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Texas Bigfoot presentation at College of the Mainland

200 Parker Court
League City, Texas 77573
Phone: 281.332.1800
Lanis Neugent, Learning Center Coordinator, lneugent@...
Alice Whistler, Program Assistant, awhistler@...

Please contact the college for registration to this event

http://www.com.edu/lc/

Friday night, October 28, 2005
6:30 - 8:30 PM (more than likely will run until 9:30 pm)

Daryl Colyer, Alton Higgins, Gino Napoli & Craig Woolheater will give a 3 hour
presentation on Bigfoot in Texas & Oklahoma. We will be giving a basic overall
primer to Bigfoot in Texas in the first hour. In the second hour, Alton Higgins
will
give a presentation on Bigfoot sightings and evidence found in Oklahoma. In the
third hour, we will be discussing in depth several local reports from the area.
We
also hope to have several eyewitnesses on hand to recount their sightings. We
will have footprint casts, as well as other evidence on display.

Related article from the Galveston County Daily News:
http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=5a9aa9cd0bcd0f30
Search for Bigfoot comes to COM
By Greg Barr
The Galveston County Daily News

Published October 23, 2005

LEAGUE CITY ? Credit union bankers such as Daryl Colyer deal with hard, cold
facts. When
Colyer closes the books on his predictable world of mortgages and loans,
however, he opens
the door to a very different realm. He puts away his calculators and loan
applications and
dons camouflage gear and night-vision goggles and, in the dead of night, tromps
through
the middle of the woods hoping to stumble upon a 7-foot-tall hairy beast.

Colyer is a Bigfoot hunter, a description that invokes disparate reactions.

To some folks, he is completely off his rocker. But others, including his wife,
regard him
as a resourceful amateur scientist whose intimate knowledge of the nocturnal
primate, also
known as Sasquatch, legitimizes the creature?s existence.

Still pumped up from the annual Bigfoot conference held less than two weeks ago
in
Jefferson, Colyer and Craig Woolheater, director of the Texas Bigfoot Research
Center in
Dallas, will provide a history of Bigfoot on Friday during a College of the
Mainland
lecture.

Despite their unwavering dedication to their goal of providing irrefutable
evidence that
the creatures are real, they are somewhat guarded during interviews. It?s tough
being a
Bigfoot aficionado when your theories are often ridiculed.

?I have an advantage over the skeptic in that I?ve seen this animal,? said
Colyer, who
lives in Lorena, just south of Waco. ?The skeptic is the one who is just taking
a wild
guess. He?s not out there in the woods. He hasn?t seen biped tracks in the mud
or heard
their vocalizations. The skeptics propel and drive me to prove these animals do
exist.?

Woolheater, who owns a family plumbing business in Dallas, said interest in the
creature
has never been higher, evidenced by the nearly 400 people and national media
attention
focused on the Bigfoot conference.

The research center?s Web site, www.texasbigfoot.com, has had more than 2
million hits in
the past 19 months, and Bigfoot sightings are reported regularly to the center?s
hotline
from in and around the fringes of the state?s 12 million acres of forest.

?There is a long history of Bigfoot sightings in Texas, and thousands of people
have
reported seeing these creatures around the country,? said Woolheater. ?Now some
could be
lying, and some could have had a prank played on them, and some could be
misidentifying
them. And some really could have seen what they saw.?

Theories about Bigfoot?s origin have been around as long as the reported
sightings.
Woolheater laughingly dismisses those who believe Bigfoot is an extraterrestrial
being or
some kind of ghostlike spirit or monster. Some believe it is a missing link, a
descendent
of prehistoric apes that once roamed the landmass that developed into North
America.

The most well-known and controversial evidence in the world of Bigfoot is the
Patterson-Gimlin 16-mm color film shot Oct. 20, 1967, in northern California
that clearly
depicts an apelike animal striding away from the camera. Bigfoot enthusiasts say
the film
is dramatic proof of the creatures? existence, while some members of the
scientific
community suggest it is merely a man in a monkey suit.

The most famous Texas case, Woolheater said, surrounds the ?Lake Worth Monster?
sightings
in 1969 near Fort Worth, when repeated up-close encounters with a Bigfoot buzzed
around
the area. As for the creature?s proximity to Galveston County, well, the
center?s Web Site
includes one only 40 miles north of Houston (Cleveland, 1995).

Colyer and Woolheater travel around the state gathering eyewitness reports.
Before sitting
down, however, they conduct a phone interview to weed out crank calls, which
amount to
about eight of every 10 contacts.

If a particular region is subject to numerous sightings, Colyer and his buddies
will don
their night vision goggles and haul infrared cameras, CD players and speakers
into the
woods in the middle of the night to play primate vocalizations at full blast in
hopes of
luring Bigfoot from its lair.

?A lot of these legitimate reports come from ministers and law enforcement
officers or
members of the military, people who I believe would have no motivation to create
a false
story,? Colyer said.

Woolheater said that many of the sightings reported today are from people who
claim to
have had encounters decades earlier.

?It?s traumatic when people see these things, and it?s cathartic for them to
finally be
able to tell their story to someone who won?t just call them names,? he said.

Woolheater and his wife were traveling through Louisiana in 1994 when the
headlights
revealed a 7-foot hairy creature standing upright at the edge of the woods along
the
highway.

?I wanted to get out of the car to take a look, but my wife refused to stop,? he
recalled.
?Seeing is believing, and it changes your whole outlook on reality.?

As for Colyer, his two encounters were more nerve-rattling, the kind of stories
suitable
for a campfire at Halloween. The most recent was in September when Colyer?s team
of 10
sleuths combed a section of Big Thicket National Preserve in southeast Texas in
response
to recent sightings.

Colyer said the team was playing gibbon vocalizations through loudspeakers after
dark when
something he claims was a Bigfoot answered back 150 yards from camp. Several
hours later,
at 3 a.m., Colyer and a team member awoke to what he describes as blood-curdling
growling
noises from the woods near their tent being answered by one of their tracking
dogs. When
the team members started yelling, the growling stopped.

With his wife a few yards behind him, Colyer said, he got the shock of his life
in Liberty
County a year earlier on a trail at dusk when he saw a ?reddish-brown hairy
creature?
accompanied by a pungent musky odor. The animal quickly bounded away, though
that memory
is constantly on his mind.

?I know they are there,? he said. ?The discovery of the century is just beyond
our
fingertips.?

+++

What: ?Bigfoot, Sasquatch at COM? evening lecture.

When: 6:30 p.m. Friday.

Where: College of the Mainland Learning Center, 200 Parker Court, League City
(off FM
518).

Details: Seating is limited and preregistration is recommended.

Cost: $18 (in-district attendees: residents of Texas City, Dickinson, La Marque,
San Leon,
Bacliff, Hitchcock, Santa Fe, Algoa, Arcadia and Alta Loma; $23 (non-district
attendees).

Information: Call (281) 332-1800.

+++

Bigfoot Sightings

There have been more than 2,550 reported Bigfoot sightings in North America in
the past
century. British Columbia had the most with 362.

These are the states with the most reported sightings:

? California 343
? Washington 286
? Oregon 176
? Florida 104
? Ohio 95
? Montana 74
? Texas 63*
? Colorado 60
? Pennsylvania 58
? New York 53

? Source: The Associated Press/?Meet the Sasquatch? by Christopher Murphy,
citing data
from Canadian researcher John W. Green and the Bigfoot Field Researchers
Organization.

*Editor?s note: The Texas Bigfoot Research Center?s Web site,
www.texasbigfoot.com,
documents 252 sightings in Texas.