Big Foot
The Columbian (Vancouver, WA.)
November 13, 1996, Wednesday
BIGFOOT
BYLINE: By BRETT OPPEGAARD ; Columbian staff writer
SECTION: Discovery; Pg. C1
LENGTH: 2539 words
MOUNT HOOD, Ore. -- The telephone interrupts Peter Byrne in midsentence, and he pounces on it before the first ring ends. Snatching the receiver from its rest, Byrne holds it to his chest, shrugs and says, "Who knows? This might be the one."
The one is a person who can give Byrne the clue he needs to find a Bigfoot -- either the most elusive creature in human consciousness or a worldwide hoax.
Byrne used to hunt big game in Nepal and India. Now 70, he still dresses the part with a safari hat and silk ascot. He says he has spent much of the past 35 years looking for this big-footed creature. He has a national toll-free number, (800) BIGFOOT. He has a staff of three full-time employees and a private office just off the main road here. Investors have given him hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and funding.
Yet Byrne acknowledges he has never seen a Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, nor found any irrefutable evidence of their existence. That is why each phone call to his Bigfoot Research Project is so important. It could be the hint, however subtle, that will lead him to the biggest game of all. A date, a time, a location. Any detail that Byrne could plug into an extensive computer database, then crank out the road map to his catch.
"The Bigfoot Research Project, may I help you?"
The teen-age voice on the other end of the line giggles and says, "Bigfoot's in my backyard."
Byrne hangs up. Alas, it's just another prank.
The phone rings again.
"Bigfoot's in my house."
Byrne hangs up.
The phone rings again.
"Bigfoot's in my pants."
Byrne slams the phone down and scowls. His toll-free number gets as many as 3,000 calls a month from all over, he says. To prove it, he offers an inch-thick phone bill. Some are legitimate sightings, he says. Most are pranks. But he doesn't turn the ringer off. He doesn't turn on the answering machine. He does not want to miss the call, even though he knows he may never get it.
Grant ends in '97
Byrne also may be running out of time. He has received a five-year grant from The Academy of Applied Science, a private group of researchers in Boston that is dedicated to unconventional research pursuits. The grant ends in August. Byrne says he hopes for an extension.
Bigfoot research doesn't develop into a discovery overnight, he says. These creatures have avoided humans for a long time.
Many of the Pacific Northwest's Indians have age-old legends that speak of a tribe of large, hairy beasts that inhabit the mountains and forests. Norseman Leif Ericsson and his band of explorers noted strange creatures roaming the woods of the New World. He described them as "horribly ugly, hairy and dark, with big black eyes."
Similar printed testimony has been found as early as 1785, when a paper that became The London Times published "There is lately arrived in France from America a wild man, who was caught in the woods,, by a party of Indians; they had seen him several times, but he was so swift of foot that they could by no means get up with him. He is near 7 feet high, covered with hair, but has little appearance of understanding and is remarkably sullen and untractable. When he was taken, half a bear was found lying by him, which he had just killed."
Hundreds of reports deemed credible by Bigfoot enthusiasts have been made since.
Fur trader David Thompson wrote in his 1810 diaries that he found several 14-inch-long, 8-inch-wide tracks near where The Dalles, Ore., is today. The Indian party he was with said they were made by a mammoth, an Indian name still used to describe Bigfoot.
Another settler, Elkanah Walker, wrote in an 1840 letter that the Spokane Indians "believe in the existence of a race of giants which inhabit a certain mountain, off to the west of us., They hunt and do all their work in the night., They say their track is a foot and a half long., They frequently come in the night and steal their salmon from their nets and eat them raw. If the people are awake, they always know when they are coming very near, by the smell which is most intolerable."
In 1884, railroad workers in British Columbia reportedly captured one of these mysterious creatures. They called it "Jacko" and caged him for a circus attraction. An article in the Daily Colonist reported, "Jacko, is something of the gorilla type, standing about 4 feet 7 inches in height and weighing 127 pounds. He has long, black, strong hair and resembles a human being with one exception -- his entire body, excepting his hands and feet are covered with a glossy hair about 1 inch long."
The article went on to say that Jacko was much stronger than a human, seemed reticent since his capture and didn't talk, "only occasionally uttering a noise which is half bark and half growl."
A few days after his capture, Jacko escaped from his cage during the night and disappeared.
In 1924, some prospectors near Kelso reportedly ran into the "mountain devils" while inspecting a claim on a branch of the Lewis River, about eight miles from Spirit Lake. The men said they saw four huge animals, which were about 7 feet tall and 400 pounds, walking erect. They fired at the animals, knocking one from a cliff into a ravine and scaring the others away.
Rain of rocks
That night, the animals bombarded the prospectors' cabin with a shower of rocks as heavy as 30 pounds. It caved the building in and knocked one of the men unconscious for two hours. A search party later found the cabin destroyed just as the men had described it. The area took on the name "Ape Canyon."
"From 100 years ago, from 200 years ago, all the people describe the same thing," Bigfoot hunter Byrne says. "I find that fascinating."
Yet no bodies have been found. No confirmed hair samples. No confirmed scat. No evidence at all acceptable to the scientific community.
Often the people who make these reports are odd mountain men or drunken hunters, Bigfoot buffs acknowledge. Many reports have proven false, making the creature's existence even more dubious.
But Byrne points out that 73 aircraft have been lost in the Pacific Northwest forests since World War II. Finding a Bigfoot in these woods is like finding a needle in a haystack, he says, only the needle is moving and doesn't want to be found.
He also mentions the fishing boat that caught a coelacanth off the shores of South Africa in 1938. That lobe-finned fish, now dubbed the "living fossil," was thought to be extinct for 70 million years.
Snow leopards, Panda bears, mountain gorillas and many other of today's mammals were unknown or considered myths 150 years ago. Bigfoot may join that list some day, Byrne says, with help from an ex-rodeo rider from Yakima.
Caught on film
On Oct. 20, 1967, the Yakima man, named Roger Patterson, reportedly stumbled onto a female Bigfoot as she walked across a sand bar in Bluff Creek, Calif. He was tossed from his horse, but recovered in time to pull out a movie camera and shoot about a minute of film. That film, which shows a hairy figure rapidly moving out of camera range, is the most accepted -- yet also most debated -- piece of evidence Bigfoot believers have.
Larry Lund, a Bigfoot investigator who lives in Vancouver, says the Patterson film has kept him in pursuit of the creature for the past 30 years. He spends about five hours a night working on leads, watching video tapes, looking at old reports.
"I get Bigfoot burnout every year," he said. "But then I watch that film again, and off I go."
Lund and others who have studied the film say the movement of the female Bigfoot, its muscle bulges and twinges, its mannerisms, its stride, its fingernails, its perfect proportions, could not have been faked. Ray Crowe, who runs the 300-member Western Bigfoot Society out of his Portland bookstore, points out that the technology to make such a hoax just wasn't available then. Special effects crews from Disney and Universal studios who have examined the film agree.
Byrne says, with all of his years of study in the field, the Patterson film still is one of the best pieces of evidence that Bigfoot believers possess.
Byrne brings out a stack of pictures he took at the Patterson scene with a roughly 6-foot-tall, 160-pound human placed in the same spot as the female Bigfoot. His calculations put the creature at about 7-foot-3 and 400 pounds. He ponders how a man in a gorilla suit that large could move so smoothly. He rhetorically asks why a hoaxer would make his con job more difficult by creating huge breasts on the creature.
"If it is a fake," he said, "it's incredibly sophisticated., Still, that's completely unacceptable to scientists."
So Byrne has set out to once and for all prove Bigfoot's existence.
The Irishman has an on-call team that includes 65 volunteers, possibly the best tracker in the country and two helicopters with infra-red sensors. Each sighting Byrne determines is legitimate -- through personal interviews, site visits and a 100-question survey -- is then entered into a FBI computer tracking system, which tries to establish a time or date pattern. He has logged 101 entries so far, mostly from the Pacific Northwest.
"I could be anywhere in the world," he says. "If I didn't think there was something out there, I wouldn't be here. There is too much evidence, too many sane people who have seen something -- and who have seen the same thing -- for this just to be myth or hallucination."
Field Director Tod Deery, who has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, says, "I was a tremendous skeptic of this at first, and I still think there is a 10 percent chance that there aren't any of these things out there., But after experiencing the wilder places of this part of the country, I think it's plausible that a non-classified, land-dwelling life form exists."
Byrne recently bought and installed a custom-made, $ 150,000 surveillance system on Mount Hood. Each camera station connected to the system costs another $45,000.
He also has other expensive tools, including night vision goggles, video cameras and a biodart gun, which will take a tissue sample from an animal yet leave it unharmed.
Yet some competitors in the field still call Byrne a con man or a fraud.
John Green, one of Byrne's former colleagues, even went as far as to say The Bigfoot Research Project "has nothing to do with Bigfoot. The whole game is money and notoriety for Peter Byrne. The Sasquatch part is a joke."
Crowe of the Western Bigfoot Society says Green and other Byrne detractors just are jealous.
"Peter has an elaborate setup with plenty of funding, and they don't. It's that simple," Crowe said. "Peter has helped an awful lot of people get started looking for Bigfoot, and he goes out of his way to help them as they continue along."
Byrne says he doesn't concern himself with his critics. He knows what will silence them.
Then Byrne politely excuses himself. He has a lot of work to do, he explains.
His telephone is ringing.
TALL AND MEATY, BIGFOOT LUMBERS AROUND
General habits: Nomadic and nocturnal, with daytime activity only when disturbed.
Demeanor: Shy and non-aggressive, except when injured or threatened.
General characteristics: Face frequently described as apelike with a broad, flat nose and a lipless mouth. Head pointed with a sloping forehead covered by hair, including bangs. Arms longer than a human. Short neck and high shoulders.
Height: Mature adults range from 6 feet to 9 feet tall.
Weight: Estimates range from 300 to 600 pounds.
Coloration: Dark skin covered with hair that has been reported as black, beige, white and reddish brown.
Strength: Much stronger than humans.
Movement: Erect, or slightly stooped, with no evidence of the quadrupedal locomotion common with other large primates. Legs don't completely straighten as creature walks, which gives an impression that it's gliding.
Eyesight: Superb, with some evidence supporting night vision.
Hearing: Exceptionally acute.
Smell: Highly developed.
Eating habits: Omnivorous.
Sounds: Reports have been made of strange whistles and shrieks.
Life span: Unknown.
Number of living creatures: Unknown.
Reports: Most common in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Northern California, Florida and areas around the Great Lakes.
Foot size: Ranges from 12 to 22 inches in length, most commonly 14 to 18 inches, and usually about 7 inches wide.
Government protection: Since 1969, it has been against the law to kill a Bigfoot inside Skamania County lines.
Generally accepted scientific evidence of the species: None.