Lisa Shiel, bigfoot researcher and author of Backyard Bigfoot, has a good post at the UFO Magazine blog: Water Gods: UFOs, Bigfoot, Fairies.

Bigfoot is paranormal, like it or not. So are fairies, UFOs, and the Loch Ness Monster. Does this mean they don't exist, or that they have no physical form? Of course not.

Something connects all these paranormal phenomena. Today I'd like to talk about one particular commonality between those phenomena—an affinity to water.

Read on for more at the UFO Magazine site. Also be sure to read Bruce Duensing's comments. Really, it makes sense!

Blog Find: Oregon Bigfoot, Gable Film Update

I don't think I knew there was an Oregon Bigfoot blog, how could I have missed that? Quickly realizing after checking out her site that, duh, it's Autumn Williams, Oregon bigfoot researcher... who runs Bigfoot.com. But here it is, with an update on the Gable film. Hat tip to Blogsquatcher for the link.

Revisit with the Lake Worth Monster

Link on the Professor Hex blog: Couple Say They Saw Lake Worth Monster Forty Years ago.

Link on Professor Hex takes you to the article, with the famous photograph of a ridiculously bulky white Bigfoot like type being.

Like other BHMs (Big Hairy Monsters) stories, it appeared from nowhere, did its thing, then left.

The Lake Worth Monster — aka Goat-Man — hasn’t been seen regularly at the Fort Worth Nature Center since a very memorable summer 40 years ago when all of Texas seemed to buzz with the news that a hairy, scaly 7-foot man-goat-beast was terrorizing the good citizens of Tarrant County.

"Every so often, it will come up in conversation," said Suzanne Tuttle, manager of the Nature Center. "Somebody will say, 'I remember when that happened.’ "

Here's a very interesting comment about Sallie Ann Clarke, who wrote a self-published book about the monster titled The Lake Worth Monster of Greer Island. The book was a "quick-draw and slightly tongue-in-cheek book" about the creature. Clarke has had many strokes and can't speak, her memory isn't good, but her husband says this, of her book:
C

Clarke has always regretted the way she wrote her book, he said, because after she published it, she saw the monster on three occasions.

Twenty years ago Salli Clarke said this:

"If I’d seen it before I wrote the book, the book would have been quite a lot different," she told the Star-Telegram in 1989. "It wouldn’t have been semi-fiction. It would have been like a history."

The article goes on to say that many have come forward with stories of their being involved in hoaxing, or playing pranks on people at the time. I get the feeling these happened after the fact; in other words, something anomalous was going on, and others had their fun at its expense.







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Redfern on Radio Tonight

Nick Redfern will be a guest Acceleration Radio, with Bruce Collins, discussig his book There's Something in the Woods and British Bigfoot.5PM to 7PM Pacific Time.


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The "Eel Siren" of Maine

Fascinating entry on Bigfoot researcher Linda Martin's Bigfoot Sightings blog:
Maine: Report of a humanoid that may be reptilian. A woman that Linda has been in contact with shares her life long encounters with a reptilian she also refers to as an "eel siren." This isn't, as Linda comments, a Bigfoot report, but I agree with her response to this story: sometimes some stories are so intriguing that aren't Bigfoot reports you have to share.

As I commented at her blog, as weird as this story of the "eel siren" is, there are plenty of stories of encounters with reptilians. I know of a couple in Washington state who are obviously living in some kind of anomalous portal zone, where they have heavy UFO activity (and fighter jets following), along with both Bigfoot sightings and reptilian sightings. There's a lot more to that whole situation that I'll probably report on eventually.

Anyway, fascinating story, visit Linda's blog to read all about it.

Book Find: Exploring the Himalaya

Neat find: Exploring the Himalaya by William O. Douglas. I found this book in the discard pile at work. 1958, Landmark, hardcover. Pretty good shape; has the typical school stamps all over it.

Naturally, the first thing I did was to look up Yeti in the index. There isn't a listing for Yeti, but there is for Abominable Snowman.

...the people of Sikkim believe there is such an animal. When I was in Sikkim, I visited with the Maharaja - ...a devout Buddhist. He told me that he believes the abominable snow man exists - that one night at Gangtok he looked out the window and saw one racing across his lawn.

Here's a reference to Yeti, with descriptions:

Many hillmen believe that any abominable snow man will kill them. the hillmen call it the yeti. It is supposed to be of either the bear or ape family - grayish with a pointed head and about four or five feet tall. Tenzing, the famous Sherpa, told me that he believes the yeti exists and that it is an ape.

And of other expeditions:

Britishers have photographed an apelike footrpint with five toes made by some unknown animal in the high snow. ...Japanese expideitons to the Himalya have brought confirmatory evidence that the yeti actually exists.

What that "confimatory evidence" is isn't stated.
There's also a reference to a female being; possibly a yeti or yeti type creature, or something different:

There are also legends about a mysterious snow woman. She is said to have only one leg and she always carries a pipe between her lips. She frequents the high snow fields and whistles at passers-by. Her whistle is thought to entice men ontlt he glaciers, where she devours some and makes love to others.

Still at it: Bigfoot Links on the James Randi Message Board

Well, they're still at it at the JREF message boards; link after link after link after. . . about Bigfoot. I stopped counting long ago, there were so many and a girl has other things to do after all! But I think the count a few months ago, when I stopped keeping track, was close to forty separate threads about Bigfoot. For something they are so damn sure doesn't exist, they sure do go on about it!

So, just finished lurking over there and saw the first three threads in the "general skepticism and paranormal" section are about Bigfoot. The next three aren't, then the seventh one is back to Bigfoot again. Next two aren't, then another BF thread. On the first page alone, with 30 threads, eight are about Bigfoot. I don't think any other subject has generated so many different threads; maybe UFOs and psychics would be the next two categories.

I'll be on Women's Paranormal League Tonight

So try and listen if you can. 5:00 p.m. Pacific time on Blog Talk radio.

Monster Quest on Feral Dogs: Shame on them!

Not about Bigfoot or any other anomalous crypto creature, but dogs. On my animal blog Teme: Irresponsible Monster Quest: Feral Dogs.

Update: Matthew Johnson’s Oregon Cave BF Sighting

In July of 2000, Matthew Johnson saw a Bigfoot in the Oregon Caves National Monument national park. Here's an update, with video interview.




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On Blogsquatcher: All in our minds?

The Blogsquatcher has an interesting post: Giving the "It's all in yer mind" theory some ammo You know how uber skeptics like to say, in complete seriousness, that Bigfoot is simply all in our minds? Blogsquatcher thinks it's ridiculous too, but he takes this idea in a different direction, even while acknowledging he isn't exactly in agreement with it. He is however, willing to explore the idea and put it out there, which I appreciate;too many BF as well as UFO writers don't like to stray too far from their comfort zones.

Blogsquatcher discusses Jung, archtypes; quotes from a Daily Grail review of Benny Shannon's The Anitpodes of the Mind and asks some intriguing questions,and asks if we might share a knowing of "half man half animal" even within our minds. The use of consciousness shifting drugs takes explorers, or psychonauts into these realms, but more specifically, shared imagery regardless of culture.

If Bigfoot is a paranormal creature and not just a big hairy ape, maybe a fairy or damion, as Patrick Harpur (Damonic Reality) or Lisa Shiel (Backyard Bigfoot) suggest, it's possible we can access a place where Bigfoot resides; a place where our minds are able to travel to, aided by substances such as ayahuasca.

I'm not sure what to think of this either, but it is very interesting, and, like the subject of UFOs and encounters with that phenomena while having ingested psychotropic drugs, it isn't all just a case of simple hallucinations and general tripping. Work done by Hancock, McKenna, Lily, Lear, Pinchbeck, tell us that it isn't that simplistic.

Related items:

Feeling a Lack of Control? Bigfoot Can Help

Fairies, Bigfoot, and Hauntings

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Kewaunee Lapseritis on UFONAUT Podcast

Kewaunee Lapseritis, B.A., M.S., MH will be the guest on Jesse Randolph's UFONAUT Radio podcast to discuss psychic Bigfoot. Airs Sunday night at 7:00 pm PST.

Silver Suited Aliens vs. Bigfoot

Update: I added a little oil pastel drawing I did a fear years ago of the silver suited being I saw. . .


Watching Monster Quest last night -- a good episode, about Bigfoot -- and Jim says to me that he'd rather see a Bigfoot than an alien. I agreed. Then he said he has "no doubt extraterrestrials exist -- none" -- and that he "doesn't want to know more, since "we've both probably been abducted anyway." That's the second time he's come out and said that in recent months. Hmmmm...

I think it would be a true gift and an incredible experience to see a Bigfoot. My only hesitation would be one of my qualms about losing credibility; after all, both Jim and I have seen several UFOs, have had episodes of missing time, and a life time of paranormal experiences including ghosts, psychic experiences,astral journeys, hell, we're walking, talking Fortean weirdos. I'd be afraid people would think I was just making it up; that I saw Bigfoot. If I were ever to see one. On the other hand, screw 'em. If I were ever fortunate enough to see a Sasquatch, well, lucky me and then I'd know what I know about that.

As to abductions, while I think something really, really extraordinary happened, I still can't get to the place where I think abductions are a literal event. I've never seen an alien in the waking state, unless, my silver suited alien childhood memory is literally exactly as I remember it. For some reason, I remember it as real, and yet, always place it in some disjointed category of "other" -- not asleep, not awake, not not real, but not . . well, maybe it's just plain old denial. By the way, my column in this issue of UFO Magazine is about silver suited aliens. Nice how I got my plug in, eh?


As to the Patterson-Gimlin film, Jim is 99% sure it's authentic footage of a real Bigfoot, and is almost as sure there is a Bigfoot as he is sure there are aliens. He's leans a tad towards being in favor of aliens. For myself, while I have no doubt at all Bigfoot exists -- for one thing, just what is it all these witnesses are seeing, if not a Sasquatch? -- I am minuscially less sure the P-G film is of a real Bigfoot. I want to believe it's so; I just can't see one way or the other. Some days it looks indubitably like a real creature; swaying breasts, arms, the way it's looking back. Other days it's looks phony; the weird white face showing through and mask like appearance of the fur on the face, the bottoms of the feet.

But, as MQ pointed out last night, the analysis done on the original footage shows that blurring has a lot to do with the way the images come across, as well as the film 's translation to video, etc. No human could fit into a suit like that, the technology that would cause things like fur swaying wasn't invented back in the 1960s, when the film was shot, and, it turns out after analysis the creature was taller than thought, 7ft or more tall. And yet I can't be 100% sure, as much as I want to be.

It doesn't matter however. I believe (yes, I said "believe!") Bigfoot exists. What exactly is Bigfoot, who knows, but if nothing else I can't ignore the countless eye witness reports of people who say, in all sincerity, they've seen a Bigfoot.

The Electric Bigfoot

The Blogsquatcher (a favorite BF blog)reports on the electric feeling and manifestations in some of the high strangeness Bigfoot reports. As weird as it may sound, there are many, separate references to this sensation in different accounts. Fascinating; I love items like this. I really receommend reading the item and following the links over at Blogsquatcher.

"Bigfoot is not an alien"

Zack Kopp asks questions of author Chris Noel on Bigfoot in this articulate and interesting interview:Bigfoot is not an alien: Chris Noel interviewed Thanks to Bobbie Short's Bigfoot Newsletter for the link.



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Yachats, Oregon: Woman Faces Jail Time for Feeding the Bears

In the beautiful, peaceful coastal town of Yachats, a woman is facing jail time for feeding the bears.

Karen Noyes has been feeding bears for years, ever since one showed up as she was providing food to the birds outside her Yachats home.

“It scared me,” she said. “Then I thought ‘why should I feed them and not him?’ ”

Her neighbors and a Lincoln County prosecutor have an answer to the question. They say Noyes’ actions put herself and the community in danger.

“She created a situation where bears weren’t afraid of people anymore,” Deputy District Attorney Elijah Michalowski said. “People were telling her she needed to stop, yet she refused. She not only put herself at risk, she put all her neighbors at risk.”

Noyes, 61, is being tried this week on charges of harassing wildlife and recklessly endangering another person. If convicted, she could be ordered to pay fines and spend time in prison. Before the trial, she told The Oregonian newspaper that she once fed as many as 25 bears on a regular basis, but is now down to six. “They are perfectly safe,” she said. “They are timid and really sweet.”

Bears are a big problem in the coastal area; but it's we who have created that problem. Our actions have set in motion the situations that have forced bears to come closer to humans, our habitats, invade our space. We've been invading theirs, along with destruction of their habitats.

Bears are magnificant, but they're no house pet.

I'm all for the bears, but I'm also for common sense, and like to live a while longer; at any rate, don't want to leave this plane because I was mauled to death by a bear. I'm fearful when I walk about in a lot of areas out there because of the bear population having come closer; literally in everyone's backyards.

It's sad to think that probably, this can only get ugly, but I'll still hold out some hope humans will use both compassion and common sense.


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Keep UFO Hunters on the Air

Lesley posted this on Women Of Esoterica, and I'm passing it along. Please sign the petition and keep UFO Hunters on the air!

Bill has just finished filming for Season 3 and I don't know if there will be a Season 4. Maybe you -- plus some pals -- can write to the network and let them know you would like to see more episodes:

http://www.history.com/global/feedback/contact.jsp?site=HistoryChannel.com&NetwCode=THC

or you can sign a petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/uf0hunt/petition.html

Either way, it can't hurt, and it just might help!

Keeping hope alive!

Thanks!

nb

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Groovy Book Find from Micah Hanks

Micah Hanks at The Gralien posts about his book find:The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz and a chapter on the Yeti:

I recognized the book instantly, having heard about it before in various cryptozoological circles. Interestingly, one of the final chapters of the book is called “Strange Creatures”, and deals with a sighting of two Yeti during the men’s trek across the Himilayas. Having initially spotted them from a distance, Rawicz and his company had believed these might be bears or some other animals they might use for food. However, upon nearing their potential prey, they began to realize these weren’t any creatures they had ever seen before. Rawicz’s account of the strange sighting reads as follows:

To find out, read Micah's blog!


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Ray Wallace, Mark Chorvinsky: A Look Back

More than ten years ago or so, when I was in the folklore graduate program at the University of Oregon, I made copies of any references to Bigfoot that I came across in the archives. I just found in my files notes about a field work project done by a student in the 1970s where Ray Wallace (April 21, 1918 − November 26, 2002) is mentioned. I have the original paper somewhere, but can't seem to find it; when I do, I'll post more about this.

Wallace of course was the man who "killed Bigfoot" -- upon Wallace's death,it was revealed he faked giant BF footprints and family members ran around in BF costumes. This, according to much of media and the uber-skeptic, "proved" that there was no such thing as Bigfoot; it was all just Ray Wallace, having a huge joke on the rest of us. But according to some accounts, Wallace had researched Bigfoot quite a bit in his day. He collected tales of Bigfoot from many sources, including many Native American Bigfoot tales. There is a reference in a student folklore field research paper to an informant named Kenny Spencer of Toledo, Oregon, who:

read in his forestry book at Pacific Lutheran University that Tom Slick (oil millionaire and Bigfoot researcher) and Ray Wallace were classed as authorities on Bigfoot as they have done more research on Bigfoot than anyone in the world. (Layton)

According to this report, Wallace:

bought a diary from an old miner’s grandson in Eureka, California (Joe Ellison) that tells about three, giant-sized, hairy people that used to attack Indians and the miners in 1849. (Layton)

Wallace was clearly aware of Bigfoot tales, and was interested enough to collect them. It seems that at that time and in that area, at least, Wallace had a reputation for knowing about Bigfoot, enough to get him mentioned as someone who has done “more research on Bigfoot than anyone in the world.”

Linda Layton’s student report contains several short tales told by Wallace about Bigfoot sightings, encounters and captures.

Wallace's contributions to Bigfoot research were ignored by almost all in the field, according to the late Fortean writer and Strange magazine publisher Mark Chorvinsky, who passed away in 2005. In a 1994 article for Strange, Chorvinsky wonders why this was, and asks if the photo (shown here) was of a real Bigfoot, or a "guy in a suit." Wallace had sent the photo to Strange editor Mark Opsasnick; Wallace would not reveal the name of the person who took the photograph:

Here is a picture of a female Big Foot... I bought it, the negative, from a photographer who was up near Mt. St. Helens in March taking pictures when he saw this giant sized female sitting on a log asleep as she was so heavy with a baby inside of her that she could not move very fast, he said she would have [been] easy to capture while sleeping on this log on an old abandon[ed] loading site where they loaded out logs several years ago. He said she was just sitting out in the warm sun and went to sleep."

As to Wallace's contributions to Bigfoot research, Chorvinsky cites Opsasnick:

Bigfoot expert Mark Opsasnick, author of The Bigfoot Digest, opines that, "If one does objective research into the origin of Bigfoot, it is obvious that the role Wallace played in the creation and development of Bigfoot cannot be ignored. He was there when the term 'Bigfoot' originated in 1958 as an important player in the case surrounding Jerry Crew, and Roger Patterson consulted with him repeatedly. This is a fact ignored by the contemporary Bigfoot investigators." Opsasnick concludes that, "It is quite conceivable that if there had been no Ray Wallace, there would be no Bigfoot as we know it today.

Sources: Layton, Linda: July 18, 1971, Randall Mills Folklore Archives, University of Oregon

Mark Chorvinsky,New Bigfoot Photo Investigation, Strange Magazine, 1994

Oregon "batsquatch" update

A bit of an update on the Oregon "batsquatch" on my blog Mothman Flutterings: Demons, lambs, and batsquatch in Oregon