Finding Bigfoot - Ohio Field Notes

Ohio was a natural choice for an episode of Finding Bigfoot. There are hundreds of reports from there, and I would guess that Ohio has more bigfoot researchers there than anywhere outside of the Pacific Northwest. Matt Moneymaker lived in Ohio while he attended law school in Akron during the 1990's, and knows that area well. I had done an expedition there a few years back near Beaver Creek State Park soon after an excellent vocalization was recorded there, and indeed I heard what I believe was a sasquatch at very close range one night on that trip. I knew it was just a matter of time until we did an expedition there.

The video we came to investigate was taken by a man named Jeff Patterson at Salt Fork State Park. Jeff started calling himself the “Squatchmaster” at some point, and has since posted many short films on his Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSquatchmaster ). The film shows a dark, upright figure walking through shallow snow to a tree. It then grabs the tree and starts shaking it back and forth until the video clip ends. The footage clearly shows either a bigfoot or a human.

Jeff Patterson's bigfoot video from Salt Fork State Park.

Jeff's story starts before his video does. According to Jeff, he was sledding in Salt Fork State Park with several of his children. They parked at a parking lot and Jeff and his son, Chris went towards the woods to look around for bigfoot footprints. They had run across possible prints just a few weeks before in this same area, and they wanted to see if any more had shown up.

They soon reportedly heard snapping noises in the woods, and they both followed the noises. A sasquatch was seen walking along the nearby trail, which is in a small ravine and runs through the area. They paralled it a short ways and lost sight of it, but could still hear it. Soon they saw it again a distance away as it walked out of the ditch and towards the tree. This is where the film starts, so you know the rest. After the film ends, Jeff doesn't know what the figure did because he was leaving the area.

An interesting component of the video is that one can faintly hear speaking in the background. Jeff and Chris both said they were the only ones there, but the noises can readily be heard. Jeff and Chris said that they could hear two creatures making noises to each other. When Chris was asked what they sounded like, he said the noises sounded like a sasquatch. Hmmm... a red flag had been raised.

We found the same tree that the figure was shaking in the video, but it had been knocked down and broken by the time we got there. Jeff remembered where he was standing while he filmed, and it was not difficult to find the exact camera position by aligning the numerous trees and branches visible in the footage. This would later give insight into the height of the figure as well. We were also able to do our recreation using the same camera Jeff used for the original footage.

A photo from our recreation.  Bobo is the blue blob in

the center of the photo.

Another red flag was raised while we were interviewing Jeff and his son. Being a professional educator, and having taught fourth through sixth grades for more than a decade, I was very eager to speak to Chris about the encounter. Most teachers are very good at determining when a student is telling the truth or not, or even if they are leaving out important details. I figured that my experience would give me a pretty good handle on the authenticity of Chris' version of the story.

When I asked Chris what the thing looked like, he said that he saw a large, dark figure shaking a tree. When he was asked if he could see its face, Chris answered that he saw a large, dark figure shaking a tree. When asked about if it was covered in hair, he said that he saw a large, dark figure shaking a tree. It was soon becoming pretty clear that Chris had probably been coached on what to say.

Comparing our recreation video to the original, it was obvious that whatever is in that clip is not very big. It seems to be about six to ten inches shorter than Bobo. Looking very closely at the original video, there seem to be some frames that hint at the figure wearing clothing as well, though this is less than sure.

Before we did our investigation, I received some information that the Squatchmaster video had been proven a hoax, so I did some online investigating into the work done by others on this film. I ran across a very reliable reference to a video where Jeff Patterson himself confessed that the video was a hoax, and that he did not believe that there were any bigfoots in Salt Fork State Park. At one point he said that he believes the footprints found in Salt Fork were the result of other bigfoot investigators trying to hoax him. The videos in which Jeff confessed these things had since been removed from his Youtube channel. Looking again, I found that all of the Squatchmaster videos were only a month or so old. It occurred to me that it had only been a month or so since the producers had contacted him about using his video for the show. I suspect that Jeff did a major house-cleaning on his Youtube page at about this time for obvious reasons.

At the end of every video recreation, each team member has to tell the witness to his/her face what we think of the video. Sometimes this gets a little uncomfortable, especially for Ranae when she tells them they're wrong or lying. Now it was my turn to feel a bit awkward. Jeff and Chris had been nothing but kind to us, and were enjoying their time recreating the film.

Each team member took his or her turn telling Jeff that the film probably doesn't show a sasquatch. My turn came up and I looked Jeff in the eye and told him that I did some digging on the history of this film. “Since you are on record yourself saying that the film doesn't show a sasquatch, why should I think it does?” were the words I used. Jeff agreed with me. Bobo later told me that Jeff looked like he was going to cry. I'm glad he didn't. I felt a bit bad. Jeff and his son showed up to the town hall meeting the next night and waved at us when we walked by, so I guess it didn't hurt his feelings too badly.

Typical Ohio bigfoot habitat.

That first night's investigation was done not far from Jeff's film site. Bobo and I teamed up together and hiked various horse trails through the woods for several hours. We heard strange calls on two occasions that night. The first time was when Bobo and I crested a hill and he did a call. A short reply call came from our north west. Bobo immediately thought it was a human, and it might have been. In fact, at the time, I thought it was too. Later, after looking at a map, I realized that it seemed rather unlikely that anyone was in that area. I do not know what made those sounds, honestly...

The second set of sounds came a while later after Bobo and I left the hill top and were hiking in a densely forested canyon. This call came from our south, from the direction of the road. Again, we assumed it was a person doing the noises, but the crew back at base camp later told us that almost no cars were seen driving the roads that night, and they saw no people in the area either. It's possible that both of the evening's sounds were human, but I would give either one, but the first one in particular, a fair chance of being from something else...

The town hall meeting was excellent. There were over 170 people in attendance, and many of them were bigfooters. When we asked who had seen or heard a bigfoot, a staggering number of hands shot up. We took the time to listen to each and every person's story, which took several hours. After marking them all on a map, I finally got a chance to mingle and talk to some folks. I met many people that night, but a highlight for me was to meet Don Keating. Don has been researching bigfoots in that area since the 1980's, and his name has been on my radar for a long time. I was thrilled to meet him.

Cliff Barackman and Don Keating

The next day I went to speak to Chief Little Soldier of the Munsee/Delaware Indian Reservation. Chief Little Soldier told us about the two eyewitness sightings that he had had on the property over the last three years, as well as the numerous strange sounds he had heard, and the footprints he finds while walking the land. I investigated his most recent sighting from May of 2011, but a year or two before, he saw a smaller individual running through the trees just under the ridge line above him while walking the trails.

The sighting I investigated happened while Chief Little Soldier was pounding in a trail maker. He looked up the trail to see a creature walking across the trail and into the ravine below. The creature brushed its head against a branch as it ran downwards, and took the slope and cleared the river in six or seven steps. Using the branch as a marker, we figured out that the creature stood at about 7 feet, 5 inches tall, give or take a bit.

The red arrow marks the branch that brushed
against the sasquatch's head.  The gully it ran into
is behind and down from the tree.

Chief Little Soldier had been finding footprints of three individuals in the area over the years. One individual has feet of 17 inches in length, another of 15 inches, and a smaller one a little less than 10 inches. He believes that he most recently saw the 15 inch individual.

Just a few days before, Chief Little Soldier found prints of the smallest individual on one of the trails nearby. While Chief Little Soldier was filming his recreation, I sneaked off to try to find the footprint.  Using the directions Chief Little Soldier gave me, I soon located a very faint yet obvious footprint right on the same stretch of trail I was directed to.  It had been several days, and rain had occurred, but the print was worthy of a photograph, no matter how poorly the picture turned out.

A small footprint from the Munsee/Delaware Indian Reservation.

Though I did not investigate her sighting, I would like to make a comment on Lorena's sighting report of a sasquatch watching her children play in a playground. It was a very close range, daylight sighting with no chance of mistaking a bear or deer for a bigfoot. She watched it for long enough to observe some very interesting physical details. As it turns out, there is an eyewitness drawing of this bigfoot, as well as a short description of the account on the BFRO website here.

After getting Bobo from the woods, all four of us went to meet with Tim Stover. He encountered a bigfoot on October 6, 1992 while crossbow hunting in Salt Fork State Park. Tim was perched in a tree stand watching and listening when he caught sight of a 7.5 to 8 feet tall, coyote-colored sasquatch coming up the hill towards his location. He saw it quite clearly and was only 38 yards away. Interestingly, Tim remembered that he could see no whites in its eyes at all.

Tim Stover and the gang from Finding Bigfoot

Because of the sheer number of people who are interested in bigfoot in this part of Ohio, we decided to invite the public out for another grid search, much like the one we held in North Carolina during season one. The weather was not nearly as nice that day as it was in North Carolina, but still a great many people came out to comb the forests with us. I spent much of the time walking with families and interpreting things that were pointed out to me as possible bigfoot evidence.

I did not see anything that day that I would consider bigfoot data, which probably explains my absence from that particular clip of the show. However, we did come across a strange thing that defies explanation on my part. Over the course of the day, I saw two or three small branches that were sticking out of the ground, as if pushed in the mud. They were embedded about two or three inches deep into the soft soil. No substrate nearby had been disturbed. I am guessing that these 18 to 24 inch long branches had fallen out of the trees and stuck into the ground that way, but it was a puzzling thing to see. I still had a great time meeting the local people and talking about bigfoot with fellow bigfooters.

The last night investigation was held on the fringes of the park away from any place humans might go, such as a campground or picnic area. We started in a cemetery and headed out into open fields surrounded by ravines that lead down to the reservior. These ravines are heavily treed in and very brushy. It was kind of a long night, and my team only heard coyotes until Bobo notified us that something just hit the ground nearby where he and Ranae were standing. He said it was possibly a rock, but he couldn't be sure. Matt and I went to their location to help solve the mystery. Bobo and Ranae showed us where the sound came from, and together we all four slowly searched the area. One of us ran across a walnut fruit and suggested that this might have been the source of the sound. Sure enough, there was a walnut tree not far from our location, and it was very possible that the fruit had just fallen out of the tree nearby and made the reported noise.

As a test, Matt tossed the walnut fruit into the air. We wanted to hear the noise for ourselves, and we wanted Bobo and Ranae to compare the two sounds. The walnut fruit went twenty or so feet into the air and fell directly on Ranae causing an explosion of laughter. We know Matt didn't do it on purpose, because he would have missed. It was too perfect, and a great way to end the night. We solved the mystery of the sound, and we got to witness a perfectly slapstick moment after a long night in the woods.

This was my second trip to Ohio, and I can't wait to get back out there to do some more bigfooting. The entire eastern side of the state has excellent habitat for bigfoot, which is only part of the reason there are so many reports from there. The other part is the number of bigfooters looking into the mystery from that area. By their good efforts, more information will continue to come from that region. Thank you, bigfooters in Ohio and neighboring states, for your work. Keep it up.

Enjoy some other pictures from my adventures in Ohio:

Cliff Barackman and Chief Little Soldier

In a clip that didn't make the show, I got to ride around in
this Amish buggy.  It was very cool.

"Buggy Parking Please..."

A giant cookie from the hotel staff.
Thank you!

"Dangerous Cliff"

Hosak's Cave

Salt Fork State Park is indeed a very bigfooty spot.

Western Bigfoot Society Meeting

For you long-term bigfooters out there, you probably remember Ray Crowe and the Western Bigfoot Society. The WBS published a monthly newsletter called, "The Track Record," and the group held monthly meetings featuring various guest speakers for years and years until Ray experienced some health problems and dropped from the scene.

Ray Crowe and a friend.

As of a few months ago, Ray and the WBS have now returned to the scene in that the monthly meetings are now again being hosted.  I am happy to say that at next weekend's meeting on February 4th, I will be the guest speaker.

The meeting will be at Pattie's Home Plate Cafe, which is located at 8501 N. Lombard, Portland, OR 97255.  There will be a social hour from 6 pm until 7 pm, and I will start speaking at 7 o'clock.  The cost is manageable, too: totally free.

It will be an informal affair, and there will be lots of time to just hang out and mingle.  I hope to see you there.

Finding Bigfoot - Alberta, Canada - Video Debrief

Craig Flipy and Cliff Barackman once again sit down to talk about the most recent episode of Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot, but this time they are accompanied by Guy Edwards from Bigfoot Lunch Club.  Enjoy!

Finding Bigfoot - Alberta, Canada Field Notes

Looking at a map, it is clear that Canada is a really big country, but it took visiting the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies for its sheer vastness to really hit home with me. The terrain is so big, and vistas so grand, that describing it as awe-inspiring falls short of the real experience.

While there is more than ample room for many sasquatches in the mountains outside of Calgary, Alberta, there is not a great number of sightings on record. I think this can be attributed to not only the huge amounts of land for the bigfoots to inhabit, but also to the fairly small number of people. 

Back in the 1970's, veteran bigfooter John Green noticed the correlation between rain fall bigfoot sightings. The eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies receives significantly less precipitation than the mountains of British Columbia to the west, and the number of sasquatch encounters reported drops in proportion. To find a bigfoot in this vast landscape would be harder than usual, and it's never an easy task.

We came to the area to investigate a video obtained by Todd Standing. I heard about Todd several years ago as a man who had supposedly obtained several pieces of footage of sasquatches at a secret spot that he called “Sylvanic.” He then put the clips together into some sort of film and was showing it in small movie theaters around Canada. Not long after, his name popped up again as a man who was lobbying the Canadian parliament for official protection of sasquatches.

Todd Standing and Cliff Barackman

Having never really taken the time to look closely at Todd's videos, I was pleased to be going to meet him. I find that so much more information comes out when speaking to the actual videographer, and it was an opportunity to come to an informed opinion on Todd's work for myself .

We met Todd on a rainy day in an empty campground where several bigfoot encounters had happended over the previous several years. He refused to take a jacket or use any rain gear, claiming it was not cold. He was soon shivering in a wet, cotton shirt, maintaining his position that it was a nice day.

Todd is a very polite and well-spoken man. I genuinely liked the guy, as well as his message regarding sasquatches: protect them, and let them be. He has taken great strides to increase the public's awareness of bigfoots through his actions. While these actions are labeled as self-serving by his critics, the fact that attention was brought to sasquatches is undeniable.

Todd currently lives in Calgary, but he lived several hundred miles away when he obtained his videos at Sylvanic. He told us that he could not take us to the actual spot because it is a three-day hike back to this secluded valley, and the last day would be spent belly crawling up a river bed in a specially designed gillie suit made by Todd himself. He went on to say that nobody wants to be back there because of the problem grizzly bears that inhabit that area. He claimed that the rangers say there is a 10% chance of being killed by a bear while in the area, and it was too dangerous to go. It seemed to me that a bunch of hurdles were put in the way of anyone wanting to see the location for themselves. Todd did offer to take anyone there who wanted to go at a later time, but it would take a week or two for the trek.

Questioning Todd, I soon learned that at this time he had five videos that had bigfoots in them. The first video is apparently only a sound recording with no images of sasquatches (I didn't get to hear the recording). We investigated video number two, with the creature quickly bending over out of sight while above Todd on a hill. His third video shows what is either a bigfoot or a man in suit running on a hillside. This creature is the same brownish orange color as the creature in video number two. Video number four is a close up of what appears to me to be a bigfoot puppet behind some branches. Its dark eyes stare unblinking off to frame right, and there is very little movement visible. The skin appears very much like felt, and its fur lacks the flow pattern that one would expect from a living creature. Video number five is a similar shot, but with a much more convincing bigfoot head. It slightly resembles Patty from the Patterson/Gimlin film, but with a rounder face and more dog-like nose. Over the last month or so, there seems to have been another still released showing this same head, but possibly from another film.

I asked Todd what was up with video number four, the one that looked like a Muppet head. He said that he does not know why it looked so bad. He suggested that the lighting might have made it appear that way.

We were to be investigating his second video, the one with a brief glimpse of a creature bending down facing away from the camera. The video is very brief, but it seemed that it showed something bipedal and hairy. An arm and even possible buttox muscles can be seen, or are at least suggested. We were to rely solely on Todd's measurements since we were unable to go to the actual film site. This would be problematic for our reconstruction, as going to the actual film site is very important for a sense of scale.  Trusting someone's measurements when you're trying to find out if their film was hoaxed makes little sense anyways, but it's all we had to go on.  

Todd claimed to have not even believed in bigfoots at the time he obtained his second video. It was his film flip that convinced him they were real. This was very peculiar to me because he claimed to have made approximately a dozen trips to the location trying to film a bigfoot by the time he got his video. He chose Sylvanic as likely bigfoot habitat, and he even developed an intricate theory of sasquatch social/family structure, all before he believed in bigfoots. I personally don't believe that griffons exist, and I don't plan expeditions based on how they would live (if they were real) to see if I'm wrong...

Questioning Todd further, we found that he was unaware of the elevation of the Sylvanic location. He said that he never paid attention. This, if true, would be a very dangerous thing to ignore, as we would soon find out during that night's investigation (it snowed on us in August). How could Todd have chosen a location, planned his hikes in (most likely using topographic maps), visited a dozen times, and not noticed the elevation? This seems very unlikely.

When investigating a film, I sometimes think of the late Rene Dahinden and his comments on the Patterson/Gimlin Film.  He said that what you need to know is in the film.  Certainly, Rene would think that the context of a film is very important, too, but I like to examine films starting with what is actually seen.  Good films stand on their own, and their context only serves to reinforce or put in doubt a clip's authenticity. 

With so little to go on for video number two, I am left with not knowing what is in it. The film looks like either a bigfoot or a guy in a suit bending over. Since there is very little information to be gleaned from the actual video, I have to rely on the context. Todd was unable or unwilling to go to the actual spot, there were inconsistencies in his story surrounding the clip, and there's that Muppet face staring, unblinking in film number four... These leave me with serious doubts about what is shown in any of his videos.

Expressing my concerns to Todd, he correctly stated that video will never be enough for proof. How true. Todd goes on to say that only a body will ever suffice. As much as I hope this isn't the case, it could very well be the grizzly truth at the end of the bigfoot mystery.

We did the first night investigation in a nearby valley. Ranae and Bobo headed up a trail while Matt and I walked up a road. It was raining, but as my team gained elevation, the precipitation quickly turned into a heavy snow. It was a dramatic change from just a few days before when we were roasting in the mosquito-filled swamps of Northern Minnesota. It was also a reminder of paying attention to your elevation. Ignoring such a detail could prove to have fatal consequences here in the Canadian Rockies, even in the middle of August.

The night investigation was relatively quiet. Our calls were magnificent, though. The rocky walls of the valley threw our vocalizations for literally miles in both direction. We counted to see how long our echoes lasted after we stopped calling: eight seconds. It was very cool.

The Canadian Rockies are amazing in their size.

The next day, we were to meet with tribal representatives from the Stoney Nakota First Nations tribe. The elders were considering helping us in our quest, but they wanted to ask us some questions before they agreed. Bobo and I met Lenny and Peter (a different Peter than the one who blessed us on camera) for breakfast. After a short meeting, they realized that we were not there with the intention to hurt sasquatches in any way. They shared that things are changing, and the elders were interested in helping raise consciousness about sasquatches. Lenny and Peter soon were comfortable that Bobo and I had good hearts, and we shared some common goals and ideas. They agreed to bless us in a smudge ceremony the following day.

Lenny is a master tracker. He has had several encounters with bigfoots on tribal lands over the years, and gave us much to think about. He reminded us that there is more to this world than what can be observed with the five senses, and he shared his tribe's belief that sasquatches walk the line between two worlds. He taught us about noticing the temperature differences at different elevations within a valley, which dramatically affect the direction of air currents at that level. He told us about the habits of the deer, elk, and moose in the neighboring valleys. He reminded us to trust our feelings and intuitions. He was obviously a master tracker, and probably part Jedi who is clearly strong in the Force.

Our town hall had a pretty good turn out, especially when considering the nasty weather that was hitting the area. Many reports surfaced from the local area and as far away as Edmonton. Lenny showed up to the meeting and addressed the crowd for a few moments with his message as well.

The next day, Ranae and I met with Tyler Huggins. Tyler saw a bigfoot while hiking with his brother and a dog. The sasquatch darted across the trail just 15 or 20 feet in front of his brother, while Tyler was a bit further back. Both witnesses got a clear view of the creature. The sasquatch ran down a very steep slope, hurdling logs and debris until it was out of sight. Tyler then observed a large tree being violently shaken, though he could only see the top of the tree, not the creature doing the shaking. While Ranae kind of came a little close to replicating the running across the path, she would not even attempt to sprint down the hill, let alone hurdle the debris in her path.

While the crew was filming the recreation of Tyler's sighting, I walked up the trail a few hundred yards and then off into the brush a ways.  Sitting in undergrowth and enjoying the quiet, I started looking around.  Just from where I was sitting, I saw no less than five types of edible plants, including raspberries and rose hips.  When you consider that I am unfamiliar with the plants of this region, there are probably many others growing nearby that are nutritious.  It is clear how so many large mammals can live in this area.  There is abundant food, at least in this time of year.

Wild roses and their seed pods called rose hips

The next day, all four of us interviewed Lonni and Donna about their encounter. They were both attendees on a BFRO expedition that lasted several days. Several occurrences hinted at sasquatches being in the area, with the strongest evidence being the rock that was thrown at the tent. The night of the rock throwing, a group of women stayed in camp and talked with each other, laughing often. I believe these sounds caught the attention of a local bigfoot and brought it in for a closer look.

Lonni shared photographs of an indistinct track way through the grass with us, and told us of his encounter the night before with something that gave him a low growl that he could “feel through his body.” While no visual sighting was had, the context strongly suggests that a bigfoot came by to see what was going on.

Our last night investigation took place a short distance away from Lonni and Donna's encounter location. We were to be using a mechanical deer to try to draw any predators (or other animals) out into the open so we could film them. The deer looked great until it was made to move by using a remote control. Its head would slowly twist right to left, and its tail would slowly flick up and down. It strongly reminded me of the Washington episode from first season with that remote control goose cam. Like the goose cam, it was clear that the technology for remote controlled deer is lacking. After a few wiggles solely for the sake of the camera, I let the deer just be still. I thought it might have a better chance to draw something out that way.

Cliff and a friend

While Ranae and I were in the hunting blind with the thermal camera, Bobo and Matt climed a nearby hill to do calls. We were hoping their calls would draw some attention to the meadows below where Ranae and I were stationed. At one point, Matt claimed to have heard a bigfoot vocalization through the parabolic dish he was using. Bobo did not hear it at the time, and the recording was faint and muddy.

Down below, Ranae and I heard a very interesting sound. It sounded like a clear, high pitched tone, almost like a bell tone, but clearly organic. We both agreed that it was unlikely to be from a coyote, and neither of us knows what made the noise.  It came from a good distance, and much further away than the coyotes we had been hearing off and on for several hours.  The call was made twice, and not heard again.

The Canadian Rockies were a challenging place to go bigfooting. The area is simply huge, and there are very few roads penetrating the higher elevations. Not a lot of sightings come out of the area were were in, but then again, there aren't a ton of people there either. What people there are stay in the cities, or on the few roads that are available. Still, the witnesses we spoke to at the meeting, the lore and knowledge shared with us by the Stoney Nakota First Nation Tribe, as well as the sightings we investigated leave little doubt that bigfoots live in the area.

On our one day off, Ranae and I went to Lake Louise

in Banff National Park. It was staggeringly beautiful, but

packed to the gills with tourists...

Feel free to make your own caption for this one.

Share it with me by leaving a comment below.