They don’t want to mess with Sasquatch. They just prove it exists.
Four investigators, Cliff, Bobo, Ranae and Matt, who star on Animal Planet’s “Finding Bigfoot,” travel the world looking for irrefutable evidence to back up their claims that Bigfoot — or Bigfoots, the plural — exist.
What are Bigfoots?
“Bigfoot means different things to different people. If they don’t understand the subject very well they think we’re talking about this mythical man – like thing that’s seen here and there and kind of pops up and is more of a myth, legend than a real thing,” said founder of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, Matt Moneymaker.
“I think they probably come out of South East Asia and are related to the orangutan but nobody is quite sure what they are. What we do know is there is definitely more than one of them and a few of us have seen them,” he added.
Bigfoot sightings have been reported in 49 of 50 states, as well as parts of Canada.
“Every Native American tribe that live where Sasquatches live have Sasquatches as part of their tradition,” said Cliff Barackman, the team’s footprint expert.
James “Bobo” Fay added: “There’s 504 documented Native American words for Sasquatch in North America, one for almost every tribe.”
Commercial fisherman Bobo, who saw his first Sasquatch in 2001, takes odd jobs in unrelated fields to afford him more opportunities to see Sasquatch.
Research biologist Ranae Holland, who has done work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is the admitted skeptic of the group, and finding proof is her utmost priority.
“One thing I like to stress is that there’s a difference between cynicism and skepticism and unfortunately a lot of people think of Bigfoot [tabloid headlines like], “Bigfoot Stole My Baby.” So there could be a lot of eye rolling and cynicism to it and I can’t just write it off. I want, for me, Bigfoot to be real. I just want to have that experience and evidence for the report to be definitive.”
“Finding Bigfoot is an opportunity to come on an adventure with us and learn a lot about the topic. Bigfoot speaks to the human psyche. The unknown, the wild man in the woods. Bigfoot is part of pop culture,” she added.
The group credits the internet with bringing the four of them together and with helping to spread the word about Bigfoot. In fact, in the last week, two unrelated stories on Bigfoot were top stories on the internet.
“One [was] about a project with a blimp and then the Provo Canyon video out of Utah. If this was a few years ago, those probably wouldn’t have made it to mainstream, not because they weren’t interesting. Not because the audience wouldn’t have been interested. But there was a stigma on the subject that mainstream news just said, ‘we’re not going to cover that. That’s just too ridiculous’,” said Matt.
Jeffrey Meldrum, Associate Professor at Idaho State University, who is consulted in tonight’s episode of “Finding Bigfoot” is looking to raise over $300,000 to build the blimp that will use thermal-imaging cameras to look for evidence of Bigfoot.
Thermal-imaging cameras are also used on “Finding Bigfoot” in addition to other less technologically-based methods, such as wood knocks and howls. But even though the group believes they have had Bigfoot encounters, they say it’s not strange that they don’t have pristine photos to show.
“It shows an urban un-sophistication on animals and how easy it is to photograph them. There’s definitely a spectrum. Some animals are very easy to photograph because they don’t try to hide as long as you have enough distance, like birds. There’s only one picture of a wild wolverine [taken] less than a decade ago. Sasquatches are certainly the most difficult of all. They’re rare,” said Matt.
Bobo interjected: “They don’t want us going near them, but they choose to come near us where we are. I think part of it is curiosity.”
“There are definitely Native American families that live on the outskirts of reservations that have them on their property that could definitely get photos, but they just won’t,” Bobo added.
Matt believes if Bigfoots really didn’t exist, people wouldn’t continue to show up at town meetings to share stories.
“[If] somebody came forward and said they saw a leprechaun or a unicorn you wouldn’t have this same phenomenon happen. With someone saying, ‘well, I saw a unicorn, too.’ They don’t do that. People are protective of their reputation, and the smaller the town they’re more protective, so they don’t want people to think they’re crazy. They don’t want people to think they’re liars, so they’re not going to come and attest to seeing something, especially something that’s got a stigma about it already,” he said.
Cliff added that many skeptics are unaware of the evidence that is out there and that the footprint evidence is internally consistent and shows the anatomy of the great apes.
“Bigfoots actually are real. They are a perfectly normal species that live here in North America. I think that a lot of people who say they saw them did see them. If one report is real, then the species is real,” said Cliff.
“More than anything Bigfoot is America’s creature,” he added.
“Finding Bigfoot” can be seen on Sunday nights at 10 p.m.