Halloween Costume Contest

A squatchy jack-o-lantern carved by Tom Yamarone

I love Halloween, and to celebrate this holiday, I've decided to hold a costume contest on my official Facebook fan page. The three winners will receive free copies of my DVD, Bigfoot Road Trip. The rules are below, but go to my Facebook page to participate! Have fun!

HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTEST
The Theme is: "Keepin' It Squatchy"
Send in your BIGFOOT themed costumes for a chance to win! Here's how it works:

1. The DAY AFTER Halloween - on Friday, November 1st - I'll make two Facebook posts throughout the day.
2. Just 'Comment' with your City and State on either of those posts and 'Attach' your photo
3. The 3 separate photos with the most 'Likes,' or just my personal favorites, will win one of my new Bigfoot Roadtrip DVD's!

This contest ends at 12:00 Midnight MDT on Friday, November 1st. Winners will be notified by Facebook message on Saturday, November 2nd. Please note; many kids watch my Facebook page, so let's keep the photo's and comments fun and clean!

The London Trackway - Track #65

London Track #65

London Track number 65 has now been added to the London Trackway database.  This cast has a strange artifact that makes me wonder how it occurred.

Read more about it here.

Historical 1977 Article Featuring Jerry Crew

From the files of Jon Crew comes this interesting article from October 26, 1977.  A lengthy interview with more historical artifacts from the Crew family will be featured in Bigfoot Road Trip Volume 2, due out next summer.

Willow Creek comes to Portland

The Willow Creek movie poster holds some
very disturbing, yet fascinating images.

My favorite bigfoot movie, Willow Creek is coming to Portland, OR.  And the best part is that I am actually on break from filming this week and will be able to attend!  

Willow Creek is the most recent "found footage" genre film by actor, comedian, and director Bobcat Goldthwait.  I reported about the movie after seeing a screening in Arcata, CA a few months ago, and was blown away by the movie.  I laughed at my friends in the footage, and loved the tension Goldthwait built up in several scenes of the movie.  I feel he captured the eerie feeling of what a real bigfoot encounter can be like.  

If you're in the Portland, OR area this Tuesday, I strongly recommend you come to the Hollywood Theater to check out this film.  I'll be there, Bobcat will be there, and you never know who else might show up.  

Who:  

Me, you, and Bobcat

What: 

Willow Creek movie screening

Where: 

Hollywood Theater

4122 NE Sandy Blvd.

Portland, OR 97212

When:

Tuesday Oct. 22

7:30 pm

How much: 

$12

Bryce Johnson (the leading male actor in Willow Creek) poses
with Cliff and Bobcat at the Orleans Ranger Station in CA

Everybody has a CliffCast

This past week, I was lucky enough to be featured on an internet radio show hosted by Ryan Fielder, one of the forward-thinking hosts of a program on EverybodyHasaPodcast.com.  I spent about a half-hour with Ryan and others, and what they have produced is now available.

Click here to listen:
http://everybodyhasapodcast.com/ep-29-talking-squatch-cliff-barackman/

Cliff at WSU this Thursday!

On Thursday night, I will be speaking at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. It is an honor to have been invited to the campus where Dr. Grover Krantz once taught!  I will be presenting a talk on the best evidence for bigfoot, featuring videos, photographs, footprints, and more,and I hope to see you there!

Finding Bigfoot goes to New York Comic Con

Attention nerds, geeks, and those in denial!  Finding Bigfoot is coming to the New York Comic Con on Saturday, October 12th.  There will be a couple opportunities to meet us or hear us speak throughout the day.  You might even find us hobnobbing with various superheroes (or heroines) after the gig over a tasty pint in one of New York City's fine brewpubs.

Between 1:30 and 2:30, I will be signing copies of the new Finding Bigfoot book.  The other cast members said they'd drop by the table and sign for a while as well, so come find me and say hello.  Click this link for more details on the book signing.

Later in the evening, the entire Finding Bigfoot cast will be doing a panel discussion led by our executive producer at Animal Planet, Keith Hoffman.  You also know him as the host of the "After the Show" episodes that have become so popular.  The panel discussion will be from 7:45 until 8:45.  Click this link for more information.  Be sure to get in line early for this one, as seats are limited.

Finding Bigfoot with the Huffington Post

Cliff and Andy do some calls

Earlier in the month, I posted a short video of me taking Andy from the Huffington Post out bigfooting in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.  Now a written article has been released detailing some of the events of that evening, and general comments made throughout the night.  Enjoy the article below:

Bigfoot Hunting With The 'Finding Bigfoot' Team Reveals ... Something In The Water

Andy Campbell

Andy.campbell@huffingtonpost.com

It was pitch black. We couldn't make a sound. And all we had to protect us were vision cameras, sticks, and a few chicken wings.

We heard a splash that made us jump.

HuffPost Weird News went on a Bigfoot hunt in the pine wilds of New Jersey with Cliff Barackman and Tyler Bounds of Animal Planet's "Finding Bigfoot" -- and conditions were perfect.

The weather was calm at the Franklin Parker Preserve, where we had exclusive access for the night. Some ambient light gave us a farther sight distance. We started our trek with a simple tactic: The "knock," which consists of banging sticks against trees.

Click here to read the rest of the article.  

The London Trackway - Track #76

London Track #76

London Track number 76 has now been added to the database.  This one is particularly clean and well-defined.  All five digits are clearly visible, and there is some indication of independent toe movement.  

For more information and photos of this cast, click here.

Historical Sightings near Bristol, VA

This recent article caught my eye because the location is very near where we filmed the Virginia episode of Finding Bigfoot.  It sounds like they had a pretty aggressive bigfoot in the area over 100 years ago.

A Bigfoot sighted near Bristol began a reign of terror
BY BUD PHILLIPS | SPECIAL TO THE BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

It seems that all across America, there are areas that have tales of what might be called “Bigfoot stories.” Virtually all of them tell of a super-sized giant resembling a human being. The detailed descriptions vary as to size and shape, but there are some things in common. Generally it is told that the footprints are in the 18-20 inch range. Also, the gigantic body is usually covered in black or brown hair. This hair is usually said to be muddy or matted and in most cases, there is a long, overwhelming eye-burning scent that lingers long after the beast has passed. Some say they have encountered the scent without encountering the sight and have fled.

Most of these bigfoot reports come from the Pacific Northwest, but there are other scattered stories coming from other parts of the nation. In Virginia, I am aware of reports that include Culpepper, Dinwiddie, Orange, Highland, Amherst, Bath, Prince William, Giles and Wythe counties. In the area of Tennessee near Bristol, there are claims made of such in Johnson, Greene, Hancock and Hawkins counties.

To read the rest of the article which includes some interesting behavior reports, click here.  

The Huffington Post Goes Bigfooting with Cliff

Watch the video below for light-hearted footage of me taking Huffington Post reporter, Andy Campbell out for a night investigation in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.  Andy is a good guy, and well-versed on much of the current bigfoot news that hits the mainstream media.  His stuff is worth a read.

There's actually a lot of bigfoot-related stuff this week in the "Weird" section of the Huff Post.  Maybe you should check it out.  

The London Trackway - Track #2

London Track #2

London Track number two has now been added to the database.  It was not cast, but was photographed with a scale item.  This is also one of the footprints from which step length metrics were derived.

Click here to learn more about this track.

The London Trackway - Track #52

London Track #52

Track number 52 offers clear impressions of all five toes, which is fairly rare among the London Tracks. The drag-out marks on the distal edge of the toes is very smooth, yet the underside of the toes themselves is quite rough. The striations are angled towards the medial edge of the foot, possibly indicating a leg-lift towards the centerline of travel when the foot was removed from the substrate.

For more photos and information on this cast, click here.

Non-Human Primates Whisper to Each Other

A Cotton-top tamarin at Schwerin Zoo.
Credit: Harald Hoyer / Wikipedia.

An interesting article recently caught my attention.  It has now been officially documented that a species of non-human primate whispers to other members of its species when not wanting to be detected or overheard.  It has long been known that other species engage in a sort of whispering.  Even gophers do it.  However, this is the first recorded instance of deliberate whispering to both avoid detection and communicate threat in a non-human primate.

I have been told by bigfooters that they have heard what they thought were sasquatches whispering back and forth to each other.  No recording was made, but I have no reason to doubt the observation that the murmuring noises seemed to resemble whispering.  (Whether or not the bigfooters' interpretation was correct is another matter.)  This study verifying the behavior in non-human primates strengthens the researchers' claims that the bigfoots might have been whispering.

An exciting aspect to this discovery is whether or not this same behavior can be documented in great apes.  I predict it will be, but we all have to wait to find out.

Enjoy this most interesting article:

Research duo discover first instance of non-human primates whispering to each other
Sep 25, 2013 by Bob Yirka

(Phys.org) —Psychology researchers Rachel Morrison and Diana Reiss of The City University of New York have discovered the first instance of non-human primates whispering to one another. In their paper published in Zoo Biology, the two describe how they recorded vocalizations of captive tamarin monkeys and found that when threatened they sometimes revert to whispering to one another to avoid being overheard.

Whispering is a common strategy used by people to communicate with one or more people while simultaneously trying to avoid having others hear. Other animals have been found to lower the volume of their communications as well under certain circumstances, but never before has any primate other than humans been found to do so. In this new effort, the discovery was inadvertent.
Click this link to read the rest of the article.

Skull Morphology Tied to Bipedalism

Comparison of the skeletons of three bipedal mammals:
an Egyptian jerboa, an eastern gray kangaroo and a human.
(Credit: Image courtesy of University of Texas at Austin)

This sounds like a no-brainer, but the scientific debate has lingered for almost 90 years.  Finally, the relationship between the foramen magnum (the hole at the base of your skull through which the brain stem transmits) and bipedalism has been proven beyond doubt.

This is important to us bigfooters in regards to future cranial discoveries of apes, and particularly hominids and our ancestors.  As we learn more about bigfoots, humans, and our relationship on the primate family tree, we need to know where the big hairy guys belong.  Are they hominids?  Are they Silvapithecus offshoots?  Are they something else entirely?  Only by learning about our ancestors can we shed any light onto these mysteries.  Certainly, chief among the concerns about possible ancestory would be bipedalism.


Anthropologists Confirm Link Between Cranial Anatomy and Two-Legged Walking
Sep. 26, 2013 — Anthropology researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have confirmed a direct link between upright two-legged (bipedal) walking and the position of the foramen magnum, a hole in the base of the skull that transmits the spinal cord.

Read the rest of the article by clicking this link.