  talks about a case he investigated in Alliance Ohio that involved a huge cigar shaped UFO hovering over the exact spot where several witnesses had spotted a large Bigfoot in a snow covered field just 30 minutes earlier.
Upon investigating, and quite sure that they had the creature trapped, it disappeared and was not found.
Mr.Morgan though not admitting that the UFO may have transported the creature elsewhere, does feel as though there is a definitive overlapping between the two phenomenon.

Wisconsin

Town of Frankfort resident Rita Massman said it all started about five weeks ago, with a sighting of a UFO. A few days later, Bigfoot appeared. “When there’s a UFO sighting, Bigfoot appears,” said Massman. “I didn’t see the UFO, but my neighbor did.” At first, when Rita Massman’s son told her that he had seen Bigfoot tracks, she didn’t believe him. But after the family’s chickens began to disappear from a pen that “only human-like hands could open,” Rita and husband Klaus Massman became believers. They reported it to the Marathon County Sheriff’s Department on July 21. The Massman’s claim that their children have also seen and been chased by an “8- or 9-foot tall, brown, 400-500 pound” creature having a monkey-like face. Rita Massman says that a bear isn’t responsible because the goats, mushrooms, berries and bees were undisturbed. A bear, she said, would have taken more than chickens.

Source: Wausau Daily Herald, July 28, 1991

Special thanks to Thom Powell’s “The Locals” pg 245-246 Certain telltale signs normally precede a Bigfoot encounter.

The checklist provided below can be used exclusively as an indication that Sasquatch are in the immediate area although no one item alone will prove that they are in the vicinity when utilized individually, but when several of these items in the list are combined and experienced then the chances that a Sasquatch or even several are nearby increases dramatically.

Damage To Property

Bent and twisted trees along roads and trails.

Electric fence wire torn down.

 Camping gear and cookware thrown about.

Barn tools that have been strewn about.

Damage to homes.

Bent gates with no obvious vehicle damage.

Trees that have had tops bent, twisted or broken off some 7 feet or higher above the ground.

Items Found Outdoor freezer doors left open with food missing.

Large piles of animal scat found in nearby woods or on property.

Dead animals that have been skinned by hand or without benefit of tools.

Piles of Feathers and/or bones neatly placed nearby.

Big Footprints found in the mud or near a horse corral if you dwell in an urban area

Dead animals found in a tree high over the ground

Dead animals and livestock found on property or in nearby wooded area

Items Missing Food from a camping cooler

Missing garden vegetables or fruit from ripening fruit trees

Missing livestock Livestock cages that have been opened and had the animals removed

Missing Horse Grain

Missing Milk: A milk cow that occasionally has no milk to give when it should

Missing smoked meat and/or fish from a smokehouse

Things Smelled,Heard,or Felt

Unusual lights in the sky or near the ground

Unusual howls or screams, very loud oftentimes that are heard in the distance or in nearby woods Agitated nighttime behavior by dogs

Lots of barking by dogs on surrounding property

Fearful after dark reactions by dogs that are otherwise aggressive in nature

Agitated horses that may escape from the pen at night

An agitated and distracted horse while riding in the woods

The sound of knocking or rocks being struck together emanating from nearby woods

Noises around the house at night such as knocking, pounding or scratching

Stones hitting the house or roof at night Children complaining that something is looking in their windows at night

Children claiming that something is watching them while they are playing

The feeling that someone or something is watching you while doing farm chores, tending stock, or walking/being in the woods

The sound of footfalls that parallel your direction of travel as you walk in the woods

The sound of breaking twigs, sticks and branches by an unseen as it is heard to be moving loudly through the woods

A strong odor that resembles a dead animal or wet dog, rotting garbage, eggs or sulphur which can be strong enough to make an individual nauseous or ill

A suddenly quiet wooded area absent of bird, animal, or bug sound

The sound of something moving outside your window at night A feeling that something is nearby that may awaken you abruptly from your sleep

UNKNOWN CREATURES IN NORTH AMERICA
By Scott Corrales
© 1997
In their landmark book The Supernatural, Douglas Hill and Pat Williams make a somewhat jocose exposition of the “monsters” which fill the pages of American folklore — entities with silly names like gollygog, bingbuffer, moogie and fillyloo, which form part of the lore of the Appalachian and Ozark region. The authors put aside any mention of very real creatures which are not only alien to our world but which also choose to manifest in the isolated woodlands and rural areas of North America, beings whose mention produces no smiles whatsoever.
  According to noted Bigfoot researcher Joan Jeffers, somewhere in McKean County (Pennsylvania), there exists a one-of-a-kind portrait: very possibly the only oil painting ever dedicated to a monster. The canvas, says Jeffers, depicts an enormous red-eyed beast staring directly at the viewer from the gloom of a northern forest. The following words appear at the painting’s base: “The monster bear seen at Allegany Creek in 1811.” The witnesses to such a frightening apparition perhaps chose to immortalize it for the benefit of future generations, not realizing that what they’d seen was not a bear, but one of the enormous apelike creatures known by a variety of names, mainly Native American ones.
Althought the bulk of sightings and encounters with such entities have been associated with the Pacific Northwest and California, investigators like Don Worley have pointed out that there appears to be no relationship between the “Sasquatch” of the Washington/Oregon/Idaho region and those seen elsewhere in the country, which seem to have more of a paranormal nature. Worley has coined the term “para-apes” to describe these beings.
On December 5, 1995, three young hunters had a terrifying experience they would not soon forget. Having entered the woods near Salamanca, N.Y. on a deer hunt, Muhammed Dubashi, Greg Eisenmann and Matt Curcione never thought they would encounter Bigfoot in this otherwise peaceful part of the country.
Between 7 and 8 a.m., the hunters noticed what they first took for “a bear” moving across the woodline. The animal headed straight toward them in a two-legged run, issuing blood-chilling screams, as the hunters would later testify. The creature, which had originally been some 300 feet away, covered the ground with enormous strides. Aware that they had were only some 20 feet away from their truck, the hunters promptly ran for cover, getting into the vehicle just as the frightening, screaming entity reached them. The creature landed a powerful blow against the windshield, shattering it to bits. According to Eisenmann, the beast appeared to have been eating something when it noticed them. It had yellow eyes and appeared to be a mixture of human and ape. The truck’s owner did not dare to file a claim with his insurance company for the ruined windshield in order to avoid recounting the surreal experience to others.
Salamanca, N.Y., is at the heart of the Seneca Indian Reservation. Duce Bowen, a respected author and chronicler of Seneca lore, has said that such “Bigfoot” type creatures occupy a prominent place in his people’s traditions.
Those who believe that these creatures are merely “gentle giants” of the woods should think twice after reading the following account, taken from the files of researcher Ron Schaffner. In 1869, the Minnesota Weekly News featured a news item in its pages to the effect that Gallipolis, Ohio, was beseiged by a “hairy wildman” who appeared to live in the forested area surrounding the prosperous river town. The tall creature was openly hostile toward humans, having attacked a father and daughter riding in an open carriage at one time. The man was no match for his enormous assailant and was pinned against the muddy ground with the monster poised to bite his throat. He was saved by quick thinking on his daughter’s part: she picked up a rock and landed a blow behind the creature’s ear, causing it to run back into the woods.
On June 24, 1980, the sheriff of Ohio’s Logan County called a search for a Bigfoot-type entity haunting the woods between the towns of West Mansfield and Union County. One of the witnesses to these activities had been Ray Quay, a police officer from Russell’s Point, who claimed to have seen a six-foot tall, hairy creature emerging from a barn.
Quay’s original impression was that a vagrant had been taking shelter in the barn, and he proceeded to shout at it. The “thing” broke into a run straight into the treeline beyond the barn. The officer then realized that what he had just seen was neither man nor bear, since it left a nauseating odor in its wake.
Officer Quay’s sighting coincided with that of farmer Patricl Polling, who witnessed a tall, powerfully-built creature emerging from the woods to stroll alongside a road adjacent to his farm. Four-toed prints were subsequently found in the area, each of them more than 18 inches long.
Fourteen years later, Ray Lehman of Nelsonville, OH, would have his very own brush with the unknown one evening in September 1994. Lehman, an avid squirrel hunter with a thorough knowledge of the backwoods, ran into “something” he had never seen before.
“I say it was Bigfoot, because I don’t know what else it might have been,” Lehman explained. “At first I thought it was a bear, but a bear can’t run on two legs. It can walk on two legs, but this thing was running. The weirdest thing was the sound it made while it ran — something like a monkey’s screams. It made every hair on my body stand up, even made me cry. It was some ten feet away from me and it ran away when I walked past it. People always said there was something strange in the Nelsonville woods, and now I know what it is!”
But Ray Lehman wasn’t the only one to see this strange kind of creature. A few miles away from Lake Hope Drive, three campers had pitched a tent to spend the night in the forest when “a thing” picked up the tent, pushing its occupants out through the other side.
The area of the forest in which these encounters with improbable creatures occurred was occupied by abandoned kilns a short drive away from State Highway 278. The affinity between these apparitions and ruined or abandoned structures has been examined by a number of influential researchers.
An unexpected turn of events came about in 1995: over the years, hunters and other visitors to the Ohio woods had found enormous “mounds” of dried grass and branches in certain clearings. Joedy Cook, director of the Ohio Bigfoot Research and Study Group, located in Cincinnati, believes that the mounds are temporary dwellings built by these creatures. Cook and his colleague George Clappison have entered these large, haystack-like structures and claim to have found samples of animal hair. Residents of the remote areas in which these “habitats” tend to appear believe they are built by the Grassman — a creature whose description fits that of a Bigfoot.
According to researcher Don Worley, “para-apes” have also proven themselves invulnerable to gunfire. In over thirty recorded cases between 1968 and 1977, these creatures have been hit with bullets of every caliber without flinching. Worley believes that the dual nature of these entities — physical and paraphysical — has been clearly demonstrated over the years, which explains why none have been slain or captured after almost a century and thousands of encounters. It also explains, says Worley, how such entities can materialize in the midst of heavily populated areas and nonetheless elude capture, which would be utterly impossible for a purely physical beast. The “para-apes” are physical in every respect while in a material environment, but are endowed with the power to change into a state of matter and energy that is unknown to modern physics.
Stranger yet are those accounts describing the fusion of Bigfoot-like creatures or “para-apes” with the winged oddities collectively known as “Mothmen” after John Keel’s landmark 1975 book. One of these chimeric combinations, dubbed “Bighead”, spread fear throughout the communities lining the Ohio River in 1978. The bulk of the events appeared to center around the town of Butler, a rural community with a population of 1300 at the edge of Mohican State Forest.
On July 8, 1978, two local teenagers were walking alongside the railroad tracks when they heard strange noises emanating from a dense cluster of vegetation farther down the line. Both boys were stunned to see an unknown creature standing some seven feet tall, with glaring red eyes, emerge from the foliage. Seized by panic, one of the teenagers made a run for it; his companion remained paralyzed by fear, his eyes riveted on the apparition. He reportedly felt the entity bidding him to come closer, but was finally able to turn about and run back home.
The strange creature was later described to researchers as possessing a massive head completely out of proportion with the rest of its body, with no visible hands or feet. The witnesses also indicated that it made very strange grunting noises.
Bighead staged a reappearance on the evening of July 10, 1978, showing itself before a car filled with passengers near Mansfield. The car was about to cross the railroad tracks when the driver noticed a dark mass with red eyes standing between the rails. On July 12, the creature reappeared near the Kline farm, frightening the Kline daughter, who threw a flashlight at it.
Researcher Ron Schaffner was able to ascertain that all the wildlife in the area surrounding the Kline farm had mysteriously vanished, perhaps as a consequence of the strange creature’s apparance. Dogs barked constantly and the cattle were restless. A dog belonging to a neighboring rancher jumped right through a closed window in order to get into his home, apparently in an effort to flee from something that frightened it.
Although none of the witnesses ever saw “Bighead” fly, Schaffner noted that there were similarities between it and West Virginia’s Mothman: both entities had luminous red eyes, emitted sounds similar to a whistle or a record playing at 78 rpm’s. Neither creature had visible arms nor feet, and both stood well in excess of six feet.
While cryptozoologists roam the woods of the Pacific Northwest and the desolate reaches of the Himalayas in search of possible prehistoric survivals, an entirely different variety of man-ape is manifesting itself much closer to home

April, 22, 1966 -  Alliance, Ohio, United States

Close-range sighting of disc-shaped object with dome on top

“When it was within an estimated 40 feet, over the open practice area of the golf course, the UFO stopped (cf. Damon, Texas). It appeared to be at telephone pole height and about 45 feet in diameter, and encircling the rim was a row of red lights like a “rotating neon sign.” The white light, much brighter than the red, was seen to be coming from a dome atop the structure.”   View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon),   ID:545
Case Type: StandardCase    Features: Vehicle Interference

25 Years ago today-A scary UFO encounter:
From the files of UFO researcher Stan Gordon
This is a review of this classic event which he posted on the
25th anniversary of the case: October 25, 1998.October 25, 1973
Fayette County, PA

Invisible Sasquatch
by Davy Russell
POSTED: 15 February 04There are those who claim to have encountered the Sasquatch, but have never seen it. They hear it breathing behind them, and turn to find nothing. They hear it following or walking beside them, but nothing is there. For centuries, Native Americans attributed supernatural abilities to the Sasquatch including telepathy and the power to become invisible. It appears that Native Americans were not the only ones to find themselves in the presence of an invisible Sasquatch. Reports of the unseen hominid continue today.

In his book, Unexplained!, Jerome Clark relates a strange incident that occurred on the evening of November 3, 1977, a rare encounter with what some claim to be a possible invisible bigfoot was reported on a reservation in North Dakota. A bigfoot-type creature was spotted throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Locals, along with the police, staked out the area to search for the mysterious creature. A rancher named Lyle Maxon reported a strange encounter, claiming he was walking in the dark when he plainly heard something nearby breathing heavily, as if from running. He shined his flashlight on the source of the sound only to see nothing there. Startled by the incident, he pondered the idea that Sasquatch might be able to become invisible when frightened or pursued.

It is a startling scenario to image walking in the woods and being surrounded by curious 6-8 foot tall, 500 pound bigfoot creatures and not being able to see them or even know they are there. Perhaps it is the Sasquatch(s gift of invisibility that has prevented its confirmed discovery for so long.

Obviously, the invisible Sasquatch theory lends no further scientific credibility to the existence of the hidden man-ape. When attributing supernatural abilities to bigfoot, it becomes a paranormal entity and not a biological one. As a paranormal creature, bigfoot is easily caught up in trans-dimensional portal theories and ties with UFOs and extraterrestrial visitation. Skeptics suspect that it is only superstition and fear of being in the woods alone that causes the idea that an invisible Sasquatch is nearby, making the strange noises one hears and breaking twigs behind them.

Peter Guttilla is a freelance writer and researcher from Southern California

QUESTION: I understand you wrote some articles back in the 1970s about a link between UFOs and Bigfoot. How did that come about?

GUTTILLA: Actually it all started with a remark I made to nuclear physicist, Stanton Friedman, in the early ’70s - the winter of 1972, I think. Friedman had formed the California UFO Research Institute and I ended up designing, editing and typing a newsletter for him. If memory serves, it was during one of the usual deadline crunches in Stan’s apartment - a small upper-story flat in Lawndale (Ca.) cluttered with stacks of printed material from just about every quarter of the contemporary UFO scene - that a couple of news clippings about Bigfoot-like ‘monster’ sightings in the Midwest caught my attention. I told Stan I had a hunch there might be a connection between those Bigfoot reports and UFOs which were seen at low levels in the same locations. He shrugged it off, agreeing that anything was possible but he preferred to deal with one mystery at a time. Friedman’s reaction was understandable, for the moment anyway, since we were overwhelmed with more UFO reports than we or anybody else for that matter had seen in a half-dozen years. Still, I was nagged by an abstract ’something’ in the mysterious night time shenanigans of Bigfoot. For me, in those days, just to smell a rat in the rafters was enough to set the pulse atwitter, and however naive it sounds today it occurred to me that if you substituted the word ‘UFO’ for ‘Bigfoot’ in the dialogues of Bigfoot witnesses, the descriptions sounded or ‘felt’ eerily similar to the flying saucer and occupant encounters already well-known to UFO aficionados. It was a hunch, and a wafer-thin one to boot, but it bugged me nonetheless.

QUESTION: What was your reaction to those early Midwestern Bigfoot reports?

GUTTILLA: Well, as the months went by Bigfoot stories trickled in from across the country, and quite a few appeared to coincide with UFO reports which gave life to my up-to-then peripheral interest in Bigfoot sightings. Friedman made good his promise to avoid a scuffle with hairy bipeds, and it wasn’t until he introduced me to the late B. Ann ‘Bobbie’ Slate in 1973 that events took a more progressive turn. Bobbie, whose married name was Barbara Gironda, was a chatty dancer-turned-writer who lived with her husband, Vince, a body-building ex-Mr. Universe and owner of the famous Vince’s Gym (a pre-Gold’s favorite among Hollywood actors), and their 10-year-old son, Guy, in North Hollywood. Bobbie was an inspiration to me for the simple reason that she didn’t show a speck of timidity when it came to hashing around controversial issues. She was one of a kind and her premature death from stroke in 1979 was not only a personal sorrow to me, but a loss to the entire field in my opinion…

Before going on I’d like to add something here for the record. In Bobbie’s book, BIGFOOT, which she co-authored with a newspaper reporter named Al Berry, there’s no mention of my contribution to the events of the time, this in spite of the fact that virtually all of the Southern California mystery-tape sounds, below-ground recordings, the use of psychics, sighting report and track-find investigations at Big Rock Campground, Little Rock Dam, Sycamore Flat and Edward’s Air Force Base were attributable to me and my groups: ESPER and the California Society for the Exploration of the Unexplained (CSEU). Bobbie apologized effusively for the omissions, saying that she’d been pressured by Berry who refused to write the book if my name appeared anywhere in it. Berry, she said, was compulsively litigious and specifically bitter at me for failing to credit him in an article I’d written for Saga Magazine. Because she desperately wanted to do the book, Bobbie acquiesced in Berry’s demands, fully aware that doing so would imperil her relationship with me. In any case, that was her excuse, and after listening to her explain the situation rather emotionally, I accepted her apology and dropped the subject, figuring there were more important things to do than quibble over spilt milk. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t realize my compassion for Bobbie would place me in the awkward position of endlessly defending my (and others) role in some of the events described in her book…

…Anyway, having said that, back to your question. From early 1972 through 1973 stories placing UFOs and Bigfoot in the same locations at the same time were coming in from the Midwest and East Coast, with most of the noise - in the newspapers, at any rate - being generated out of southwestern Pennsylvania and a research group there headed by a man named Stan Gordon. Meanwhile, similar reports were turning up in Southern California and it was obvious to me and Bobbie that something weird was happening in ‘73, and whatever ‘it’ was it was trumpeting in a strange phase of UFO and Bigfoot activity. For the next five years, until late in 1978, the two of us pursued dozens of interesting cases involving UFOs and Bigfoot in California and other places across the country. Little did we suspect that we were alienating ourselves from conservatives in both camps, a stigma that would have us sitting in the back of the bus for a long time to come.

QUESTION: I take it the idea of a link between UFOs and Bigfoot wasn’t very well received?

GUTTILLA: That’s putting it mildly. Some UFOlogists were intelligent about it and willing to look at all the data, but hard-core Bigfooters reacted with almost unanimous loathing. In their minds any suggestion that UFOs played a role in the scenario was too freakish to be taken seriously. Of course these same stalwarts saw nothing freakish in devoting their lives to chasing hairy, screaming, malodorous, glowing-eyed giants that can run at speeds approaching 50 miles an hour and in one jump vanish into thin air. I found the double-standard laughable and annoying. While people calling themselves ‘researchers’ clambered over rocks and rills in search of a slavering super-ape, witnesses talking about UFOs in their Bigfoot sightings found themselves in a dead-zone with only a handful of small-town newspapers and a few UFO researchers willing to pay them any mind.

QUESTION: Didn’t the first reports of Bigfoot originate from Northern California? Were there any UFOs reported in that area at the time?

GUTTILLA: Briefly, let me give some background. The modern Bigfoot controversy - ‘modern’ meaning less than 40 years ago - was born in August of 1958 in the woods a few dozen miles west of the little town of Orleans in Northern California’s Del Norte County. A catskinner - that’s a guy who drives a Caterpillar or bulldozer - named Jerry Crew found a string of big, barefoot, man-like footprints near his tractor. Later on more tracks were found and in October, 1958, a reporter from Eureka (Ca.) interviewed Jerry Crew and the rest is history. As for UFO reports, keep in mind, Northern California’s ‘Bigfoot Country’ as well as other regions of the Pacific Northwest - particularly Oregon and Washington - were hallowed lands to conventional Bigfoot hunters. ‘Ain’t nothin’ but plain ol’ hairy apes up there,’ they chorused with pride. But it wasn’t so. UFOs in the air and on the ground were present in substantial numbers throughout the Pacific Northwest before, during, and after Jerry Crew’s track find. All anyone needed to do was check the record - that is, interviews with local people, old newspaper clippings, and formal reports taken by early UFO organizations and researchers. In the 30 years I’ve been scuffing my shoes in Bigfoot Country I’ve heard hundreds of reports of UFOs ranging in description from structured craft to mysterious lights of every size, shape, color, magnitude and duration. These have been seen on the ground, near the ground, high in the sky and all points in between. There have been close encounters, occupant encounters, low-level fly-by’s, hoverings and so on. Be that as it may, one well-known Bigfooter and author was so convinced UFOs played no part in the search that he virtually accused me of tampering with the reports, adding for logic that nobody had ever told him about UFOs in all the years he’d been on the track. My response to him was simple: Ask the right question, get the right answer. Notice I say “right question,” not “leading question.” From bias or ignorance or both, apesters never ask witnesses if ‘anything else’ happened to them during the experience cycle. In at least half the cases I’ve looked into personally, Bigfoot witnesses or people living in or near sighting locations told of seeing UFOs in the vicinity before, during, or immediately after the experience.

QUESTION: There have been a lot of UFO sightings in Anza, California and several Bigfoot reports over the years as well, are there indications to look for, signs that might otherwise go unnoticed?

GUTTILLA: Yes, apart from those already recorded in the area, i.e., distant screams, animal reactions, foul odors, heavy footfalls, etc., over the years throughout the Pacific North and Southwest Bigfoot witnesses or local residents in sighting areas have, in addition to UFOs of the classic types, reported to me the following with consistency. And I might add I’ve experienced some of these phenomena myself…

…Strange sounds, usually at night and usually mechanical, some from ‘everywhere’ and some from underground. The sounds, which often occur in combinations, are described variously as buzzing, beeping, whirring, humming, heaving ‘like a diesel locomotive on a steep grade,’ like ‘wheels turning,’ like an idling car motor, like muffled helicopter rotors, explosions, rumbles, popping and distorted or garbled voices from below ground or in the distance…

…Nighttime lights, including sudden flashes that illuminate wide patches of ground; faint glows, wisps and ‘elf’ lights; large and small white, yellow, gold, orange and red balls of light, usually seen rising from woods, from old and new mines or rock quarries and bodies of water, or hovering near or over livestock; high-flying blue or blue-white points of light that stop or change direction or brighten and dim and disappear directly overhead, and assorted horizontal or vertical beams that emanate from no visible source…

…Unusual physical, emotional, or psychic states experienced before, during, or after sightings by witnesses and others, such as strange dreams or disturbed sleep that occurs before and after the experience; sleepiness, fatigue, dolor, fever, flu-like symptoms, diarrhea, headache, nausea and the sudden onset of anxiety or panic before the event. One long-time researcher, a tough old bird, told me he once visited a sighting location and was inexplicably overwhelmed by a feeling of ‘panic.’ The experience puzzled him because initially he didn’t know where the exact location was, and only found out later that his panic attack erupted as he stood squarely on the spot where the creature had been seen…

QUESTION: Are you saying most of the evidence for linking Bigfoot to UFOs really is just a matter of two unusual things happening in the same place at the same time? Does that make a connection?

GUTTILLA: Of course not, and remember I’ve never said I’m convinced Bigfoot is from another planet, or skulks around collecting specimens for UFOnauts. What I’ve said is there appears to be a link to UFOs in some reports and those reports deserve attention, not only from UFO enthusiasts, but from Bigfooters as well. Typically, Bigfooters wax simplistic on the issue of UFOs because the majority of them know nothing or very little about the subject. Their favorite line is, ‘Why complicate matters with UFOs?’ But consider that question in another context. Imagine a medical researcher on he trail of some deadly disease saying, ‘Don’t bother me with the facts unless the facts simplify my job and agree with what I find acceptable.’ That attitude wouldn’t only be silly, but indefensibly dangerous. My point is, if somebody’s going to call himself a researcher, he’s obligated to look at all the data, and when you look at all the data there seems to be a link between some Bigfoot reports and UFOs. Of course exactly what that connection is, if one truly exists, is anybody’s guess.

QUESTION: Have there been any reports with a direct link between Bigfoot and UFOs?

GUTTILLA: There have been a few. One I found especially interesting happened near Seattle, Washington, in 1980. I’d gone to a rural area east of Seattle where all the symptoms were present: beeping and whirring sounds at night, panicked animals, foul odors, high-pitched screams from the woods at night, big 5-toed and 4-toed footprints, etc. I interviewed a local man who said he’d met with a disturbing surprise after seeking help for migraine headaches from a medical hypnotist. Under hypnosis he told of watching two UFOnauts descend from beneath a huge hovering disk-shaped UFO and walk casually into the woods followed by a tall, hair-covered ape-like creature that seemed subservient to them. For weeks preceding the experience the witness said he was often roused at night by a loud whirring noise that originated in the sky above trees near his home. Neighbors also heard the sound which was recorded on tape, and in one of the recordings a high-pitched wailing cry can be heard behind the drone of the sound-maker.

QUESTION: Have there been any recent sightings or signs of Bigfoot in the area of Anza, California?

GUTTILLA: Absolutely. Tracks were found recently near Palomar and across the valley near Tacquits Peak and in the Hemet area. Wailing cries have been reported from outlying ranches and animals have panicked or howled and bellowed en masse for long periods of time, usually at night. There have been a number of good sightings, too, including one involving two teenage boys who at night spotted a large, dark man-shaped form at the Ramona Bowl. They thought it was a gag at first and threw rocks at the shadowy thing which loped away with heavy footfalls. When the running figure passed through a lighted area the boys could see that it was big and hairy and definitely not a prankster in a fur coat. They were scared and ran home. As it happened the mother of one of the boys was a respected local psychiatrist who said she’d never seen her son so terrified and believed his story.

Another case involved a lone jogger on Bautista Canyon Road between Hemet and Thomas Mountain. The man rounded a bend and literally plunged into an enormous hairy creature that caught him, lifted him into the air and tossed him onto a soft patch of ground a dozen feet away. The witness went from jogging east to sprinting west and didn’t look back. Local police investigated and said the man refused to return to the site. And a retired engineer and ex-military officer found big 5-toed tracks 18 inches long by 8 inches wide on the summit of Mount Cahuilla. The man said that while camping at night at the site he heard a sound similar to a diesel engine coming from within the mountain, or so it seemed.

QUESTION: So Bigfoot sightings go back a long way in Anza, California?

GUTTILLA: That’s true. Reports of hairy giants in the southern counties go back more than 200 years. Spanish priests in the 1700s recorded that a stretch of river front along the Santa Ana River near Riverside was called Camp of the Devil. The devil reeked of sulfur and brimstone, let out piercing screams and wandered the bottom lands at night. In the early 1800s priests in charge of the mission at Warner Springs allegedly buried a hair-covered man-like beast whose body was found sprawled on a hilltop by local Indians. Convinced it was the Devil’s work, the good friars held rites at the site and interred the corpse where it fell. This story was told to me years ago by a former resident who’d heard about it from Indians living in the vicinity. And of course the Yorba family, Spanish grantees whose lands included present-day Yorba Linda, who were said to have seen creatures described as two-legged, hairy and twice the span of a man come down from the slopes of Sierra Peak to the river, investigate wells and panic livestock. There are more but these are some of the oldest accounts.

QUESTION: Do you have any words of advice for people in Anza?

GUTTILLA: Well, I suppose the best way to sum it up is that where you have one, you just might have the other. Since UFOs have had Anza residents looking up for a long time, it wouldn’t hurt to look down occasionally, too. After all, footprints are where you find them.

May 4, 1997 - Footnote:
This interview is placed here in grateful appreciation to Peter Guttilla for the generous time spent with me in an effort to promote equal time to various Bigfoot views and provoke thought…Permission to post this interview was granted by Peter Guttilla. The references to “Bobbie” are in reference to the late Barbara Ann “Bobbie” Slate and should NOT be confused with the website owner Bobbie Short….thank you Peter.