(cross posted, with minor alterations at UFOMystic.)

After listening to another intriguing and spooky interview with David Paulides (Coast to Coast, George Knapp host) last night, I found myself rethinking not only Dr. Ketchum, but Bigfoot as well.

For awhile I was excited about what Dr. Melba Ketchum would find. So was last night's C2C host George Knapp, who interviewed Dr. Melba Ketchum some time ago. Lots of games, it seemed, lots of attacks, lots of the to be expected nonsense in the world of Bigfoot.  (UFO World doesn't fare any better in this context.) Then I was disappointed and jaded. Then I just didn't care. 

But if David Paulides's explanation on the entire Ketchum journey was accurate -- no journal would review her findings, etc. -- and if the evidence is truly what it says it is, then there's still hope. And bafflement, for it seems everyone just walked away from this. Of course, I haven't read the report, and Paulides pointed out that many who criticized Ketchum and the findings haven't actually read the thing. I can't comment much more than these idle musings of mine because I am not a scientist, and I haven't read the report; just the reports of reports. It is also too bad Ketchum seems to have behaved badly at times. Maybe this was due to simply being overwhelmed by her lone seeker status out there in Bigfoot Land. Lots of naivety, at best, and silly sloppy missteps seemed to have happened, adding to a carnival-like,  here we go again feeling in Bigfoot Land.  But all that can be ignored if the evidence is what it's supposed to be: Bigfoot is not a giant ape, but something completely different. That's huge of course and huger still: Bigfoot is both its own mysterious self, as well as part of us. Yet after a few people acknowledged this finding, people went missing. Some were offended, some laughed, but we haven't seen any paradigm shifting news stories break on CNN. 

Meanwhile, David Paulides continues his research into the strange stories of missing humans in parks and forests. Many of these missing are children. He alludes to the possibility;  Bigfoot, or a Bigfoot like creature, as being responsible for these disappearances. The few children who have been found alive after going missing for a few days have strange tales to tell of "ape men" and other high strangeness. In last night's interview on C2C, Paulides referred to Native Americans and their tales of Bigfoot -- as being human -- and their on-going relationships with this being. Yet, with some exceptions, most, including BF researchers, ignore this fact.

What's strange about the missing humans is that they disappear abruptly, often in daylight, often while in the near proximity of others. While logic says these missing people would be found downhill, or near water, they are often found (if found at all) quite a distance aways, and uphill, over extremely rough terrain difficult to cover. Very weird for adults, and much stranger still in the case of little children. Stories of "ape men," and other inexpiable events add to this mystery. Adding fuel to conspiratorial speculation (which doesn't mean it's invalid) is the presence of military in some of these cases, who act covertly and separate from parks authorities and local law enforcement agencies while ostensibly searching for the missing.

IF Bigfoot is responsible for these disappearances, that's cause for a shift in beliefs about we think Bigfoot is. Many of these stories contain really weird "high strangeness" elements that have always annoyed many a Bigfoot researcher. UFOs? Aliens? Underground beings -- reptilians? Of the latter, Paulides said he's received a few detailed emails about that subject, but he is unfamiliar with that realm and doesn't want to go there. He referenced John Mack and his work concerning abductions -- will we hear of a Bigfoot/UFO theory from Paulides in the future?

There's enough strangeness, and enough references to a Bigfoot creature, in Paulides missing persons work, to consider that Bigfoot is more than "just" a big ape, or strictly a flesh and blood creature. It's possible this BF being is a variation of Bigfoot, another type, related or something else altogether; something that looks like an "ape man" but clearly has abilities transcending ours at the moment.

Ivan T. Sandseron on "Flix," The Creature in Conser Lake

In my book The Ghost of Conser Lake, (unpublished) I cite an interesting passage from Ivan T. Sanderson’s book Abominable Snowmen about the creature. (You can read a previous section of the book here. Mention of “Flix,” the Bigfoot like being that appeared in Millersburg, Oregon in the late 1950s -early 1960s, is one of those interesting high strangeness BHM (big hairy monster) cases. Here’s a section from my book, with added comments in parentheses.


Flix Gets Around
Flix made the news for a good two years. He was seen off and on in the area during that time. Clarence Starr, owner of the Owl Cafe in Albany at the time, told Westby (Betty Westby, the reporter who wrote several articles about Flix for the Democrat Albany Herald newspaper) that the monster “had trampled down a lot of mint on his farm and that he will not be able to harvest much of his crop.”

An elderly woman “who came from one of the early pioneer families,” the paper noted, walked into the Greater Albany office to give her story of her encounter with Flix:

“That monster was in our pasture last night. My neighbor took a shot at it. He found some blood on the ground, so he thinks he hit it. We saw its tracks, and the women in our neighborhood are scared to go anywhere at night or even sit on porches or leave the doors or windows open. I think he sheriff an state police should Hunt this creature down before it kills someone.”

The newspaper tried to explain to the woman a “big white cow” had recently escaped from its owner’s truck and that this is what she saw, but “she refused to believe our explanation.”

Mrs. Penning in Devers-Conner, about 30 miles south of Millersburg, told Betty Westby she heard "dripping sounds," even though it was August. (Interesting that Mrs. Penning described the “dripping” sound; remember that Flix’s footsteps were also described as “squishy.”) Looking out her living room window she saw a “large, light form,” hurrying away, and heard a “low pitched cry that seems to start from its toes, tapering off to a squeal like a pig’s.” Penning also fond fingerprints on her bedroom window, and Westby spectacled that they were web shaped, due to the four fingered, spread-out shape of the prints.

Three years later, the story of the Creature of Conser Lake was still news. In an article by Martin Clark, Albany Journal staff writer, he comments on writer Keith Sosebe’s upcoming talk on the “monster.”

“Leaping from the shadow of a deep gully, the thing stood fully 7 feet tall in the ghostly moonlight. Petrified with mingled horror and curiosity, the young people sat motionless in their car. Suddenly, the apparition took at enormous leap over the gully and slipped away trough a tangle of boughs.”

By October, Flix, or a similar creature, was reported in Stanton, Oregon, 30 miles from Millersburg. (Oregon) It seems that Flix moved within an approximate 30 mile radius. This is assuming it was the same creature of course. Calls came into the Stayton police station of an “eight foot tall hairy monster,” and monster hunters were quick to look for the creature. Fortunately the police stopped a group of teens, armed with guns and beer, who decided to go monster hunting, before they could do any damage.

A Herd of Flixes?
Cryptozoologist and biologist Ivan T. Sanderson discussed the Conser Lake monster briefly in his book Abominable Snowmen:Legend Come to Life, citing a small item that appeared in the January, 1961 edition of FATE magazine, reporting that the “monster” was “still on the loose.” Sanderson also writes in Abominable Snowmen that a source wrote Sanderson in October of 1960, insisting that there was not only the one Flix, but several “Flixes” in the area. According to Sanderson’s unnamed friend, there were more than one BHM, several in fact, and fingerprint as well as footprint casts were taken. Referring to Flix, the letter writer described the creature:

he makes extremely high pitched sounds. his hair or fur had slight glow in the dark . . .feet make a squishy sound. Has been seen at day and night and seen to disappear into the lake.”

This last part about Flix disappearing into the lake gives some support to the theory about BHM, and/or Bigfoot, living underground. Sanderson also supported this idea. The letter writer mentions a “Hal Starr” who has had contact with more than one of these creatures. In the correspondence sent to Sanderson about the Conser lake “monster,”
the letter writer reports that “Creatures (italics mine) were still being sighted on a farmer’s farm.” The name given was Hal Starr; is this the owner of the Owl Cafe mentioned earlier?(Cal,or Hal?)

Flix himself verified Sanderson’s source that there was more than one creature. The creature told psychic Jane Waterby (Waterby was a friend of Betty Westby's and the two visited the lake to try and communicate with Flix.) that he wasn’t the only creature of his kind:

"I am sorry for you alien friend. What are you called?”
“I am called Flix. there are many like me, but I am the one called Flix.”

Another typical, yet frustrating detail Sanderson’s friend gives is the writer’s comment that a “finger print [was] lifted off a house window including a plaster cast of a foot print.” Sanderson's friend also said he had physical evidence:

“Have personal taped accounts of this creature . . . this includes photographs.”

But no photographs, fingerprints, footprints or recordings have turned up. As with much of UFO, cryptid and Fortean phenomena, evidence is as elusive as the phenomena itself.

copyright Regan Lee
March 1, 2009

"Seneca Sasquatch," Bigfoot, Mothman, TNT . . .

Now this is the kind of stuff that I love. Cryptomundo has a juicy Fortean post -- Seneca Sasquatch about Bigfoot in Seneca, Illinois, reports of which have been coming in for decades.These reports include sightings of Bigfoot swimming, among other things. But a most interesting fact is that a lot of the Bigfoot sightings take place in and around old Dupont (yes, that Dupont) TNT grounds, which shares a commonality with Mothman, who was seen hanging out in the TNT storage mounds in Pt. Pleasant. Coleman reports:

Now, as everyone knows, the reports of Mothman and Bigfoot, as well as other weird events, around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, were mostly in one specific spot - the TNT area, outside of town. The location was used to manufacture TNT during World War II. The first thing the “airport” gentlemen from Indiana whom I met, who is consulting in Seneca, asked me when I mentioned the WVA site was, “Was it a DuPont factory?”

I didn’t know, although I don’t recall hearing DuPont associated with Mothman. But I now wonder what company (or spinoff or parent company) owned the TNT site near Point Pleasant. Something to think about and research later, when I return home unless a Cryptomundian finds the answer before then.

And as Andrew Colvin, author of Mothman's Photographer, notes several times in his book, the corporate connection with Mothman and the paranormal-Fortean world cannot be ignored; if nothing else, there is a strange and strong relationship between the two. How and why, that's another story.

The swimming Bigfoot and underground tunnels, pathways, rooms, mounds, etc. gives support to the theory Bigfoot lives underground.