Bigfoot Sightings
Date: 20-Mar-05
For those interested in looking for sasquatch sign in New Mexico, a winter hotspot seems to be around San Antonio peak. Two sets of fresh and pristine tracks were documented there by law enforcement in 1993. One set was 19 inches long, and the other set was 21 inches long, found in mud and snow and followed for quite some distance. The two that left the tracks were evidently traveling together. The officer that documented the tracks is now the sheriff of Conejos County Colorado. The set of tracks that I found was also in 1993, but in summer, and was found up in the South San Juan Wilderness (17 inches long). A couple more sets of these outsize tracks have been found in the Platoro area since the early 80’s. The first report of a sasquatch by a white man in the South San Juans was a sighting by a bear hunter in the 1870’s. He did not know about sasquatch and evidenty thought the sasquatch was some form of giant upright walking species of bear that made screaming noises, as detailed in his memoirs. History of sasquatch in northern NM go back to at least the 1500’s, when the Jemez moved into that area. The Jemez have lots of oral history of the creature there, and named a Pueblo in circa 1520 “Place Where the Giant Man Stepped”. The Pueblo is located there on Jemez land south of the Colorado border. The Jemez traditionally thought the sasquatch were some form of giant hair covered men who lived without tools or clothing in the high elevation ponderosa forests who sometimes killed people and ate them. If the Jemez’s giants really did kill and eat people back then, they have evidenty given up their man eating ways fortunately. When I, with local officials, investigated a set of tracks found on the Eagle River in central Colorado a few years ago, we were pretty much in agreement that the creature who made the tracks put about the same weight per square inch of foot bottom surface as a bare footed human. The tracks were 19 inches long and the weight distribution indicated an animal weighing about 900 pounds. That is as heavy as a well fed adult coastal grizzly bear, so it would probably have no problem killing a person if it wanted to. They are evidently usually shy and retreating, rather than aggressive toward humans.
Modern sightings and track finds in the border area of Colorado and New Mexico seem to indicate an association with elk in seasonal migration by elevation and location. So the best chance of you finding tracks or seeing one yourself might be to search in areas where elk density is greatest at any time of year. Tracks in snow would be much easier to find than tracks in the hard rocky ground. I spent over 300 days in the area of the SSJWilderness and only found one set of tracks by accident across a dirt slide, so finding tracks in snowless terrain is probably nearly impossible. Members of the Round River Conservation Group found one sasquatch track in an elk wallow in the south part of the SSJWilderness in 1980 while systematically searching for grizzly bear tracks. They found no grizzly spoor. I think it is very interesting that they organized the group to look for grizzly sign and find something completely unexpected instead. We found fresh grizzly diggings with tracks in the upturned soil while hunting elk near the Divide about straight west of Platoro Reservoir in 1975, but have seen no definite sign of grizzly bears since then. I fear grizzly bears are extinct in that area, but one never knows I guess.
I really have a very hard time believing sasquatch are real, but I do know that their tracks are very very real. I see no reason to think that someone faked the tracks where I found them, where the RRCG found them, or where any of the other outfitters or law enforcement have found them in southern CO and northern NM. Something is making those tracks and has evidently been making tracks there since at least the early 1500’s. We just need to have a truck hit one of the track makers on some highway down there to have an answer to what exactly the track maker is.
If it’s foot shape is any indication of the creatures shape, it is too human-like to shoot I would think. I would have a hard time shooting some creature that looked like a man, no matter how hairy it was, even if it is no smarter than a chimpanzee. Chimps are pretty smart in many ways.
Is sasquatch real? I don’t know. We will probably have to wait until we have a body of one of them to study at liesure. The tracks found and documented by many different people are intriguing however. I always just thought that bigfoot tracks were just fakes made by hoaxers with nothing better to do, until I found a set myself. Actually I never gave the subject any thought, as it was not really worth even thinking about. I am pretty sure now that I had the wrong attitude about sasquatch, but I can’t blame the complete skeptic for being skeptical. As probably no one was more skeptical than me. After I found the tracks and heard some awful loud screaming sounds of unknown animal origin from that area of the SSJWilderness, I began digging into the subject in that area and was surprised as anyone to find so much history of the creature there that went back to the 1500’s. I had never heard of sasquatch being in the Rocky Mountains, thinking it was only a ridiculous anomoly of the Pacific Northwest. Evidently the Jemez were right and that area really is a “Place were giant men step”. Hope you all get to find your own set of those giant tracks some day. It changed the way I viewed the area for sure. If they really exist, I hope we find out what they are before they go extinct.
Since three different size sets of tracks, 17″, 19″, and 21″ were found in 1993, maybe that means that at least three sasquatch were in that general area in that year, so maybe there is hope that they are still of breeding population numbers. The tracks found by the Round River group were 15 inches long in 1980. Another set found by an outfitter west of Platoro on the upper Rito Gato in the early 80’s was also 15 inches long. Smaller tracks, if they exist, might be mistaken for human or bear tracks, so evidently have not been reported that I know of.
Date: 20-Mar-05
Most people in the general public do not know that at the location of the Patterson film of a possible bigfoot that people went back to the same location later and took photos for scale. The young man in this photo is over 6 foot tall, and the frame from the Patterson Film are overlayed with the photo of the young man, scaled exactly to each other by sizing the dead trees in the background of both the film and the photo. This gives us exact size of the creature in the Patterson film. It is built huge and left only 15 inch long tracks. Wonder what one that leaves 20 inch long tracks looks like?
Date: 20-Mar-05
Here is zoomed in a little for better view of comparison of size of the Patterson Film subject
Date: 20-Mar-05
Here is Patty, the young man, and Shaq all scaled to height and size. Notice how huge the Patterson film subject is in comparison to Shaq, even though they are about the same height. Her thighs are about the same diameter as Shaq’s waist diamenter and her arms are about the same diameter as Shaq’s thighs. Notice arm length differences.
One thing that is interesting is that in the film, the creatures arms hang straight down as it walks, which means that the rotation of the arm at the shoulder joint is very much wider than any known human that ever lived. You might be able to put a 7 foot tall person in a gorilla suit of similar size, and build it up to look massive with padding, but you can’t change the width of the chest without having the guys arms angle outward awkwardly.
Whatever it was that Patterson filmed, these photo comparisons show the exact size of it for you to decide. No one has been able to show that the film was a hoax, quite to the contrary. So far 7 people, 6 men and one woman have said that they were the person in a gorilla suit that Patterson filmed that day, and each time the media has accepted their tall tales. None of them were even close to 7 foot tall, and none of them were anywhere nearly as wide through the chest as the real film subject.
Date: 29-Mar-05
7 people have admitted to being the person in the gorilla suit that Patterson filmed in California, which proves that the film is fake, as told to us by newspapers and television news reports. However, none of them were around 7 foot tall, nor did they have such extremely unhumanly wide shoulder rotation joints. That the film is proven to be fake is only in the minds of those who want it to be fake. True scientific study of the film differs, and says that the filmed creatures skeletal size is far outside known human possibility.
True—Very many thousands of backpackers, hikers, hunters who spend alot of time in roadless backcountry have never seen anything like bigfoot, including myself. What about the many thousands of them who have reported seeing something EXACTLY like bigfoot? Some 6000 sighting reports are now on record. That includes at least 6 professional hunting guides/outfitters in Colorado who have reported seeing sasquatch or finding clearly sasquatch tracks in that state while hunting. What about them? Just because I have never seen a sasquatch does not mean it does not exist. I have never seen a cougar in Colorado. Does that mean cougars do not exist in Colorado?
Why has no one shot a sasquatch and actually brought in back to civilization? Would you shoot a man shaped form while hunting in New Mexico for elk? I hope not, it might be me. Only murderers shoot at other people, no matter how hairy or how big, not hunters.
Could you hide in a 1 square mile block of old growth forest in Colorado and avoid being seen by someone looking for you if you wanted to hide from them? I could. We send hundreds of people out looking for lost children who want to be found and they are usually rarely found. Why? Is it because the lost child never existed in the first place? Surely if thousands of people including trained search and rescue people were out looking for the lost child in a relatively small area of forest that the child would have been found if they ever really existed. If the sasquatch naysayers are so good at finding anything and everything that walks in the woods, why don’t they contribute their extrordinary woodsman skills and find those lost children for us? There are also a couple hundred airplanes that have gone down in western North American forests that have never been found in spite of organized efforts to find them. Where were these exceptional woodsmen when they were needed to find those airplanes? After all, it is impossible to hide a big-O bright metal airplane in a forest from them. What about hiding something smaller than an airplane that moves around and doesn’t want to be found? Like sasquatch.
Science said very matter of factly and with no doubt whatsoever that no hominid or primate species migrated south of the Wallace Line in the Indonesian chain that sprawls from Asia to Australia prior to invention of the boat by humans. Their proof was that no fossils of such primates had been found south of the Wallace line. When the diminutive homo erectus type homo florensis fossils were recently found there south of the Wallace Line they said it was impossible that it was a decendant of homo erectus and that the first fossil skull found was only a skull of a microcephalous suffering homo sapien who came later. After finding more of the skulls and skeletons of these 3 foot tall micro sized homo erectus type hominids there, those naysayers are eating crow once more. Interestingly, those 3 foot tall, 12,000 year old fossil hominids with beetle brow, chimpanzee size brains and receding forehead found in Indonesia recently exactly fit modern descriptions by natives living there of some creature that still lives there. Now scientists believe that these creatures had to have lived in those island chains for well over 200,000 years, yet why didn’t we have any fossils of them until now? Very many millions of those hominids had to have lived on those islands over the last 200,000 years to have survived and passed on their genes, so where are all their fossil bones. Saying that sasquatch fossils have not been found in North America proves their nonexistance is ludicrous by comparison. North America is huge by size comparison to those islands as a place to hide rare fossils. If scientists are so good at finding fossils, why can’t they find the ancestors of homo florensis who lived by the millions in such a small area for over 200,000 years?
I just love the argument that if sasquatch was real, some hikers, backpackers and hunters would have seen it. I guess the many thousands of hikers, backpackers and hunters who have reported seeing sasquatch don’t count. Shouldn’t your argument be that, since you have not seen sasquatch or its tracks that it does not exist?
Date: 29-Mar-05
If you can find a copy of the Nov-Dec 2000 issue of Bugle Magazine, you will find a couple of articles by fellow hunters who also happen to be fairly well known outdoor writers who have very seriously seen sasquatch or tracks of it in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. What about them? You read their articles to learn how to hunt elk, you pay them to take you elk hunting, and you trust their judgment to help you succeed at elk hunting, then when they tell you they saw a sasquatch or found it’s tracks you call them liars, insane or poor in animal identification. That is very kind of you indeed.
Even though I have never seen a cougar in Colorado, I have seen a cougar in western Kansas while hunting antelope, where they are not supposed to exist. Interestingly, I have killed very many Pope and Young qualifying deer of both species in Kansas over the last 25 years. I recently helped a neophyte bowhunter select and set up his bowhunting equipment, taught him how to shoot, taught him how to tune his equipment, took him out hunting several times and rattled in two different P&Y qualifying whitetail bucks to within easy bow range for him which he promptly missed in both cases. When I told him I saw a cougar at 40 yards in ankle deep grass of a CRP field in broad daylight in western Kansas he thinks I am full of ****. Gee, he is so happy to have me give so many hours of archery and bowhunting training and give up my own bowhunting time to take his sorry inexperienced ass out hunting to teach him how to hunt deer but when I tell him what else lives out there in the wild he flat thinks I’m either lieing or don’t know how to identify cat species. Geez.
I know two professional Colorado bowhunting guides with more big bull elk under their bowhunting belts than most bowhunters will see in a lifetime who have seen sasquatch very clearly and distinctly in plain sight in Colorado. One of them had an 8+ foot tall sasquatch come to within 30 yards of his hidden location and step fully into an open meadow while bugling elk. The other sat and watched for over 10 minutes a huge sasquatch sunning itself in short grass beside a beaver pond from 100 yards through $2000 binoculars from uphill of the sasquatch’s location, with no doubt about what he saw. Yet I am sure when they each tell their sorry ass inexperienced bowhunting clients about the sightings that the clents think they are both nut cases poor in animal identification.
When the famous Bristish Columbian grizzly bear hunting guide Clayton Mack told his accounts of his two sightings of B.C. sasquatch to his city slicker clients, I am sure he was treated the same way too. After all, if some dude from New York City paying to be guided to a grizzly bear in B.C. has not seen a sasquatch, it can not exist there or anywhere. When you have walked as many backcountry miles in B.C. as Clayton Mack and not seen a sasquatch, then come back and give a more learned opinion.
If grizzly bears did not live in southern Colorado for 25 years between 1950 and 1975 because no one saw them or found their tracks there, then why was a grizzly sow who had born cubs killed there in 1975. Some boar grizzly had to have lived there too during that time to breed her, how did he hide from you? After all, how can you hide a pee brained grizzly boar, sow and her cubs from so many hikers, backpackers and hunters running all over the SSJWilderness for 25 years. If it was there, someone would have seen one of them during that time. Maybe they did see one of them and you chose not to believe them. Wildlife authorities certainly thought any grizzly sighting in Colorado during that time period was a bunch of crap, no matter who reported it. A few long term hunting guides had seen sign of them, or seen them themselves, but then so have a few guides seen sasquatch in Colorado. But they don’t count, because hunting guides don’t know how to identify species anyway.
And we all know that Native Americans who reported seeing and tracking sasquatch in western North America for millinia are nothing but stupid redskins who don’t know how to identify wildlife too. We European decent intelligent humans are after all the only people who can truely identify wildlife in our forests. All the Native American tribes who lived themselves for thousands of years off the land in the forests of western North America are wrong and you are right because you have a superior European brain.
I for one think I will trust the peoples that lived right in the forests on their opinion of what lived in those forests. I am also getting more and more sure that those mysterious creatures still live there and still leaving tracks there and still being seen by the more experienced outdoorsmen who visit there. Maybe if I spend another 300 days in the SSJWilderness and wait real quietly somewhere remote I see a sasquatch there too. I don’t know though, there are lots of trees and brush for them to hide behind.
Date: 12-Apr-05
Quite a few people think the creature in the Patterson film is a man in a costume, except people with degrees in anatomy or someone willing to take the time to measure the creature scientifically. The media easily accepts it as a man in a costume along with joe blow public. Here is a recent letter to the editor of the Yakima Herald from a doctor after the Herald published an article claiming the person in the suit was a man named Bob Heironimus. Every true scientist I know who has truely studied that film comes away with the realization that it is not a man in a costume.
Letters to the Editor of the Yakima Herald, Re: Greg Long’s book and the Bob Heironimus claim that he was the man in a suit in the Patterson Film……. Dear Editor, I read the absurd assertion that some guy named Bob Heironimus was the bigfoot creature in the Patterson/Gimlin film of 1967. One of my colleagues, Dr. Phil Mortensen actually met this Heironimus; allow me to say that if you believe that he actually was in the film, you are a fool’s fool. I have had the opportunity to examine the film frame by frame, and no way, especially in ’67, was such a suit that exhibited muscle movement and contraction available. Nor would one be easy to create today. I have attached frame 72, and prior and subsequent frames show muscular contraction and expansion, as one would expect from an upright, walking biped. And I speak specifically, the latissimus dorsi of the back, the gluteus maximus of the rear, the semitendinosus and biceps femoris of the back of the upper leg, and the plantaris tendon and gastrocnemius of the calf area. Even if none of that makes sense to you, this Heironimus is not nearly big enough to fill the suit out. We have determined the creature in the film to be nearly 7 feet tall, and in the area of 450-500 lbs. I know you have to write books, and hopefully this is just a ploy to sell them. You can’t actually believe the guy-in-the-suit theory…Can you? The muscles I wrote of were, of course, those of the human (and some primate) anatomy. I too, was hugely skeptical about the possibility that the bigfoot existed. I am now 60, and didn’t actually view the P/G film closely until 2002. I remember seeing it way back, probably in the early 70’s, but didn’t get the chanc
Bowhunting is not about killing something, it is about being close to nature in a one on one way to my way of thinking. Sasquatch may be part of that natural environment that I go out to enjoy with my longbow in hand. I never think about KE, because I know my longbow will propel a heavy shaft plenty fast to go through lungs of anything that walks in North America. Since I have got so many reports from bowhunters of their personal witness to sasquatch in Colorado and New Mexico, I think sasquatch is very relevant to bowhunting. Eagles, wolves, and other creatures that I don’t bowhunt are also very relevant to bowhunting.
No one forces anyone to read any forums you don’t want to read. I may be from Kansas, but since we had two ranches (one in the hills and one on the plains) and a high country vacation property in Colorado, it is hard for me not to visit the nearby Rockie Mountains. Oh yes, another little ranch near Tucumcari NM, but it was so close to Roswell that we sold it in the mid-70’s for fear of alien attacks. Okay, I admit that we no longer pay property taxes in NM, so I won’t post here anymore.
I still say that if sasquatch is running around in your bowhunting area, it is very relevant to bowhunting. Bowhunting is not just about killing things with an arrow, in my book.
e to dissect it, as it were, until fairly recently. I truly can think of no way to replicate such proper muscular movement. The creature we see in the film is alive, and is NOT a human being. In fact, the concurrent contraction of two or more muscle groups that occurs during a human walk (leg and lower back, for example, or gluteus maximus and upper leg) is nearly impossible for a layman to comprehend, much less contrive. Now the trick is to catch one of these beasts to lay all skepticism to waste. However, if one IS found, do the masses flock to the backcountry to see for themselves? Is it better left an unknown? Is the thrill gone should a corpse or live creature be collected? Ah.. the mystique of it all. Best wishes, Dr. Lawrence Willard Foley, Orthopedist
Date: 15-Apr-05
