Of all the places on the planet where a
Sasquatch might be, this location should be one of the most likely in
the world. (click for more)
According to the BFRO database, (THE
most complete and diligent forum for investigated reports of Hairy
Humanoids) Washington State has 622 investigated reports, with Pierce
County having the highest number in the state (75) with King County
being 2nd at 46. Grays Harbor County, just up the coast has 42
reports.
At this writing, I am in Pacific County
at my beach cabin, but my main home is right next to the border
between King and Pierce, the two counties with the highest incidence
of Bigfoot accounts in the entire world.
Why do I think my current location is
ripe for an encounter? Two reasons: 1). Just about a mile from where
my flashlight punches into the dank woods lives a man who claims to
have a family of Sasquatches who he shares sandwiches with, and 2).
this place FEELS Bigfooty.
That wholly unscientific assessement is
a weak argument, yes, but the entire supposition that we share the
planet with a giant, hairy humanoid that is so ghost-like that it can
almost never be seen much less photographed is a visit to Crazytown
in itself.
My wife yells at Dog number two because
I have let it off the leash and the dog furrows into the wet bushes.
My focus on sleuthing is interrupted by her worry, and I cannot argue
with her because we HAVE seen bears here just last summer. At that
moment, when I turn to see where she is in the dark
I see a light across the fairway, on
hole number 5.
Its another human, with a flashlight
and I am surprised. On our frequent night time golf course sorties, I
have never seen another person here and so I stop behind a big tree
and watch them walk beyond the tee box and out of view back toward
the clubhouse. An employee out checking sprinkler heads or...?
Dog number 2 is back out running toward
the sand traps in the sixth green and so I follow, wondering if there
might be a nice, fat footprint in the perfect, freshly dampened
substrate.
No such luck, Chuck. I found the
telltale cloven-hooved tracks of a deer, though, arguably an
important Bigfoot food source, and I saw the fresh prints dog 2 had
made.
It's not THAT big, is it?
I tried to mash my own boot into the
edge of the trap, finding it rather firm underfoot. Bigfoot prints
have been found in sand before, most notably in the dunes near
Tillamook, Oregon, but these traps are raked regularly so my small
hopes are further diminished.
I am angling toward a dark corner of
the seventh tee box here, a place I have passed numerous times during
golf rounds and wondered about for its perfect concealment. From a
place just inside the scrub one can see the all the way to the
clubhouse and down the expanse of both the ninth and sixth fairways,
basically the entire golf course perimeter on two sides.
My fantasy is to come here at night
with a Sasquatch researcher/friend, with just a sack of snacks, a
couple of comfy lawn loungers and sleeping bags, and a night
vision/flir equipped video camera. We will make no fire, we will be
very quiet for the most part, but will àlso allow ourselves to be
noticed from time to time by any wildlife by chatting normally.
MopFoot, leaving the scene of a mess
In this way, according to my
acqauintances in the Bigfoot Research world, our chances of an
encounter are dramatically increased.
I could jam some apples into the the
stubs of broken tree branches, or, as in the case of my nearby
contact, leave peanut butter sandwiches on a tray, but that requires
more time and patience.
Wait, WHAT?
In the ongoing field of hairy hominid
research, patience IS the key. The hot trend revolves around
'habituation', which is just how any serious study of primates in
wild places is done.
Go to where they are seen/Bring
something they like to eat/Leave, but return later and watch
quietly/Repeat often. Also, do it at night.
Out on the beach, proper, I walk each
day and contemplate our concepts of time. Its easy to do in a place
that is so devoid of the markers of time. Sky meets Ocean, meets
Sand. On overcast days, all are shades of gray. The wind blows swift,
low curtains of sand grains against my legs and Sandpipers flit
through exceedingly rapid tumults in swarms like a single organism.
This feels timeless.
Humans think in terms of hours. How
long has it been since I ate something? How long until the sun goes
down? How many days until the weather gets cold. These signs, hunger,
aversion to cold or darkness are built in to our genes through
evolution. They are preciously short indicators as opposed to the
forces that sculpt the earth. This is probably why Global Warming is
such a hard sell to the general public. We, as untrained, short-lived
citizens, have difficulty with the concepts of geologic time.
And some suggest, as a growing number
of Sasquatch researchers believe, our quarry is particularly
long-lived, numbering the days into the mid-one hundred rountinely.
Wild speculation, of course, but some species of turtles live
well past 100 years and Bowhead Whales (also Greenland Sharks) have
an AVERAGE lifespan of 200.
Is it conceit that makes us think we
can lure a giant forest man-ape into meaningful contact with a P,B&J
or just a special brand of crazy?
Look, I TOLD you..NO WHEAT BREAD, dude.
My contact here at the beach believes
that Sasquatches do not like wheat bread. He believes that the
sandwiches he makes, Peanut butter and jelly on WHITE bread are the
best food to offer Bigfoot, through trial and error. The wheat bread
sandwiches were ignored while the white bread treats were scarfed up,
on one occasion, in broad daylight, just paces away, him on his
covered deck, an 8 foot tall Bigfoot behind the corner of an old
truck canopy, they both enjoyed their lunch.
Last July, I spotted him standing
outside his snazzy 4WD coupe across the street from Jacks Country
Store and pulled in to chat with him. I am keeping his identity on
the down low because I think its best, though he is a fairly open
book about his experiences. In fact, most of what I know about him I
learned from the internet and the BFRO. I will call him R.
R contacted the BFRO with the wild
story of his ongoing relationship, and investigators converged here
to see for themselves. Their verdict: R is telling the truth.
On the street corner, R is talking with
an older man, smoking a cigarette and being animated. He is tall, a
big man even, with longish hair and beard. He favors sleeveless
sweatshirts that show off his upper arm tattoo.
I try not to act too pushy, but I want
to know everything I can learn about his visitors.
'Ehh...they dont come around as much
during the summer when everbody comes to the beach.'
I am supressing my bullshit meter now,
and he continues, 'but I found a big footprint on the side of an
embankment by the house the other day.'
This is a far cry from his online claim
of hearing and seeing a Sasquatch try to speak an apparent name.
R rambled for an additonal twenty
minutes about recent positive changes in his life and and I knew any
useful information was not going to surface, so I handed him my
business card (carpentry) and asked him to email if he could about
having me stop by to see his situation.
Maybe he feels his 15 minutes of public
adoration are done now that the BFRO people have backed him up, so
having a fan club is less of a draw now.
I am on my own, then, and this is what
one of those investigators, Scott Taylor, told me.
'Just go out in your own backyard at
night and wait quietly.....they will come to you.'
'I, ah, tried to reason..with you people...but, ah..Obamafoot OUT!'
