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Believing in Bigfoot
The search by a Dallas-based
group for an East Texas swamp thing makes Sasquatch hunters' hearts sing
By Jessie Milligan
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Posted
on Wed, Oct. 30, 2002
In the dead of night, they wait for the giant swamp ape they believe lurks along the creek bottoms
of Texas, Arkansas and beyond.
Long after midnight, horrible screams jolt them upright. Did the recording device catch
it? That was no panther, they whisper to one another. It sounded animal, all right. Something of a cross between a growl and
a scream.
Chris Neal leaves his father's side at their post along the South Sulphur River and finds his way to the
rest of the group that is hoping to prove the existence of the legendary Southern Bigfoot -- also known as a monster, wild
man, Sasquatch, or an elusive ape native to North America. About 90 Bigfoot sightings have been reported in Texas, the most
recent one in August by a boy near Paris.
This October night was awash with heavy rains and not turning out as planned.
If not for the weather, a small airplane would have taken a night flight over the bottomlands of the river, near Copper Lake
north of Greenville. The pilot would have radioed coordinates to a ground crew if his infrared equipment had detected suspected
Bigfoot movement.
John Neal, 57, of Garland and son Chris, 36, of Sachse were part of the ground crew, along with other
members of the Texas Bigfoot Research Center, the name for a group of Bigfoot hunters who maintain a center only in cyberspace,
www.texasbigfoot.com.
If the pilot had given the signal, the Neals were to have rushed through the bottomlands and
helped capture photographic proof that an 8-foot-tall Bigfoot lives, breathes, twists trees down to mark territory, steals
livestock and garden vegetables, and fills swamps and woods with unworldly hollers.
The mission was not an entire washout.
The ground crew spent the night in the woods, where dripping branches enclosed hunters who stood in awe of the power, the
cunning, the very essence of wildness attributed to the beast. Chris Neal fell almost into a trance as he strained to hear
heavy footsteps or a howl.
He is among those who go out hunting for Bigfoot and instead find something within themselves:
a love of unsolved mysteries and chilling hunches that find shape in the night. Chances, perhaps, at fame or fortune if a
Bigfoot is ever proved to be real. And fear, always fear. Those are the things that draw the hunters.
The search for
a Southern Bigfoot began in earnest in the late 1960s after several large-ape sightings were reported in Fouke, Ark., 15 miles
southeast of Texarkana. The sighting reports were popularized by the movie The Legend of Boggy Creek, released in 1972. The
low-budget docu-drama featured real folks who had reported strange and terrifying encounters with an apelike animal.
The
creature was shot at several times by frightened Foukians, but not felled. Smokey Crabtree, a former oil pipeline welder and
lifelong trapper from Fouke, built a metal cage-trap he says was "strong enough to hold a Brahma bull." But it never captured
a Bigfoot.
The sightings in the area abated, but the image from the film took a firm hold on many a young person's
imagination. For some, the enchantment held on into adulthood. The Legend of Boggy Creek is the inspiration for many of the
folks who got together to form the Dallas-based Texas Bigfoot Research Center three years ago. They seek to photograph Bigfoot.
They do not wish to kill one, though they wouldn't mind if a deer hunter called, saying: "I just shot the weirdest thing .
. . "
The group of about 30 people has been using high-tech equipment, all-night stakeouts, baits and an Internet database
of sighting reports in an effort to find solid proof that Bigfoot is real.
To accept the idea of a swamp ape requires
following the believers up a ladder of logic. Each rung is a plausible, although often vague, hypothesis. The ladder has not
led to anything tangible, but it does serve to prop up the fascination.
At the very first step of acceptance is this:
It is possible for an apelike creature to live in the South.
"The climate and ecology are right for primates," says
Monica Rollins of Livingston, a manager with a Texas-based department store and one of the Bigfoot researchers. The federal
government, citing environmental reasons, recently chose Louisiana for a haven for former research chimps. So why couldn't
big, wild primates live in Southern swamps as well? Rollins asks.
Then comes the physical evidence. Several examples
of what appear to be Bigfoot footprints have been found in Arkansas and Texas. They are more than a foot long, and usually
are not found on the side of a road, where a prankster might have left them, but far out of the way. Or, oddly, right next
to a window of a home. These "prints" frequently have just three or four marks that resemble toes, unlike the Northern Sasquatch,
which is said to have left five-toed prints.
"They don't have much habitat to roam in the South. I believe that the
lack of toes in Southern Bigfoot is the result of inbreeding," says Chester Moore Jr. of Orange, Texas, a free-lance outdoor
writer.
Hair samples collected by the group have been sent to DNA test labs and the results have come back as "unknown
species, unknown primate," says Craig Woolheater, a Dallas software programmer and co-founder of the Texas Bigfoot Research
Center.
Photo evidence? The group keeps a surveillance camera posted at a secret spot along the Sulphur River, a frequent
site for Bigfoot reports in Northeast Texas and Arkansas. The Red River and Sabine River also have yielded reports. The cameras
have not captured a conclusive image.
Then comes the evidence that has to do with scent and sound. Bigfoot sightings
are often accompanied by reports of rank odors. Folks who wait in the woods at night also report hearing screams.
"I've
traveled around the world as an outdoor writer. The only thing I've heard that resembles that noise is the one made by the
howler monkey in South America, only angrier," Moore says.
The next rung of believing comes when researchers think
that they've had an interaction, of sorts, with a Bigfoot.
Bigfoot is believed to be an omnivorous diner who eats wild
fruit, stolen garden fruits and vegetables, and fish from its river home. A bait has been concocted, left high up in trees,
and by morning has vanished.
And what is Bigfoot bait?
Mix:
Several cans of fish-flavored cat food
Handfuls
of wild plums
A cantaloupe or two
Stir and serve.
The bait hasn't drawn any known Bigfoot, who may be
not only persnickety but also downright cranky.
And how is it explained that the Southern Bigfoot is said to be more
aggressive than his Northern counterpart?
The Bigfoot in The Legend of Boggy Creek was reported to have looked in windows
at night, tried doorknobs, crashed his hand through a windowpane, and even grabbed a man and shaken him senseless.
Again,
Moore explains the violent behavior as the result of congenital bad moods caused by inbreeding.
The Texas Bigfoot Research
Center does not reveal names or specific locations in its database of sightings. Much of the group's work is done in confidence,
mostly because people who admit to such sightings are unmercifully ribbed and therefore less likely to make a report. Or are
they more likely to fake a report?
Ken Marvel of Arlington interviews people who report a Bigfoot sighting. The Texas
Bigfoot Research Center does not give polygraph tests, but instead relies on judging the character of the person doing the
reporting. Occasionally reports are discarded as too outlandish, but many are logged into the group's computer database as
probable sightings.
"Something happened to these people. I can see it in their eyes and hear it in the emotion in their
voice. What are they going to get out of lying to me?" says Marvel of the interviews he finds most credible.
Of course,
Bigfoot believers are a beleaguered crew. Are they hallucinating? Lying? Mistaking a standing bear for an ape?
Bigfoot
hunters say they've heard it all.
"People think this is some person running around in an ape suit," says outdoor writer
Moore. "With all the hunters in East Texas, wouldn't that be a stupid thing to do?"
And they hear this: Why hasn't
a body been found? Shouldn't there at least be Bigfoot roadkill?
Among the responses are these, from Woolheater, research
center co-founder:
The chances of finding a body are reduced by the fact that there probably aren't many Bigfoots in
the first place.
The belief is that bears in Texas and Arkansas probably outnumber Bigfoots. There aren't many bears.
And how often do you find a bear carcass?
"There's been speculation that they are cannibalistic, or that they bury
their dead," Woolheater says. "Also, things that die in the wild don't stay around long."
And this apelike animal,
according to sighting reports, is fairly smart and fleet of foot, somewhat graceful, even, allowing it to avoid cars better
than deer or armadillos do.
The swamp screams aren't the only thing that sustains fascination among Bigfoot believers.
An unknown wild thing holds an emotional appeal as well.
Often when people talk about Bigfoot, they use words that
describe characteristics or concepts they admire, things they may find within themselves.
"He's not a myth. He's always
been with us, shy, powerful and free," Maryland writer and Bigfoot aficionado Fred Grimmnitz said at a recent Texas Bigfoot
Research Center convention, attended by about 200 people in Jefferson.
There is faith among Bigfoot fans.
"I
don't need to see one to believe," says Beth Meyer of Jefferson. "Man, in his infinite knowledge, believes he knows so much
but knows so little. God has created so much we don't know about."
There is the thrill of risk.
"I like to be
in on the adventure," says John Neal.
And there is fear, always fear.
As the narrator in The Legend of Boggy
Creek says: "I'd almost like to hear that terrible cry again just to be reminded that there is still a bit of wilderness left,
and there are still mysteries that remain unsolved and strange, unexplained noises in the night."
The Bigfoot Files
Recent
examples of sighting reports:
Summer 2002: A 13-year-old boy jumping on his trampoline in his front yard hears his
dog barking and looks up to the forest's edge. He later tells Bigfoot investigators he saw a creature similar to a gorilla
looking at him. His mother believes him, and says she has found large footprints near her bedroom window. The incident is
one of several reports that have come in from the Pat Mayse Lake area north of Paris.
Late fall 2001: A hunter near
Marshall puts down apples to attract deer, only to look up and see what he says was an apelike creature standing 7 feet tall
holding a deer hindquarter. The creature collects the apples and leaves.
Spring 2000: A couple driving between Lufkin
and Longview report seeing an 8-foot-tall auburn-colored creature walk upright out of the woods.
Source: Texas Bigfoot
Research Center
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jessie Milligan,
(817) 390-7738 jlmilligan@star-telegram.com
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/living/4402614.htm
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