Bigfoot
Bigfoot
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Ringing phone thwarted me, says Bigfoot hunter
R. Sittamparam
March 25 2006
KOTA TINGGI: A recent close encounter with the Johor Bigfoot near Gunung Panti has turned a construction worker into a full-time Bigfoot hunter.
Kong Nam Choy, 38, who loves jungle trekking and lives alone in Kampung Lukut, found the first clear Bigfoot footprints on a tar road in Kampung Temening here in January.
He also led a team of local and foreign filming crews which found fresh Bigfoot footprints in the secondary forest near the same area on Feb 20.
The team succeeded in making the first plaster casts of the footprints of the Johor Bigfoot.
Kong guided a team of State Government officials including State Tourism and Environment committee chairman, Freddie Long to check for evidence of Bigfoot in Panti recently.
Recounting his Bigfoot encounter, Kong claimed he saw the creature going down a hill in Kampung Lukut.
Kong who often goes into the jungles of Kota Tinggi to enjoy the cool and peaceful environment, said he was alerted by a rustling sound at the hill slope in front of him.
"Fearing that it was an elephant I quickly hid behind a rock.
"It was then that I saw the Bigfoot which was more than three metres tall emerging from the jungle. It walked with a slight crouch like an old man.
"I was shaking all over with fear thinking that the creature might come towards me. However, to my relief, it stopped about 30m away and sat down on a log."
Kong said the creature, which was covered with black hair, raised one of its huge arms, the size of a man's thigh, and began rubbing its face.
He said he could see clearly its bushy eyebrows and long incisors jutting out slightly at the corner of its mouth.
"Although I was scared, I managed to take out my camera and emerged from behind the rock.
"But before I could take a picture, my handphone rang. I panicked, fearing that the creature would come after me. But it just got up, glanced at me and hurried back into the jungle."
Earlier this month, two plantation workers at Ulu Sungai Johor claimed to have seen Bigfoot as they were going to the river for a bath.
Those with information on the Bigfoot are requested to call the State's Bigfoot Research Committee at 07-2222221.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Saturday/National/20060325074825/Article/index_html
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Rope in foreign experts to track Bigfoot
KOTA TINGGI , Feb 24:
Foreign experts should be invited to help in the search for the Johor Bigfoot.
Foreign Affairs Minister and Kota Tinggi MP Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said this was necessary as the search had attracted international attention.
Speaking after opening an award ceremony for teachers here, he said reported sightings of the hairy creature had benefited the district, especially in attracting foreign visitors.
Syed Hamid added he was inclined to believe in the existence of the Bigfoot, as there had been many sightings of the creature.
Meanwhile, zoologist Amlir Ayat said it would also help if a common name was used for the Bigfoot.
He felt it would be a good idea to adopt the name "Orang Dalam" used by the Orang Asli, like the name Sasquatch for the American Bigfoot, which originated from the Red Indians. Amlir said there was also a need to clear the confusion among villagers of mawas or orang utan and the Johor Bigfoot.
According to the book Natural History of Primates, mawas is used in the Southeast Asian region to refer to the orang utan (Pongo pygmaeus) which can grow to a height of 1.8m.
Villagers in Kampung Mawai Lama in Kota Tinggi said they were familiar with mawas and were sure it was not the same as Bigfoot.
"The mawas' feet are not as big as the footprints that have been discovered so far. I have seen the giant footprints myself and am certain it was not made by mawas," said fisherman Islah Midi, 62.
His nephew, Ariffin Ali, 38, said he had seen a footprint of the Bigfoot measuring more than 60cm in the jungles of Endau while searching for timber a few years ago.
He said he was positive the footprint was not that of a mawas.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Saturday/National/20060225080128/Article/index_html
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Monday, Jan 02, 2006
(Black Press) - Gerry Matthews wants the world to know that both "sensible and skeptical" people can be involved in the hunt for the elusive sasquatch.
The Chilliwack man says he's been fascinated by the topic since he was a kid but it took a pivotal discussion with Harrison sasquatch writer-researcher John Green a couple of years ago to set him firmly on his new path.
"It was an inspiration meeting John Green," says Matthews, who calls himself a "newcomer" among bigfoot enthusiasts. He's part of a trio heading up the West Coast contingent of serious seekers, like Mission-based investigator Thomas Steenburg and Ken Kristian.
Matthews admits to still being somewhat skeptical over what is considered "evidence" by some cryptozoologists and researchers, but he felt a strong need to bring together the key people and report sightings from this part of the continent.
"I think there's some evidence that can't be denied," he says.
"It can't be explained but it can't be denied either. Of all the thousands of reports made, even it one is true, that's really something. They can't all be hoaxes."
As the founder of West Coast Sasquatch, he's been busy almost full-time, uploading searcher interviews, frequently asked questions, artwork and moderating the lively discussion forum on his site at www.westcoast-sasquatch.com.
"I built the site to be a gateway of information," he says.
"I'm just speaking up for this part of the country. It's so rich in the whole bigfoot heritage."
It all started out as a hobby but it's certainly morphed into more in recent months.
"I could devote almost 12 hours a day to it if I wanted to," he offers. "My wife doesn't know what to think about it, but she see it as harmless and it keeps me out of trouble."
The Internet has scores of sites devoted to the hunt of the famed woodland ape but the retired telecommunications worker says there was nothing significant out there in the way of websites emanating from B.C. That's why he started his own site in March.
"The general public has this impression that we're a bunch of nuts running around in the woods scaring wildlife, and some of them surely are," he says. "But I want to show that there are sensible and skeptical people involved in the search.
"These are people who are immensely curious and believe there's enough evidence out there to warrant a serious looking into."
Plus the Upper Fraser Valley is considered prime sasquatch territory, with famous sightings at Harrison Lake, Chilliwack Lake, Chehalis, Ruby Creek and more. A perusal of the Agassiz phone book provides a gaggle of businesses that have adopted the theme such as Sasquatch Inn, Sasquatch Springs RV Resort, Sasquatch Tours, Bigfoot Campgrounds, Big Food Caf? and Bigfoot Plumbing and Heating.
"A great many sightings have come from this area over the decades especially on the other side of the river. That's why we'll be concentrating our search in the Harrison Lake area," he said.
The plan is to attack the lake from the water and Matthews hopes to launch a boat next spring.
"What we're hoping to achieve is getting some video on the subject," he says. "Because randomly running around in the woods looking for a creature is ludicrous. It has to be done in a scientific manner."
The goal is to get some video or a sighting that could ultimately establish if the animals are transients or resident to the area. The last reported sighting of a bigfoot creature in Chilliwack was in 1999 in the Cultus Lake/Vedder Mountain area, he said. And Harrison Lake was reported as a site where three of the hairy beasts were seen last year this time, Matthews adds.
"There are lots of questions and very few answers," he says. "I've studied what's out there. There's a lot of bull. That's why I built the website, to put up the material that has convinced me and to add my version, which is accurate if anyone wants to look into it."
http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=bc_home&articleID=2133129
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Sasquatch watch
Whether he's legend or a legit beast, Big Foot's deep woods mystery is alive and
well in East Texas
DAVID CASSTEVENS
Mon, Oct. 31, 2005
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
JEFFERSON -- It's dark deep in the Piney Woods.
In the stillness, on a moonless night, the silence is suddenly shattered by the
dry snap of twigs under the weight of footfalls.
Ponderous steps.
Two feet. Big ones.
A heartbeat -- your own -- is thudding now, pounding like a tribal drum calling
Kong to the gates.
To most of us, it's folklore, tall tales best told beneath the stars, amid the
flickering glow and swirling firefly embers of a crackling campfire.
Last year, one supermarket tabloid proclaimed "Bigfoot Baby Found."
What distinguished the account from other Bigfoot hoaxes was the claim that the
infant creature had been left, of all places, outside Michael Jackson's
Neverland Ranch.
But some reasonable people remain believers. Even though tabloid fiction makes
them vulnerable to teasing and ridicule, they insist something is Out There.
What they have seen and reported, they say, isn't some Halloween prankster
wearing a gorilla suit but a giant unclassified primate, curious and watchful,
that walks upright and roams the woodlands and creek bottoms, mostly at night.
Viewed for only a second or two, and rarely photographed, Bigfoot is as
reclusive as Greta Garbo.
Sasquatch, or Skunk Ape, is mostly associated with the Pacific Northwest.
However, the creature has been spotted in every state except Hawaii.
Most sightings in Texas occur in the backwoods of East Texas, where folks like
the Carlsons live, alone, happily secluded behind "Private Property" and "Keep
Out" signs.
Dressed in denim overalls, J.C. Carlson is a mountainous man, almost 7 feet
tall, with a mustache and bushy white beard.
His work boots aren't as large as Bigfoot's print, but almost.
J.C., like others, has heard the raspy nocturnal howls. Carlson and his wife are
certain that foxes or bobcats didn't steal the 28 chickens from their homestead
on Big Cypress Bayou over three nights this summer. They found no carcasses. No
trace of blood.
Taking a break from chopping timber, J.C. lit a smoke and leaned against the bed
of his red pickup.
"There's somethin' out here besides us," he declared.
Katherine Carlson returned home late one night this spring, headlights splashing
across the rutted one-lane dirt road that meanders through thick pine-scented
woods. She stopped to open the crossing gate. Usually, her dogs jump out and
play. Not this night. Sassy and Wally remained inside the cab.
In the darkness, Carlson encountered an overpowering foul odor.
"It's wasn't a skunk." She knows the smells of the woods.
"Rancid," J.C. said of the stench. "It's like gettin' behind a gut wagon, in the
summer."
"Worse," his wife said.
Katherine didn't glimpse a Bigfoot, but in the eerie moonlight she sensed a
lurking "presence" that left her speechless.
She figures, why not tell her story? "People already think I'm crazy," she says.
The couple live near the dark waters and moss-draped cypresses of Caddo Lake,
where the "B" movie The Creature From Black Lake (1976) was filmed. This summer,
an alligator living in a slough near the Carlsons' place disappeared. J.C.
observed that his cows and goats stopped grazing in the woods at night. They
remained huddled near the house, beneath the glow of a mercury vapor light.
"Critters will tell you when somethin' isn't right," J.C. said.
His wife did the only thing she knew to do.
She telephoned Charlie DeVore.
Sightings and skeptics
The Texas Bigfoot Research Center implies a campus, or structure.
There isn't one, at least not yet.
TBRC is a network of about 40 people from all walks of life who are dedicated to
finding Sasquatch living in the Lone Star State. The group was founded six years
ago by Craig Woolheater, the 45-year-old office manager of his family's plumbing
company in Dallas. He claims he saw a grayish-haired Bigfoot walking along a
deserted highway in Louisiana one night in 1994.
The group has a Web site ( www.texasbigfoot.com) and telephone number ( (877)
529-5550) that greets callers with a recording:
"If you have a sighting to report, please leave a message with your name, number
and the best time to return your call."
About 150 Bigfoot sightings are reported each year.
"That doesn't count the jokes, like people who say, 'I got raped by Bigfoot,' or
those who are way out there, and think it's an extraterrestrial," Woolheater
said.
"There are so many credible people who say they have seen the thing. They have
absolutely nothing to gain by making up a story. If even one person is telling
the truth, there's something out there."
Several times a year, TBRC investigators venture into the forests and conduct
field studies, hoping to validate recent sightings. Dressed in commando
camouflage, they carry night-vision cameras, listening devices and thermal
imaging units. Deer hunters use deer fragrance, and bottled deer urine and deer
calls (one is the K'Mere Deer, Model KM 100) to lure the animals. Bigfoot
researchers put out pheromone chips designed to entice the great ape.
Late at night, they activate a call blaster, which emits loud recordings of
Bigfoot "vocalizations."
Charlie DeVore joined the group after a mysterious incident five years ago when,
in Charlie's words, he "had the stink put on me."
Armed with a coon-hunting light, the 65-year-old retiree was walking through the
woods near his home late one night, accompanied by five dogs. He felt safe --
unthreatened -- until the smell engulfed him.
DeVore looked down. His four-legged companions had fled.
"These are dogs that'll attack anything," Charlie said.
Two years later, he attended a meeting of Bigfoot enthusiasts in Jefferson and
met several people who described similar incidents.
DeVore now feels certain the smell was that of some yet undocumented species of
bipedal hominoid afflicted with a body odor problem no brand of drugstore
roll-on or spray deodorant can eliminate.
After Katherine Coleman telephoned DeVore, her neighbor, Charlie and three
fellow researchers camped for two nights near the site of the "smelling." They
turned on the call blaster. Bigfoot didn't appear, but they heard its cry, and
detected movement in the woods.
"You can hear it walk," DeVore said. Charlie tried to re-create the experience,
with sound effects.
"Crunch ... (pause) ... Crunch ... It's not a deer. It's not a dog. Or a hog.
It's a two-footed somethin'."
Bigfootologists estimate that at least 2,000 Bigfoot live in the United States.
That's six times the population of Bigfoot, Texas, named after William A.
"Bigfoot" Wallace, the 19th-century frontiersman and legendary Texas character.
Bigfoot, it was said, never told a story he couldn't later improve upon.
The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department requires more than anecdotal evidence
before the state agency will take Sasquatch seriously.
"To conclusively prove ... Bigfoot in Texas, we would need an image that
included details to show us that it was not a doctored or edited image in any
way, or we would want a body itself," said Duane Schlitter, who oversees the
TPWD's Nongame and Rare and Endangered Species program.
"The latter would be the extreme, but many doubters will be hard to convince. As
a romantic scientist, I would like to be around when and if one is ever found
anywhere."
No Bigfoot remains -- bones or bodies -- have been discovered.
Hunters have never shot and killed one.
Bigfoot, fortunately, hasn't wandered onto a road and been struck by a car, like
the Sasquatch character Harry in the movie Harry and the Hendersons.
Another group, North Texas Skeptics, is, well, skeptical.
"Bigfoot is a great story, and a wonderful bit of folklore. Nothing more," said
John Blanton, a Skeptics member. "It's a biological absurdity. Real creatures,
unlike the fictional Bigfoot, do not exist alone. They have parents. Their
parents have parents and so on. At the very minimum, there has to be a tribe ...
Where is the Bigfoot tribe?"
How could supposedly thousands of these critters have eluded captivity and
remained hidden from human observation for a century or more?
Doubters say the cultural phenomenon is kept alive by misidentification of known
animals, wishful thinking and fabrication of evidence.
DeVore is undaunted, committed. He patrols Big Cypress Bayou alone, paddling his
canoe through the shallow, murky waterways. One day, he hopes to get lucky and
snap a clear photo of the enigmatic creature.
"I'm not trying to prove anything to the world," he said. "I'm proving it to
myself."
Charlie's curiosity far outweighs any fears.
"If it wanted to hurt me," he said, "I'd been dead a long time ago."
Waiting for proof
The Texas Bigfoot Conference is not like a Star Trek convention. Groupies don't
show up dressed in costume.
About 500 serious-minded people attended the fifth annual event this month, a
two-day seminar that featured lectures by a who's-who of the Bigfoot world.
Speakers included field researchers, cryptozoologists (the study of "hidden"
animals), a forest archaeologist, a latent fingerprint examiner and an associate
professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, Jeff Meldrum,
who delivered an hourlong evaluation of alleged Sasquatch footprints and their
inferred functional morphology.
Chris Murphy, author of Meet the Sasquatch, analyzed the most famous, and
controversial Bigfoot evidence. In 1967, the late Roger Patterson shot a 16mm
film that captured images of a 7 1/2-foot-tall hairy ape/person striding along a
riverbank in Bluff Creek, Calif., near the Oregon border.
It is the Zapruder film for Bigfoot enthusiasts.
Murphy showed the beast in freeze-frames. Even though the authenticity of the
film is hotly contested, he concluded that the muscle definition clearly proves
this Wooley Booger was the real thing.
"I'm 100 percent convinced," Charlie DeVore said.
So were others who browsed the exhibit tables.
Bigfoot plaster footprint castings. Bigfoot CDs. Bigfoot books, with titles like
Out of the Shadows and In Search of Giants. Bigfoot T-shirts.
Meanwhile, deep in the woods, the Carlsons wonder and wait.
"One night we'll find somethin' standing in the road lookin' at us," J.C.
Carlson predicted.
His wife said she hopes so.
"I'll say something next time."
Such as ...
"I'll ask who he is, and if I can help him," she said. "I know what it's like to
be different in this world."
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/13035765.htm
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New Era (Windhoek)
January 25, 2006
Kuvee Kangueehi
The Ministry of Enviroment and Tourism has called off the search for a mysterious animal that has been killing livestock in the Okakarara area. The animal last Tuesday killed three sheep before it killed a calf the next day. The beast, which is causing terror in the area, only ate the left eye of the calf, the heart, kidneys and sucked blood.
Sackey Tjitemba, a game warden at Okakarara said the search team on Sunday conducted the last search and will wait for new developments before resuming the hunt.
Tjitemba told New Era yesterday that although he did not see the animal, he is puzzled by the way the beast behaves.
"This is definitely not a natural animal because its behaviour and tracks are strange."
He noted that the tracks look like the heel of a foot and it is difficult to trace it because it covers over five meters with a single jump. The officer said they last saw the strange tracks last Thursday and the recent rains have been making the search difficult. He warned residents not to hunt the animal, as it appears deadly, given the way it killed the calf. He also advised residents not to move at night and to be on the lookout.
Tjitemba said his office was advised by a resident of Opuwo, Paulus Mahua who claimed they had a similar encounter with the strange animal in Angola some four years ago. Mahua told New Era that he saw the yellow-greyish creature in Angola. The resident from the Kunene said the animal is the size of a small foal.
"You will think it is a hyena but on closer inspection, you will see that it has very strong teeth like a lion." He added that the animal prefers to eat soft organs such as the heart, lungs, kidneys and eyes.
"The animal can attack human beings and on human beings it prefers nostrils, male and female genitals and buttocks." Mahua warned that the animal could not be killed by anybody. "This animal is very dangerous and quick and you will be lucky if you see it and it does not kill you."
He said the only way to get rid of the animal is to call in traditional doctors who would send it to another area.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200601250227.html