Are you looking for a different kind of travel experience – one with stories that will actually not bore your friends?
There is still plenty of untouched wilderness out there to explore, and you may find yourself in the middle of the adventure of a lifetime.
There’s a major mystery out there still yet to be solved, and you may just be the one to solve it.
In the beginning…
Our world is diverse and incredible, with millions of species of plants and animals.
New discoveries are being made every day as we continue to explore and encroach on natural habitats.
So it’s not out of the realm of possibility that there are creatures still yet to be discovered. And while it’s human nature to doubt and question, sometimes there is just too much evidence to be denied.
We are naïve to think we can simply explain away things that we don’t understand, but that’s what’s been happening for more than half a century with a creature that’s just waiting to be understood.
A sober Baptist walks into a bar…
It all started in 1958 when a man spotted something strange as he traveled down a secluded road.
Jerry Crew found some massive footprints in Bluff Creek, California that year. Jerry was just a hard-working guy minding his own business, helping to build a new lumber access road in a very secluded area.
Jerry had grown up around Bluff Creek. He was a regular churchgoer. He didn’t drink. In fact, he had a well-deserved reputation as being trustworthy and level-headed.
So much so that when he saw a trail of massive footprints on the road, he got super annoyed thinking that someone from his crew was playing a hoax on him.
Humans are curious creatures though, so whether he was out to prove that it was a prank or not, he came back prepared with some plaster and made a cast.
But there were no snickers from the crew when Jerry showed them the prints. No one saying sarcastically, “Yeah, sure Jer, we believe you.” They were just as stumped as he was, and the guys kept the mystery between themselves and their wives.
But you know women.
One of the wives wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper expressing her concerns that a huge, hairy man may be endangering the women and children who sometimes set up camp while their husbands worked.
And the rest is history.
Are 10,000 people crazy?
The story of the mysterious creature made headlines as national papers picked up the wild tale.
They dubbed the creature Bigfoot. Not very creative, perhaps, but accurate.
Now, 60 years later, there have been more than 10,000 reported sightings – and that’s not counting all the people who may have seen something out there in the woods but didn’t want to be labeled as the town nut.
So if you have a sense of adventure and your family and friends already know you’re a little crazy, there are some Bigfoot hotspots where you can camp out and solve the mystery for yourself.
The most active area for Bigfoot sightings is in the mountains of Washington State, with more than 2,000 sightings, according to Travel Channel.
In 1924, a group of miners reported that a Bigfoot family threw rocks at them while trying to break into their cabin. The area is called Ape Canyon, and Native American legend holds that ape-men were well-known in the area.
Like Washington State, Oregon is full of thick forested areas perfect for Bigfoot to thrive. Over a thousand sightings have been reported here from hikers and campers who have heard an otherworldly howl coming from the distance.
California, home of Jerry Crew and the first official report of Bigfoot, is another major hotspot with nearly 2,000 reported sightings. Northern California’s forests are a favorite destination for Bigfoot seekers too.
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has also had its fair share of reported sightings, with one woman claiming she pulled over to camp for the night after a long drive. She smelled something terrible and looked up to see Bigfoot staring at her and her child through the windshield.
There have also been thousands of sightings in other forested areas on the East Coast – from Pennsylvania to New York.
In fact, Whitehall, New York claims to be the “Bigfoot Capital of the East Coast,” and Bigfoot is the official town mascot.
In the mid-1970s, a group of teenagers reported seeing a giant ape-like creature coming towards them. They called the police, who also went on record to say that they saw Bigfoot. The descriptions are numerous and detailed, and if town officials say something is true, who are we to argue?
Mounting evidence
If you think that thousands of people have reported Bigfoot sightings just for attention and you need further proof, there’s plenty around.
Back in Bluff Creek, California where Jerry Crew first found those monstrous footprints, sightings and reports of attacks had been going on for years. It was here that two men set out with a movie camera in 1967 to finally catch the big guy on film.
Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin set out to make a documentary and captured the most famous footage of Bigfoot, still widely studied to this day.
You’ve undoubtedly seen it – Bigfoot striding across an open field, his long arms swinging, turning to look straight at the camera.
Scientists have studied the film for decades and have not been able to disprove the sighting. Numerous people have come forward to claim they dressed up as Bigfoot, but no one knew Patterson and Gimlin were filming that day.
The 60s were pivotal years for the study of Bigfoot by renowned researchers, one of whom was Dr. Grover Krantz of Washington State University.
He studied dozens of plaster castings of Bigfoot’s big feet and determined that they were either legitimate or had to be created by an incredibly talented artist with a deep knowledge of the anatomy of the foot – and a lot of time on their hands.
Animal Planet reports that, “There are, in fact, way too many eyewitnesses for this phenomenon to be purely imaginary, as skeptics assert. With such an abundance of eyewitnesses, who are so dispersed across the continent, and dispersed across the decades, the alternate skeptical explanation that the sightings are the result of hoaxers, in whole or even in large part, becomes much less likely.”
There are also a slew of recordings of something howling that cannot be attributed to wolves, coyotes, or other known wildlife. The most notable is the “Sierra Sounds” collection, captured by researchers in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California in the 1970s.
Modern technology has allowed for the continued study of evidence from decades past, as well as new reports that continue to pour in from all over the U.S. and Canada.
Native Americans have passed the stories of Bigfoot onto their descendants, and sightings continue to be reported on reservations to this day. Some say the hairy humanoids have even developed a primitive language based on that of local native tribes.
There are dozens of normal, hard-working Americans who have dedicated their lives to proving Bigfoot’s existence.
There’s even a round-the-clock blog called Bigfoot Evidence (“The world’s only 24/7 Bigfoot news blog!”), and dozens of legitimate science museums display casts of Sasquatch’s footprints.
You can visit Georgia’s Sasquatch Museum, Expedition Bigfoot or the Willow Creek-China Flats Museum’s “Bigfoot wing,” specifically built to hold the evidence gathered from the life’s work of Bob Titmus, who began to study Bigfoot and helped Jerry Crew make the first footprint castings in 1958.
Still skeptical?
For decades, responsible, working-class stiffs and highly-regarded scientists alike have found no evidence that Bigfoot does not exist.
Grown men have devoted their whole lives to discovering more evidence.
Hours of airtime and programs on many cable networks are dedicated to finding out more.
And reputable museums allocate precious space and resources to this larger-than-life legend.
“Researchers eventually come to realize that if there are indeed so many credible eyewitnesses across the land, then the species they so consistently and emphatically describe probably exists also,” Animal Planet reports.
Bigfoot is so ingrained in our culture that it’s hard to believe he’s not out there somewhere.
One or two sightings may be explained away as simply catching the sight of a burly, unshaven mountain man who was hiding from his wife in the woods, but 10,000-plus?
So, even if you’re a doubter, grab your friends, a good camera, some plaster and head to the remote woods of the Pacific Northwest, Canada, or the Appalachians.
We think he’s out there somewhere with his large, hairy wife and little baby Bigfoots just waiting to make a new friend! Maybe he’s a sweet guy who’s just misunderstood – remember Harry and the Hendersons?
You may get your fifteen minutes of fame or you may get eaten alive. Who’s to say? But it sounds like the adventure of a lifetime.
Somebody is sure to solve this mystery once and for all.
Will it be you?
