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In the Shadows – Investigating Encounters

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Published: Friday, 30 October 2020 06:24
Written by Super User
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One of the great opportunities a Bigfoot researcher can have, is to go investigate sightings and other encounters that occur.  In that capacity over the years, I have been involved in investigations of some really interesting events. 

      Perhaps one of my favorite investigations happened near Pumpkin Hollow near the Illinois River, in which a Chicken farmer, who had several large industrial chicken houses, had an encounter he would never forget.  It would seem strange with the number of chickens in a large chicken house to notice any missing, but this farmer had begun noticing that a fair number of chickens were disappearing.  After a week of this, the farmer was walking down the outside of one of the chicken houses when he turned the corner and ran smack into a Bigfoot carrying an armful of chickens knocking the farmer down.  Stunned apparently from being caught, the Bigfoot dropped the chickens and exchanged stares with the farmer for what seemed to be an eternity before scooping up several nearby chickens and heading off at a rapid pace towards the woods.

     The speculation was, that Bigfoot had been watching the farmer and his farmhands going and opening the doors, figuring out how to do it on its own.  Needless to say, the farmer sold his farm within several months and moved away, he continued to have bad dreams about the encounter.

     The wildest investigation I had done, was south of Stilwell where a local family had been encountering Bigfoot in the area and their sons had seen one down in a field behind their house.  My wife and I traveled up to do a night observation post in the field and was joined by the husband and wife whose sons had seen the Bigfoot along with their youngest son.  As it began to get dark, a large Bigfoot was spotted standing in the corner of the field with a night vision scope, only to duck down and make a lot of noise walking along the edge of the field in the woods.

     The couple with us had settled down to wait alongside us, with the wife playing on her cell phone, which lit her up in the darkness.  Presently, she began feeling something hitting her, and her son, thinking it was a bug flying around because of the light of her phone, went over to find it and remove the pest.  Instead of a bug, he discovered several “grass balls” laying at her feet where they had fallen after hitting her. 

     As investigators, my wife and I knew to watch the husband and the son to see if they were throwing them at the wife, just to make sure it wasn’t them.  However, now grass balls began landing nearby everyone there, and as we gathered them up, it was apparent that it wasn’t the family that was throwing them as we were all gathered around the small table looking at the collected grass balls when one came sailing in from above on us.

     Something was nearby laying in the tall grass throwing these at us, so after 20 minutes of these balls being thrown at us, I decided to walk into the field where I thought it was laying at.  As I neared the location, my wife hollered to me that a grass ball had just come from the opposite side of where we had been sitting.  Clearly, we had more than one individual throwing these at us.

     After an hour had passed by with no more incident, we decided to go home and come back the next day to see if we could find any sign of where the individual throwing at us would have been hiding and to look for more grass balls we might have missed in the dark. 

     Upon arriving the next day, it was easily discovered from the large grassy area that had been compressed from something laying on it, not more than 40 feet from where we had been sitting, that something had crawled up to that spot, covered by several large clumps of weeds, and picked the grass there.

     Having discovered this, we took several of the grass balls to see if we could throw them to the spot where we had sat at the night before, none of us could get more than halfway there.  None of us could also re-create the grass balls, including my 7-year-old grandson, who had smaller hands and we thought might be able to do it. 

     Was it a Bigfoot that was throwing these balls at us?  I can’t say it really was, outside of the fact that we had spotted a Bigfoot in the area just prior to getting these thrown. 

 

“While not actually a ball, these are some of the recovered “grass balls” from the night of the investigation.”

 

     While folks may see on Bigfoot TV shows where it appears that they have activity non-stop when doing research or investigations, please keep in mind, that researchers usually go for long periods of time with nothing happening.  Going back out to that location where the grass balls were thrown on multiple nights, didn’t provide any further activity.  Sometimes, a researcher will go months or years before encountering more activity.

     I hope you enjoy these articles, if you have had an encounter, please visit our website at www.mabrc.com and fill out a sighting report.  And don’t forget to attend the Oklahoma Bigfoot Symposium next March at CC Camp, where you can interact with the researchers themselves and discuss more about Bigfoot with them.

Let’s talk Bigfoot! - Sightings

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Category: Articles
Published: Thursday, 01 October 2020 01:49
Written by Super User
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It appears there is no end to opinions to what an unknown critter called bigfoot is, let alone of what or does and does not do.  Where it lives and where it does not. Heck, there is not even an agreement of it is a naturally evolved critter or comes from ufos or another dimensions!

In this article let’s talk about sightings.

Some say Bigfoot can only live in the deepest most remote forests in areas that humans do not go so they can avoid them.  Ok.  Then how would there be any sightings?  People are not as a rule not in the deep forests.  We really are not able to survive out there as we have evolved not to have to.  I do agree that there are vast areas in the country and the world that man has probably never stepped.  Or if they did it was passing through and not living there.  There is a lot of documentation that shows that when critters are not used to having people around, they do not have a fear of them.  So, Bigfoot is in the forests to avoid people, that just does not make sense.   We all know that it takes a Bigfoot AND a person to have a sighting.  So, if people ain’t there Bigfoot wouldn’t even be known about. So apparently that is a false statement.  Now don’t get me wrong, there could easily be bigfoot in the deep forests, but without them being closer to human populations we would not have all the sightings we have each year let alone the any possible evidence for the existence of the critter.

One question I have always had is why wouldn’t a critter like bigfoot be able to live around people like all other forest critters do?  Pick a known critter that only roams the deep forest that has not been able to adapt to living around people.  Can you think of one?  I have not found one yet.  The many sightings each year seem to prove that bigfoot has adapted to being around people if not exploiting people as a lot of critters do.  Not that I believe that everything that people report as bigfoot is one.  Misidentifications happen all the time.  With Bigfoot being so prevalent in today’s society, it seems to be pretty common that when folks see something quick in the woods, they aren’t familiar with jumping to “it’s bigfoot” seems to be their thought. So, for those who are investigating sightings or trying to use sightings reports to set up a research area need to be skeptical.  With the hype on all the new TV shows exploiting bigfoot and all the sensational social media it would make it seem that bigfoot is seen more than mosquitos!  What else would be expect.

Anybody that goes camping or for a walk in the woods for the first time have all these stories of these fantastical experiences that they say is bigfoot.  Any evidence?  Did you see one?  Usually not but I read it or saw it on TV or Facebook and those experts say that is what a bigfoot does.  Then investigators give an eye roll and are declared to be assholes for not understanding.  So how can we use that as a sighting?  We cannot without a lot of investigation and skepticism. 

I wish people would quit lumping these types of “sightings” with true sightings or worse yet calling them misidentifications.  In my opinion a true misidentification is where one sees an animal let’s say it is a bear in a place where bears are not supposed to be and call it a possible bigfoot.  If they have been told bears don’t live there and they see a large black something a bear isn’t really a consideration.  I was told a story from a fella who said he saw a large brown bear walk out of the woods on two legs to cross the road but saw him on his motorcycle and turned and walked back into the woods.  The thing was huge said the fella at least 8-foot-tall and weighed 600 lbs.  Now I do know black bears are in the area but they sure ain’t that big.  And again, they are black, not brown.  Also bears do not walk on two feet with any fluidity especially when spooked.  Due to the details and it being within 10 miles of my main research area in Missouri, I honestly feel this is a misidentification.  Was it ever reported to any group?  Nope.  He said bigfoot is not real, so it had to be a bear.  Another sighting I was told about was a fella said he saw a bigfoot walking across this certain area away from the river.  All he saw was something black and big.  Could be a bigfoot, right? That is what the TV showed.  When going to the area and getting more details from the witness he said it was tall maybe 7-8 foot tall.  When it saw him, he said the bigfoot went down into 4x4 mode and headed back to the river.  Sounded interesting and we went to the tree line and looked for possible evidence of it being there.  At the tree line using a branch that he said he used to determine the height was measured and was only 6 foot off the ground not 8 foot like he thought it was.  People including me, a carpenter’s son, have a real hard time judging sizes and heights.  After realizing that the size was not as big as he thought it was, we looked for tracks if the critter left any in the sandy and rocky riverbed.  He found one and said it was proof that it was a bear.  The claws were easy to see in the one good track that was in sandier soil.  He apologized for as he said it wasting my time.  I assured him that it was not a waste as we both did some learning and made a definitive identification.   Here are two cases where they are both misidentifications.  One who knows bigfoot ain’t real and one who wanted bigfoot to be real.

I know some skeptics believe all bigfoot sightings are misidentifications.  I do not think that is even remotely true.  Most of us have had folks report to us that they thought it was a certain critter was this until it did something that the critter you thought it was could not do.  The one I was told early in my bigfoot investigating years has really stuck with me and is a good example of the other side of the misidentification coin.  There was a farmer who moved his herd of cows from a pasture on the east side of the road to one on the west side of the road.  Two day later he was on his way to check the herd when he saw what he thought was a big black cow in the east pasture.  Being a bit ticked off that she went back to that pasture and knowing he would have to move her again he pulled into the gate to the east pasture.  He got out and was opening the gate, looked over to the cow again that was headed towards the woods at the north end of the pasture.  All a sudden this cow stood up on its rear legs and stepped over the fence and walked into the woods on two legs.  It was not until then that he realized that this big black thing was not a cow.  This fella has lived in this area all his life and worked these pastures, roamed the woods, hunted the land, and had never even considered that there was a thing like bigfoot.  He actually thought people who said they saw them were mistaken on what they saw or was just plain crazy.  However, after this experience he began to question some of the odd stuff that has happened in years past.  Could that be the reason why the cows go through so much feed in the east pasture verses the others?  Was this the reason when he had to buy 4 salt blocks in two weeks just to find 3 on the wrong side of the fence close to each other in the woods during deer hunting a month later?   Of course, those answers are just conjecture with no proof.  Needless to say, this man’s world has been turned upside down.  He looks a lot different at things that he used to think he knew so well. 

So, misidentification in sightings is a two-sided coin for the investigators and researchers.  One size does not fit all like so many parts of life. 

Another thing that makes sightings difficult is that no two people see things the same.  Whether it is hardened researchers or a people that never gave bigfoot a thought.  Each sees things a bit differently.  One of the on-site investigations I did was with a family that had a sighting.  Three teens had a sighting a ½ miles from their house.  The two boys were deeply affected.  The younger of the two was so scared the other two had to literally drag him back to the house.  I talked with each of the boys separately and was amazed at the differences each had from the same sighting.  The older boy was amazed at the muscles in the thigh was so huge and was breathing really hard.  Other than a bit startled he wasn’t too affected.  The younger said the eyes were big and mean looking, heard what he said was it growling.  Both saw the critter from about 20 foot coming up a finger from a holler and when it saw them it turned and went back down the holler from which it came.  Both said it was dark brown, not black, and was huge.  So here are two witnesses that saw the same critter, and both saw different things of that critter.  The third person was a cousin that had went back home after spending the summer there, so I didn’t get the chance of talking to her.  Each with having the same experience with both boys being affected so much differently. 

It has been pretty much proven that when people see something that is so distressing three things can happen.  Fight.  Flight.  Or Freeze. I do think this also can be why we get some people that have a sighting it is so easy for them to turn to the ideas that the critter disappeared or cloaked.  How many times do we see someone close their eyes or cover their eyes during scary movies or traumatic events?  Seems like a natural involuntary thing for people to do in a lot of cases.  When they regain a little composure and open their eyes, it’s gone.  Either vanished or just see the brush and grass moving as they hear it leave the area.  If one is open to the paranormal it would be easy to contribute it to something fantastical rather than a very human condition in dealing with things that scare us.  It always amazes me; you can have 10 people see the same thing and each seems to have focused on something different of the same event.  Our minds apparently are incapable of processing 100% of an event especially when there is some sort of stress involved.

Even as researchers we are not immune to that condition.  We plan and spend a lot of time trying to condition ourselves in how we will react when and if we happen to see one.  Guess what?  When it happens, truly little of our plan goes as we thought it would.  I can only use my experience as an example.  I have been lucky enough to have 4 brief the longest maybe being 3 seconds, bigfooting sightings.  None were incredibly detailed.  The last one was the one that scared me the most.  Why?  The first ones were moving away from me.  The last one did something my mind couldn’t deal with in my past thoughts and experiences.  During a Memorial Weekend expedition, we were on the way back from the nights listening post when the lead 4x4 had one cross right to left.  With as long as he had been doing this his mind first thought it was a large white dog, even when there had been numerous sightings in the area of a white bigfoot, and he had seen it before.  Skepticism? Or the easiest way his brain could deal with it?  None the less, after the brief thought he realized what it was, and the crew stopped and headed to the area it had went and had eye shine and a decent look at it.  Then it dropped down out of their sight.  Then unexpectedly, I saw it pass behind us back over the trail from left to right.  I was in the cargo bed of the rear side by side 4x4.  This is when the fear hit me.  Why did it do that?  They never do that.  My mind went into protection mode as this is what I had not ever expected.  In all my planning and thinking of how I would react upon seeing one went out the window as what happened was not ever a consideration as a behavior.  To this day we can only speculate why it did what it did or even if it was the same one.  As far as we know maybe this has happened before but never observed and is a normal thing.

Sightings can be of great value to the investigators and researchers.  But the details of any sighting may be lacking, not because of the witness is not being factual, it’s because each person’s mind processes the event differently.  The ones for me that make me wonder the most of be factual and not exaggerated are the ones that are so detailed.  It has been proven that the mind will “fill in the blanks” as time goes along.  But for me those are the areas where I question the accounts the most as the mind is a complex thing.  

 

 

Let's Talk Bigfoot!! What’s with all the names for bigfooters?

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Category: Articles
Published: Thursday, 16 July 2020 21:34
Written by Super User
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(Editor's Note: This will hopefully become a regular feature to the Bigfoot Field Guide website and magazine.)

It appears there is no end to opinions to what an unknown critter called bigfoot is, let alone of what or does and does not do.  Where it lives and where it does not. Heck, there is not even an agreement of it is a natural evolved critter or comes from ufos or another dimensions!

In this article let’s talk about what’s with all the names for bigfooters? 

When you go to the different Bigfoot Organizations websites you see names like researcher, junior researcher, investigator, senior researcher, field investigator, sightings investigator, analyst, and the like.  Then you go to Facebook and other social networks and you see all these new names like believer, knower, seer, chosen, ambassador, and God knows what else is popular today.  Why does something as simple as Bigfoot have to be so complicated? 

The ones that are long-term reputable organizations use are fairly simple to understand.  From what I see a researcher and investigator a basically the same thing in my opinion.  When you look at the definitions, they both want to learn about and solve the bigfoot mystery.  In the MABRC we do have a tendency to break it down a little more.  A junior researcher is usually new to the world of bigfoot.  Someone who is underage, or just starting this search and may have a limited experience in the woods.  Once they have been around a while and gets more comfortable with everything involving bigfoot, they can become senior researchers.  Some folks are great in the woods but not so much looking at the data trying to figure out patterns.  Others are better to look at the data, those are the ones we call analyst. They are the ones who figure things out that the folks in the woods may overlook.  They are also very important.  They seem to be the ones that can show patterns and can be invaluable to help figure out where the field researchers would have the best chances.  Together they can get things done and help each other come up with some answers.  Unfortunately, there can be some conflict with personalities.  That is part of life, staying humble can make all the difference.  There are a lot of reputable groups out there that put real stuff on the on the table that can and will help prove the existence of bigfoot.  We also have a lot of people in groups that want to be famous.  That again is when egos can make things more difficult for everyone.  Groups need to communicate to make this happen.

Now let’s talk about all this new social media stuff that is nothing more than a way to make a person feel special.  First, we saw the new and improved names these so-called researchers came up with.  Believers and Knowers.  One who goes to the woods even if it is their first time ever looking for bigfoot because they saw it on tv, Facebook, etc. that think bigfoot is real is a believer from the way its been explained to me.  Then if this person has something that happens in the woods that they never had happen before even though they have limited or no knowledge of what happens naturally in the woods believes it must be a bigfoot that did it is a Knower.  No sighting.  No evidence. But now they earn the hierarchy of the new bigfoot researcher because they had something that happen to them they thought was bigfoot.  Yes, some that have had a sighting are calling themselves a Knower.  But a sighting of what?    These seem to be the ones that take a shadow picture and claim it to be a bigfoot.  Or heard a “large Animal” crash through the woods that they didn’t actually see.  Heaven help you if you ask them if they ever heard an armadillo in the woods.  You’ll be challenging their self-earned hierarchy and all the Believers will be all over you for questioning the great revered Knower.

This is where most of the Facebook Live or watch me on YouTube with a camera in the woods people come from.  That way they can show you that they are in the woods all the time so they can tell you they know what bigfoot is doing minute by minute.  Its all a way of getting attention.  Once they get the attention they seek, they follow the typical playbook of upping the ante.  Next will be pictures of shadows, stumps, or who knows what.  Then when they are challenged that it is explainable one of two things happen.  They either go out and take follow-up pictures or videos from another place to prove it isn’t there now or play the game of insulting the challenger by the common lines of get out from behind the computer and get into the woods like I do and you’d KNOW what they do and they are all over the woods.  These are the ones that come up with all this stuff about the bigfoot cabal of people that they say is trying to discredit their “knowledge” by the old timers that have been in bigfoot research for years.    

These people are not trying to prove the existence of bigfoot, they are trying to be someone.  Are they hurting anything?  Actually yes, they are.  Not only are they flooding the internet with false ideas as well as taking away the credibility of those trying to prove the existence.  Social media has not been helping real Bigfoot research.

Now for the next group.  These are the ones that psychiatry should be looking into.  Chosen, seer, ambassador, all have the premise of somehow having a spiritual connection with bigfoot.  Where the bigfoot speaks through them.  These folks proclaim all sorts of things from mind speak, to healing of illnesses, to ability to open portals, to having bigfoot let out their cats at night.  These folks have turned what was a researched subject to a religion that they are the preachers with ultimate knowledge and was authorities to bring the world forward to what bigfoot wants.  These people have a huge following that makes me wonder how much mental illness we have in the world.  These are the ones that come up with the mind speak stuff, the interdimensional beings, aliens, Nephilim, portals and on and on.  Theoretical physics uses terms and ideas that these people seem to be using as proof to where they don’t need to have evidence to show to people why they say what they say is true.  This can be really destruction to those who want to prove the existence of bigfoot as well as to science that they are using terms from to justify their delusion. It doesn’t help a thing if fact is very destructive. 

 

 

 

 

 

What is a top-tier researcher?

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Category: Articles
Published: Thursday, 09 January 2020 00:54
Written by Super User
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Written by D.W. "Darkwing" Lee

 

The ongoing debate continues on what constitutes a Top-Tier researcher, with many trying to make their claim to fame based on trying to proclaim that they are the epitome of being Top-Tier.
 
With the advent and introduction of Facebook into the Bigfoot Community, anyone can proclaim themselves as a leading Bigfoot researcher/expert/authority and there are many gullible people out there that tends to follow those proclamations with die-hard exuberance.
 
Let's look at truly what makes a Top-Tier Researcher, in the eyes of many of the old timers in the Bigfoot Community.
  1. A Top-Tier Researcher must know their Bigfoot History.  The well-known historical events, the major players in the game, and the research that has been done in the past.
  2. A Top-Tier Researcher must know who the hoaxers and the hoaxes are.  Not just the current ones, but the ones in the past too.  I continuously see people regurgitating the same old hoaxes over and over again.
  3. A Top-Tier Researcher also knows how to conduct no-nonsense research, using scientific and verifiable methods, that allows evidence to be brought in.
  4. A Top-Tier Researcher does not spend all their time, every day, promoting themselves on radio shows or on Television.
  5. A Top-Tier Researcher always puts their time in the field to productive use, the don't do like many of the woo crowd does, by taking drugs or alcohol and claiming that they can see invisible Bigfoot when no one else can.
  6. And the most important, a Top-Tier Researcher is always skeptical of all evidence, including their own.
Now I know this will undoubtedly chaff many butts in the Bigfoot Community, especially those who are trying to make themselves into the leading Bigfoot researcher/expert/authority out there on Facebook, and there will be some finger pointing at me, screaming that I am proclaiming myself a Top-Tier Researcher.  I don't consider myself a Top-Tier Researcher, and truthfully, I don't think anyone can make that claim, since most of us don't have the time to put the effort into all this.  But this is what I strive to obtain in my research, to be able to do all 6 points listed here.