The long awaited Illinois episode of Finding Bigfoot will air this coming Sunday evening, 24th March 2013, 10 pm Eastern.
(Photo courtesy Valerie Abbott)
Illinois has three confirmed cougar kills in recent years:
15th July 2000: Male cougar killed by a train in Randolph County.
4th December 2004:Â Male cougar found by a bow hunter in New Boston (Mercer County).
14th March 2008: Male cougar shot and killed in Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago (Cook County).
______________________________________________________________
Links to various articles pertaining to big cats in Illinois.
Alleged Cougar Sightings Busted By IDNR
Cougar sightings catch authorities’ attention
Illinois DNR debunks cougar claim
Phantom Panthers & Big Cats Of Illinois
Wildcat scare keeps Palmyra pupils inside / DNR officials doubt it
With the opening of the new movie Red Riding Hood (2011), it got me to thinking whether there is any connection between the Big Bad Wolf and the old “hairy wildman” myths of Europe.
Now I am not a folklorist nor am I knowledgeable about old European myths. I honestly only feel comfortable speaking about something I have personal experience with. However, having had a very brief sighting of an “upright hairy biped” myself near Seneca, Illinois in 2005, I do know that “hairy wildmen” do in fact exist in North America. It is my belief that the “hairy wildman” myths of Europe are based on the real flesh & blood animal commonly known in the North America as bigfoot / sasquatch. As such I think the wildman fits the description of ogres and trolls.
Illustration by Gystave Doré (1832-1882), the French artist and engraver.
But what about “The Big Bad Wolf”? In medieval times  Europe did have wolves and big problems at times with rabid wolves. The recently released movie Red Riding Hood (2011) proclaims that it is “Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf”.  There are similarities in the dialog of Red Riding Hood to old Norse myths which describe the animal as a giant, not a wolf.
It is my conclusion that it has always been difficult for witnesses to come to grips with what type of animal the “hairy man” is. Being confronted with an 8 foot hairy creature standing behind a tree many have included it must be a wolf standing on it’s hind legs. And if it is a wolf, which doesn’t stand on hind legs, then it must be an upright walking wolf, the werewolf.
Note – for an excellent resource to the origins of  the myth of  the “hairy man” in Europe read the in-depth book entitled ‘Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men: The Origins and Evolution of Saint Nicholas, Spanning 50,000 Years’.
There are two sounds that I hear people talk about repeatedly, proclaiming them to be the vocalizations of cougar or mountain lion.
The first sound is what people describe as a woman screaming as if she were being killed. And the second sound is that of a baby crying, or the “cry baby” sound.
So what is that sound coming from the woods that sounds like a woman screaming? Almost every reference I have seen explains it as being from a large cat in heat. Now, I am not saying cougar do not scream, what I am speaking of in particular is the “woman screaming” type sound. Â It is typical human thought to ascribe unknown sounds to known animals. If some one sees large cat tracks or even a cougar in the woods and later hears the screams it is easy to see where they would put the two together.
To be 100% sure of any sound there needs to be a publicly available video showing the said animal making that particular sound. Is that the case with a cougar “screaming like a women”? I can not find it. Perhaps a reader can send me a link to a video showing a cougar making this particular sound. There are any number of websites with cougar sounds but none with videos showing the sounds being made.
Are there other animals in the woods capable of making these sounds? I think the sasquatch is one of these animals. There are reports of sasquatch sceaming and there are sound clips. But alas, just as in the case of cougar, no videos are publicly available showing a sasquatch making a vocalization.
In about 1952 my older brother hiked to our neighbors across the canyon in Northern Idaho. On his return trip home he heard what he described as a cougar screaming. Cougar had been seen in the area. When I questioned him recently about it his reply was, “Well of course it was a cougar, what else could it have been.” However in 2008 my wife and I found and cast humanoid looking footprints not far from my brother’s incident.
The area in N. Idaho where my brother heard loud screams.
Not far from where I live in Central Illinois neighbors complained for years about the screams they kept hearing coming from the woods. And then again, their explanation was it “had to be cougar, what else could it be, it sounded too big to be bobcat.” And once again this area has had lots of both cougar and black panther sightings over the years. I have seen two black panther and two tawny cougar in this area since 2004. However, what about sasquatch? I know of two daylight sightings and I have found six set of humanoid looking footprints at this location.
Large 14 x 5 inch footprints found in the snow in Central Illinois.
Conclusion:
So what is the final answer? Until someone comes up with a verifiable video of either a cougar or a sasquatch “screaming like a woman” there will be no conclusion to this question.  However, I think there is just as much reason to believe that it is from a sasquatch as a cougar.
The following Notable Quotes are all pertaining to the state of Illinois.
_______________________________________________
Chris McCloud – Spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources
“The IDNR deals with animals native to Illinois, and Bigfoot is not one of them, he said.”
_______________________________________________
Dr. Christopher Bader, Assistant Sociology Professor, Baylor University in Texas
“For whatever reason, there’s an inherent appeal to the myth of the Wild Man or Bigfoot,†he said. “Somehow, that’s ingrained in us. … Bigfoot is `everywhere.’ So I’m not at all surprised he’s in Seneca.â€
_______________________________________________
Dr. Angelo Capparella -Â Biology Professor, Illinois State University, Bloomington, Illinois
“He said that if there is a Bigfoot – a big if in his book – Central Illinois is not the place to find one.”
_______________________________________________
David Bloomberg – Chairman of the Rational Examination Association of Lincoln Land
“Every claim of Bigfoot has serious problems.”
_______________________________________________
Gus Gordon – WICS ABC NewsChannel 20Â – Chief Meteorologist
“Well, if he comes to the door, and your mother asks him what he wants, and he says “About Three Fiddy,” then it’s not Bigfoot….it’s probably the Loch Ness Monster.”
_______________________________________________
I looked on Google Maps for all these places. I saw how skimpy the wooded areas of the state are. I can only feel sorry for the poor Bigfoot who is trying to maintain cover when there are so many people all around.
_______________________________________________
Talbott Denmead – Chief of Permits and Importations of Fish and Wildlife
“Varmints and sea sarpints†still roam, but chiefly in lively imaginations.”
I was raised on the West Coast and had only been “east” once before meeting my wife. In 1972 we flew east to meet my future in-laws who lived in the tiny village of Piasa, Illinois. A couple of days later they took me to see the famous painting along the Great River Road near Alton, Illinois. My wife had graduated from Piasa Southwestern High School whose mascot was fittingly the Piasa Bird. So I was quickly indoctrinated with the local lore and history of this famous character.
The painting as it looks today along the bluffs of the Mississippi.
But what about the history of the monster?
In 1673, Â Pere Marquette and Louis Joliet, while traveling down the river spotted the painting of the monsters along the bluffs. Marquette wrote down this description:
“While skirting some rocks, which by their height and length inspired awe, we saw upon one of them two painted monsters which at first made us afraid, and upon which the boldest savages dare not long rest their eyes. They are as large as a calf; they have horns on their heads like those of deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger’s, a face somewhat like a man’s, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending in a fish’s tail. Green, red, and black are the three colors composing the picture. Moreover, these two monsters are so well painted that we cannot believe that any savage is their author; for good painters in France would find it difficult to paint so well, and besides, they are so high up on the rock that it is difficult to reach that place conveniently to paint them. Here is approximately the shape of these monsters, as we have faithfully copied it.”
Drawing on 1678 map by Lean Baptiste Louis Franqueli
Quoting from the Alton Telegraph Newspaper
This wingless Piasa was included on a 1678 map, “Discovery of the Illinois country,” drawn by French cartographer Lean Baptiste Louis Franquelin of Quebec. The original map is in a French government museum collection. Photo courtesy of Service Historique de le Marine. A drawing of a Piasa Bird was described by Pere Jacques Marquette on his missionary journey down the Mississippi in 1673. Art from Telegraph archives.
So it can easily be seen by Marquette’s description and the drawing that the original monster did not have bird wings.
What about the name Piasa? Â From Webster’s Dictionary we read:
The name “Piasa”, pronounced in English /ˈpajəˌsÉ‘Ë/ or “pie-uh-saw”, is from the Miami-Illinois word páyiihsa (cf. Anishinaabe: apa’iins(ag), “little people(s)”),[1] the name for a type of small supernatural dwarves said to attack travelers. The connection between this Miami-Illinois word and the “Piasa” illustration is confirmed by such early French transcriptions as “paillissa”, found on Nicolas de Finiel’s map of 1798. (See Costa 2005: 297). Etymologies which claim the word “Piasa” means “the bird that devours men” or “bird of the evil spirit” are impossible, and are not rooted in the Illinois language.
Could these “little people(s)” or  “small supernatural dwarves” actually be juvenile sasquatch?
What wild-man / bigfoot / sasquatch features does the monster exhibit? According to Marquette – “a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger’s, a face somewhat like a man’s.”  Do not all of these features appear to be possibly sasquatch features? Many witnesses report sasquatch as having eyes that glow red, being hairy with beards, facial features being man-like. And in recent years reports have come in with sightings of sasquatch running as quadrupeds.
In the book Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men, the author Phyllis Siefker traces the origins of wild man worship back at least four thousand years. Â Paintings from the famous “The Sorcerer” at the cave of Les Trois Freres in France clearing show a shaman dressed in animal skins.
The Piasa “monster” on the left and the “Sorcerer” from France on the right.
But, were Wildman or Sasquatch found in this part of the country? Both modern sighting reports and audio recordings would seem to indicate that is still the case.
My brother Dale believes that he had a visit by a sasquatch while camping in July of 2004 in the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana.
Here is a write-up that my brother did to document his experience in 2004:
My wife and I decided to camp closer to home to save on fuel with the rising costs of travel so we decided to try a public campgound in Montana. We decided to go to Spring Creek campground located in the Lewis and Clark National Forest located about 5 miles North of highway #12, West and North of Martinsdale. The campground is located in the Belt Mountains on the Southern edge. It has 10 sites with restrooms, tables, fire pits, and centrally located garbage cans. The main road leading to it is barely visable up above the camp in heavily forested land with a creek running South through the campground.
We departed our home in the country West of Laurel, Montana on July 21, 2004 and planned to spend a full week or so camping there. When we arrived after about 3 hours we checked out all the sites and picked out the one that we though would be the best for us and that would accomodate our 34 foot motor home parking it sideways instead of backing it in to make a maximum amount of privacy. Our site was on the end of a loop on the outside so we had nothing to our East and South but the forest.We set up our camp taking our time and fixing it up for a long stay.
The first two nights we were the only ones camping in the entire campground and then on Friday and Saturday only four other parties occupied other sites. By Sunday afternoon all were gone again so we had the entire campground to our selves again.
On Monday evening we were both sitting at the big picnic table close to our fire pit enjoying our dinner we had prepared. Our dog Zacary (English & American Cocker Spaniel) was close by waiting for a hand out. Where I was sitting I could see up the lane a short distance towards another site. I happened to glance up and noticed a very small young black cat sitting in the middle of the lane. I quietly told my wife to slowely turn and look as she wouldn’t believe what she was going to see. She turned around and saw the cat. She immediatelly got up and slowly started towards the cat. Our dog spotted it at about the same time and race was on, chasing the cat off into the woods and that was the last we saw of it.
We had a couple of cans of tuna fish with us and plenty of milk so we decided to set some out that evening after dark when we retired for the night. I placed it close to our door on the carpet along side the steps just under the travel home. When I awakened the next morning I went out to check the bowl and it was empty. We continued that day watching for the cat but never did see it the rest of the time we were there. We would place more food and milk out each evening till we departed on Thurdsday the 29th. Each morning the food would be completely gone. We had to assume the cat would wait till it was quiet during the night and then come and get the food.
On Monday night the 26th we had gone to bed around 9:00 PM going right to sleep. I was awakened around 1:30 AM by a strange noise which seemed to be coming from our door located between the kitchen table and the easy chair on the passenger side. It sounded like someone was trying to open our door. I was immediately alarmed and very nervous with many things rushing through my mind. I knew that we were the only ones there and the closest humans being about 4 miles back down the road towards the highway.
I am a Vietnam Veteran that served in the infantry in combat so I have a lot of memories of how scary things can be at night. I just layed there and continued to listen. The noise would start again and last about 5 seconds and then stop again and then it would repeat. Our door handle on the outside is a lever insted of a round knob and I knew the sound was identical to the sound that it makes when you place your hand on it and jiggle it. I didn’t know what to do at first and hesitated to get my 357 pistol out of the closet right next to me. After hearing this strange sound for several more times I decided to awaken my wife to have her listen to it also. My pulse was racing and it felt like my heart was up to my throat. She had a hard time getting awake and she did hear it once and then we never heard it anymore. I decided to get out of bed after I got calmed down and walked slowely towards the front of the motor home to get a large powerful flashlight under the sofa. I shined it out of the large window above the kitchen table and down towards the outside steps and door. I saw nothing so decided to turn on the outside light. I didn’t see anything even then but I had this earry feeling that some one or something was waching me. I sat there in the dark and decided that every thing was okay and eventually went back to bed with no other noises being heard again.
I tried to convince myself that it had to be that cat but knew there was no way it could have climbed up to the handle or even jumped up there. The exterior of the motor home is fiber glass and has a very slick finish!
I walked our entire area the next morning looking for some kind of evidence that something was out there but found nothing. The containers used to feed the black cat were both in place where I had placed them that eveing but they were licked clean.
After that we would place our lawn chairs and hammock around our door before retiring each night to make a barrier hoping if what ever or who ever came back that the chairs would be bumped and make noise to awaken us. We never had anymore incidents happen after that and we headed home on the 29th.
We went back to the same campground a month later and spent another 7 nights there with most of them being spent alone. We parked at the same site but had no more visitors in the night including the cat.
My wife and I camped with them the summer of 2005 in the same campspot. We were the only campers. The third night this is what I recorded at 11 p.m. It is my opinion that it is a large biped walking past our two motorhomes. When my dog growled from inside the motor home the animal walked away. Even though I had the night-vision next to my bed, by the time I got up and looked out the window the animal was gone.
Click here to listen to this sound clip:Â Footsteps 1
Waveform View
Spectral View
I spent several nights camping at this campground in 2008 and 2009. Â Three of these occasions were written up preciously.
Pieces of evidence sometimes are found at the most unexpected times. Such was the case a year ago when we found “Footprints in Stone“ embedded in concrete in Springfield, Illinois. Chicagoland has never paid much attention to their little sister to the South and it appears they will not be outdone once again.
In November after exploring the woods around Bachelors Grove Cemetery in rural Cook County, Illinois we saw deer prints scattered heading across the roadway. It would appear  that children are easier to keep away from wet concrete than deer.
On the 8th of December 2010 I was getting ready to do some sound recording about an hour south of my home. It was 11 p.m. As I approached my car I heard this really strange sound coming from due north of my house towards a large hillside. At first I thought it was going to be a roar but then it stopped.
The sound was very loud. When I played back my sounds I was disappointed to find out that my memory card was full and I had failed to record that unusual sound. However when reviewing my recording I found several sounds that I think matched what I heard that night. The sounds reminds me of deer snorts but the sounds I recorded were much louder and filled up the cove with its sound.
Click here to listen to sound clip: Snort 1
Waveform View
Spectral View
On this next clip where the sounds are spaced 60 seconds apart you can tell how far the animal has moved because the second sound is much louder and closer to the microphone.
Click here to listen to sound clip:Â Snort 2
Waveform View
Spectral View
For comparison listen to a White-tailed Deer snort  – Deer Sound Clip # 1
Waveform View
Spectral View
The first part of March 2010 I recorded the following sound. At first I thought it might be a Red Fox, but after listening to it further I don’t think that is the case. It would have been better if the Screamer had been closer to the mic. The recorder and microphone were on my patio running continuously. I am unsure of the direction from my home.
A view to the west close to our house.
Click here to listen to sound clip:Â Â Scream 3
Waveform View
Spectral View
Click here to listen to sound clip:Â Red Fox
Waveform View
Spectral View
As both the Illinois Howl Illinois Howl and the Colorado Howl Colorado Howl would appear to be mimicking coyotes perhaps the Illinois Screamer is mimicking Red Fox.