Famous Bigfoot encounters

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Magical Realist, Jul 2, 2015.

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  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    If Bigfoot exists, he certainly would have been encountered long before the famous sightings that started in the 50's and 60's. One would expect accounts from pioneers, explorers, and miners. To start with, here is one of those encounters described by Fred Beck and a group of 4 other miners back in 1924:
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    "What are Abominable Snowmen? Fred Beck is qualified to tell what they are. He was one of a party of five miners attacked by them in 1924, the most famous of such incidents in North America. The incident has become a legend in the Northwest. He tells the real facts after 43 years of silence.

    Introduction

    'It is my intention in this book not only to tell you about the historic encounter I had with these mysterious creatures, but also to reveal to the public what I believe they are. Truth often is stranger than fiction, but the strangeness comes from the clouds surrounding our minds, not from the mystery itself.

    This is not a large book, but may the largeness be conveyed by the picture I hope to paint of truth. Much has been written about that day in 1924, and I feel it right that I express my views at last.

    To avoid embarrassment to the relatives of the other four men involved in the 1924 incident, I have not directly mentioned their names. The name, Hank, is a pseudonym of one of the main characters in the incident.


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    Fred Beck with the gun he used at Ape Canyon

    Chapter One - The Attack

    First of all, I wish to give an account of the attack and tell of the famous incident of July, 1924, when the "Hairy Apes" attacked our cabin. We had been prospecting for six years in the Mt. St. Helens and Lewis River area in Southwest Washington. We had, from time to time, come across large tracks by creek beds and springs. In 1924 I and four other miners were working our gold claim, the Vander White. It was two miles east of Mt. St. Helens near a deep canyon now named "Ape Canyon" — which was so named after an account of the incident reached the newspapers.

    Hank, a great hunter and good woodsman, was always a little apprehensive after seeing the tracks. The tracks were large and we knew that no known animal could have made them: the largest measured nineteen inches long.

    It was in the middle of July, and we had received a good assay on our claim, and everyone was excited. I remember I had a tooth that was aching, and I suggested to Hank that he should take me to town to see a dentist; but he was so enthused in the prospects of the gold mine, he barely took time to answer me. He replied that "God or the Devil" could not get him away from there. We had all come up in his Ford, and I had no way to get to town unless he took me. So when we went back to our cabin, on the north side of the canyon, I had a nagging tooth ache and little appetite for our evening meal of beans and hotcakes.

    Hank, though apprehensive, was still determined. We had been hearing noises in the evening for about a week. We heard a shrill, peculiar whistling each evening. We would hear it coming from one ridge, and then hear an answering whistling from another ridge. We also heard a sound which I could best describe as a booming, thumping sound — just like something was hitting its self on its chest.

    Hank asked me to accompany him to the spring, about a hundred yards from our cabin, to get some water, and suggested we take our rifles — to be on the safe side. We walked to the spring, and then, Hank yelled and raised his rifle, and at that instant, I saw it. It was a hairy creature, and he was about a hundred yards away, on the other side of a little canyon, standing by a pine tree. It dodged behind the tree, and poked its head out from the side of the tree. And at the same time, Hank shot. I could see the bark fly out from the tree from each of his three shots. Someone may say that that was quite a distance to see the bark fly, but I saw it. The creature I judged to have been about seven feet tall with blackish-brown hair. It disappeared from our view for a short time, but then we saw it, running fast and upright, about two hundred yards down the little canyon. I shot three times before it disappeared from view.

    We took the water back to the cabin, and explained the affair to the rest of the party; and we all agreed, including Hank, to go home the next morning as it would be dark before we could get to the car. We agreed it would be unsound to be caught by darkness on the way out.

    Nightfall found us in our pine-log cabin. We had built the cabin ourselves, and had made it very sturdy. It stood for years afterward, and was visited by many sight seers until a few years ago when it was burned to the ground — the circumstances of the fire, I do not recall.

    In the cabin, we had a long bunk bed in which two could sleep, feet to feet — the rest of us sleeping on pine boughs on the floor. At one end of the cabin, we had a fireplace, fashioned out of rocks. There were no windows in the cabin. So darkness found all of us in the cabin, more calm now (and my tooth was better, somehow the excitement seemed to work a temporary cure on it). We were sitting around, puffing on pipes, and talking about the trip home the next day.

    Each of us settled down in his crude, but welcomed bed, and soon fell asleep. About midnight, we were all awakened. Hank, who was sleeping on the floor was yelling and kicking. But the noise that had awakened us was a tremendous thud against the cabin wall. Some of the chinking had been knocked loose from between the logs and had fell across Hank's chest. He had his rifle in his hand and was waving it back and forth as he kicked and yelled. (Hank always slept with his gun near by — it was a Remington automatic, my gun being a 30-30 Winchester, which I still have).

    I helped to get the chinking off him, and he jumped to his feet. Then, we heard a great commotion outside: it sounded like a great number of feet trampling and rattling over a pile of our unused shakes. We grabbed our guns. Hank squinted through the space left by the chinking. By actual count, we saw only three of the creatures together at one time, but it sounded like there were many more.

    This was the start of the famous attack, of which so much has been written in Washington and Oregon papers through out the years. Most accounts tell of giant boulders being hurled against the cabin, and say some even fell through the roof, but this was not quite the case. There were very few large rocks around in that area. It is true that many smaller ones were hurled at the cabin, but they did not break through the roof, but hit with a bang, and rolled off. Some did fall through the chimney of the fireplace. Some accounts state I was hit in the head by a rock and knocked unconscious. This is not true.

    The only time we shot our guns that night was when the creatures were attacking our cabin. When they would quiet down for a few minutes, we would quit shooting. I told the rest of the party, that maybe if they saw we were only shooting when they attacked, they might realize we were only defending ourselves. We could have had clear shots at them through the opening left by the chinking had we chosen to shoot. We did shoot, however, when they climbed up on our roof. We shot round after round through the roof. We had to brace the hewed-logged door with a long pole taken from the bunk bed. The creatures were pushing against it and the whole door vibrated from the impact. We responded by firing many more rounds through the door. They pushed against the walls of the cabin as if trying to push the cabin over, but this was pretty much an impossibility, as previously stated the cabin was a sturdy made building. Hank and I did most of the shooting — the rest of the party crowded to the far end of the cabin, guns in their hands. One had a pistol, which still is in my family's possession, the others clutched their rifles. They seemed stunned and incredulous.

    The attack continued the remainder of the night, with only short intervals between. A most profound and frightening experience occurred when one of the creatures, being close to the cabin, reached an arm through the chinking space and seized one of our axes by the handle (a much written about incident and a true one). Before the thing could pull the axe out, I swiftly turned the head of the axe upright, so that it caught on the logs; and at the same time Hank shot, barely missing my hand.

    The creature let go, and I pulled the handle back in, and put the axe in a safe place.

    A humorous thing I well remember was Hank singing: "If you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone, and we'll all go home in the morning." He did not mean it to be humorous, for Hank was dead serious, and sang under the impression that the "Mountain Devils" as he called them, might understand and go away.

    The attack ended just before daylight. Just as soon as we were sure it was light enough to see, we came cautiously out of the cabin....."
     
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  3. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Cont'd from above:

    "It was not long before I saw one of the apelike creatures, standing about eighty yards away near the edge of Ape Canyon. I shot three times, and it toppled over the cliff, down into the gorge, some four hundred feet below.

    Then Hank said that we should get out of there as soon as possible; and not bother to pack our supplies or equipment out; "After all," he said, "it's better to lose them, than our lives." We were all only too glad to agree. We brought out only that which we could get in our packsacks. We left about two hundred dollars in supplies, powder, and drilling equipment behind.

    I tried to persuade everyone not to relate the happenings to anyone, and they agreed, but Hank soon let the cat out of the bag. We made our way to Spirit Lake, and Hank went in to the ranger station. He had told the ranger earlier about the tracks, and the ranger had replied, "Let me know if you find out what they are." That was just what Hank did, to the puzzlement of the ranger.

    When we were back home in Kelso, Washington, he told some of his friends, and somehow the story leaked out to the papers, and the Great Hairy Ape Hunt of 1924 was on.

    Local reporters interviewed us. They came from Portland and Seattle — even a big game hunter from England came asking questions, and he had a large gun with him that must have been an elephant gun. Many people flocked to the Mt. St. Helen's area looking for the "Great Hairy Apes", or "Mountain Devils." I, myself, went back with two reporters and a detective from Portland, Oregon. We found large tracks, and they photographed them. We did not see any of the Apemen then, nor could we find the ones we had shot.

    So people were asking questions: Was it true? Or was it just a wild tale? I can assure you it is true. Are they human? animal? or devils? I will answer that question in this book. That was a great "Apehunt" in 1924, and the last few years, more and more people have reported seeing them. There is an Apehunt being revived again, and another man has written a book on the subject and has formed a club whose purpose is to find evidence to prove what they already believe: that abominable snowmen of America do exist.

    A wealthy person has offered a large sum of money for anyone that can capture one alive. Sightings have been reported in Canada, Washington, Oregon, and northern California. But the purpose of this book, is not only to relate my experiences, but also to bring to light my knowledge about the Abominable Snowmen. I do not wish to embark upon an expedition, but I wish to tell what these beings are."====http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/beck.htm
     
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  5. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Why do you think nobody has taken this person up on their offer?
     
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  7. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know that anyone hasn't. Do you?
     
  8. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Because if anyone found a real, live (or even dead) bigfoot, that person would be instantly worldwide famous - even more famous than Charles Darwin - and rewrite the book on anthropological and evolutionary history.
     
  9. Bells Staff Member

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    I am not convinced that it was bigfoot. Sounded more like it was all made up because it sounds so fantastical and like something out of a movie.
     
  10. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    So what's the time limit on taking up that offer and trying to capture one? A month? A year? A decade? And if the fact that noone's captured a Bigfoot alive means it doesn't exist, then I guess the giant squid doesn't exist either.
     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    WILLIAM ROE'S SWORN AFFIDAVIT

    I, W. Roe of the City of Edmonton, in the province of Alberta make oath and say,

    (1) That the exhibit A attached to this, my affidavit, is absolutely true and correct in all details.

    Sworn before me in the City of Edmonton, Province of Alberta, this 26th day of August, A.D. 1957.

    (Signed) William Roe
    (Signed) by W.H. Clark
    Assistant Claims Agent
    Number D.D. 2822

    EXHIBIT A.
    Ever since I was a small boy back in the forest of Michigan, I have studied the lives and habits of wild animals. Later, when I supported my family in Northern Alberta by hunting and trapping, I spent many hours just observing the wild things. They fascinated me. But the most incredible experience I ever had with a wild creature occurred near a little town called Tete Jaune Cache, British Columbia, about eighty miles west of Jasper, Alberta.

    I had been working on the highway near Tete Jaune Cache for about two years. In October, 1955, I decided to climb five miles up Mica Mountain to an old deserted mine, just for something to do. I came in sight of the mine about three o'clock in the afternoon after an easy climb. I had just come out of a patch of low brush into a clearing when I saw what I thought was a grizzly bear, in the bush on the other side. I had shot a grizzly near that spot the year before. This one was only about 75 yards away, but I didn't want to shoot it, for I had no way of getting it out. So I sat down on a small rock and watched, my rifle in my hands.

    I could see part of the animal's head and the top of one shoulder. A moment later it raised up and stepped out into the opening. Then I saw it was not a bear.

    This, to the best of my recollection, is what the creature looked like and how it acted as it came across the clearing directly toward me. My first impression was of a huge man, about six feet tall, almost three feet wide, and probably weighing somewhere near three hundred pounds. It was covered from head to foot with dark brown silver-tipped hair. But as it came closer I saw by its breasts that it was female.

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    The Mica Mountain Sasquatch, drawn under Roe's direction by his daughter

    And yet, its torso was not curved like a female's. Its broad frame was straight from shoulder to hip. Its arms were much thicker than a man's arms, and longer, reaching almost to its knees. Its feet were broader proportionately than a man's, about five inches wide at the front and tapering to much thinner heels. When it walked it placed the heel of its foot down first, and I could see the grey-brown skin or hide on the soles of its feet.

    It came to the edge of the bush I was hiding in, within twenty feet of me, and squatted down on its haunches. Reaching out its hands it pulled the branches of bushes toward it and stripped the leaves with its teeth. Its lips curled flexibly around the leaves as it ate. I was close enough to see that its teeth were white and even.

    The shape of this creature's head somewhat resembled a Negro's. The head was higher at the back than at the front. The nose was broad and flat. The lips and chin protruded farther than its nose. But the hair that covered it, leaving bare only the parts of its face around the mouth, nose and ears, made it resemble an animal as much as a human. None of this hair, even on the back of its head, was longer than an inch, and that on its face was much shorter. Its ears were shaped like a human's ears. But its eyes were small and black like a bear's. And its neck also was unhuman. Thicker and shorter than any man's I had ever seen.

    As I watched this creature, I wondered if some movie company was making a film at this place and that what I saw was an actor, made up to look partly human and partly animal. But as I observed it more, I decided it would be impossible to fake such a specimen. Anyway, I learned later there was no such company near that area. Nor, in fact, did anyone live up Mica Mountain, according to the people who lived in Tete Jaune Cache.

    Finally the wild thing must have got my scent, for it looked directly at me through an opening in the brush. A look of amazement crossed its face. It looked so comical at the moment I had to grin. Still in a crouched position, it backed up three or four short steps, then straightened up to its full height and started to walk rapidly back the way it had come. For a moment it watched me over its shoulder as it went, not exactly afraid, but as though it wanted no contact with anything strange.

    The thought came to me that if I shot it, I would possibly have a specimen of great interest to scientists the world over. I had heard stories of the Sasquatch, the giant hairy Indians that live in the legends of British Columbia Indians, and also many claim, are still in fact alive today. Maybe this was a Sasquatch, I told myself.

    I levelled my rifle. The creature was still walking rapidly away, again turning its head to look in my direction. I lowered the rifle. Although I have called the creature "it", I felt now that it was a human being and I knew I would never forgive myself if I killed it.

    Just as it came to the other patch of brush it threw its head back and made a peculiar noise that seemed to be half laugh and half language, and which I can only describe as a kind of a whinny. Then it walked from the small brush into a stand of lodgepole pine.

    I stepped out into the opening and looked across a small ridge just beyond the pine to see if I could see it again. It came out on the ridge a couple of hundred yards away from me, tipped its head back again, and again emitted the only sound I had heard it make, but what this half- laugh, half-language was meant to convey, I do not know. It disappeared then, and I never saw it again.

    I wanted to find out if it lived on vegetation entirely or ate meat as well, so I went down and looked for signs. I found it in five different places, and although I examined it thoroughly, could find no hair or shells of bugs or insects. So I believe it was strictly a vegetarian.

    I found one place where it had slept for a couple of nights under a tree. Now, the nights were cool up the mountain, at this time of year especially, and yet it had not used a fire. I found no sign that it possessed even the simplest of tools. Nor a single companion while in this place.

    Whether this was a Sasquatch I do not know. It will always remain a mystery to me, unless another one is found.

    I hereby declare the above statement to be in every part true, to the best of my powers of observation and recollection.

    (Signed) William Roe

    From: Ivan T. Sanderson, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come To Life

    http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/roe.htm
     
  12. Bells Staff Member

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    Except that giant squid have been caught, have washed up on beaches, have been filmed by scientists, not to mention been dissected and samples taken from their bodies. Sure, you can try and claim they do not exist, but you would look very foolish.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...ant-squid-caught-in-fishing-net-in-Japan.html



    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061222-giant-squid.html
     
  13. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I haven't heard of the giant squid being caught and dissected. Do you have some confirmation of that? And Bigfoot's been filmed more than the giant squid. Plus there's thousands of eyewitness accounts of Bigfoot as well as tracks. How many eyewitness accounts of the giant squid?
     
  14. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Click on the bloody links.
     
  15. Bells Staff Member

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    I take it clicking on links is a foreign concept for you?

    Scientists at the Museum of Victoria dissected one live in 2008 and people were able to watch it around the world.

    http://museumvictoria.com.au/learning-federation/video-temp/public-dissection-of-giant-squid-video/

    New Zealand also did a live dissection of a giant squid that was caught intact in 2014:

    http://animals.io9.com/watch-scientists-dissect-a-giant-squid-right-now-1635093308

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...o-watch-scientists-dissect-a-770-pound-squid/

    http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/09/17/thousands-watch-as-scientists-dissect-colossal-squid/

    Personally speaking, the Discovery Channel video that I linked in the previous post is one of the absolute best giant squid videos I have ever seen. The reaction of the scientists who were there studying them is priceless.

    Thus far, there has been no actual proof of bigfoot. The samples were never tested by independent labs to confirm it is bigfoot. The ones that were sent to an independent labs were found to be either bears or other mammals commonly found in the area. They have never caught one, let alone dissected one. The video footage they always provide is grainy and shaky and it looks fake. Therefore, I am not convinced bigfoot exists.

    There is absolute proof that giant squid exist. They are caught by fisherman, they wash up on beaches and they have been dissected, sometimes on live TV, not to mention they have been filmed existing in their natural habitat with non-grainy non shaky cameras by actual scientists.
     
  16. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Plus links to the giant squids aren't directing to squid-conspiracy websites.
     
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  17. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    RUBY CREEK

    "Stories about the Sasquatch have been appearing in print from time to time since the 1860s, and I have clipping in my files from almost every year since the early 1920s. But the modern history of the Sasquatch really dates from September 1941, when one of these creatures paid a visit — in broad daylight — to an Indian family named Chapman. While the Amerindian stories have usually been dismissed as legend, or laughed off because Indians are not supposed to be reliable, this experience was accompanied by too much physical evidence to be ignored.

    The Chapman family consisted off George and Jeannie Chapman and children numbering, at my visit, four. Mr. Chapman worked on the railroad, and was living at that time in a small place called Ruby Creek, 30 miles up the Fraser River from Agassiv, British Columbia, in Canada's great western province.

    It was about 3 in the afternoon of a sunny, cloudless day when Jeannie Chapman's eldest son, then aged 9, came running to the house saying that there was a cow coming down out of the woods at the foot of the nearby mountain. The other kids, a boy aged 7 and a little girl of 5, were still playing in a field behind the house bordering on the rail track.

    Mrs. Chapman went out to look, since the boy seemed oddly disturbed, and they saw what at first she thought was a very big bear moving about among the bushes bordering the field beyond the railway tracks. She called the two children who came running immediately. Then the creature moved onto the tracks and she saw to her horror that it was a gigantic man covered with hair, not fur. The hair seemed to be about four inches long all over, and of a pale yellow-brown color. To pin down this color Mrs. Chapman pointed out to me a sheet of lightly varnished plywood in the room where we were sitting. This was of a brown-ochre color.

    This creature advanced directly toward the house and Mrs. Chapman had, as she put it, "much too much time to look at it" because she stood her ground outside while the eldest boy — on her instructions — got a blanket from the house and rounded up the other children. The kids were in a near panic, she told us, and it took two or three minutes to get the blanket, during which time the creature had reached the near corner of the field only about 100 feet away from her. Mrs. Chapman then spread the blanket and, holding it aloft so that the kids could not see the creature or it them, she backed off at the double to the old field and down on to the river beach out of sight, and then ran with the kids downstream to the village.

    I asked her a leading question about the blanket. Had her purpose in using it been to prevent her kids seeing the creature, in accord with an alleged Amerindian belief that to do so brings bad luck and often death? Her reply was both prompt and surprising. She said that, although she had heard white men tell of that belief, she had not heard it from her parents or any other of her people whose advice regarding the so-called Sasquatch had been simply not to go further than certain points up certain valleys, to run if she saw one, and not to struggle if one caught her as it might squeeze her to death by mistake.

    "No," she said, "I used the blanket because I thought it was after one of the kids and so might go into the house to look for them instead of following me." This seems to have been sound logic as the creature did go into the house and also rummaged through an old outhouse pretty thoroughly, hauling from it a 55-gallon barrel of salt fish, breaking this open, and scattering its contents about outside. (The irony of it is that all those three children DID die within three years; the two boys by drowning, and the little girl on a sickbed. And just after I interviewed the Chapmans they also were drowned in the Fraser River when a row-boat capsized.)

    Mrs. Chapman told me that the creature was about 7½ feet tall. She could estimate its height by the various fence and line posts standing about the field. It had a rather small head and a very short, thick neck; in fact really no neck at all, a point that was emphasized by William Roe and by all others who claim to have seen one of these creatures. Its body was entirely human in shape except that it was immensely thick through its chest and its arms were exceptionally long. She did not see the feet which were in the grass. Its shoulders were very wide and it had no breasts, from which Mrs. Chapman assumed it was a male, though she also did not see any male genitalia due to the long hair covering its groin. She was most definite on one point: the naked parts of its face and its hands were much darker than its hair, and appeared to be almost black.

    George Chapman returned home from his work on the railroad that day shortly before 6 in the evening and by a route that by-passed the village so that he saw no one to tell him what had happened. When he reached his house he immediately saw the woodshed door battered in, and spotted enormous humanoid footprints all over the place. Greatly alarmed — for he, like all of his people, had heard since childhood about the "big wild men of the mountains," though he did not hear the word Sasquatch till after this incident — he called for his family and then dashed through the house. Then he spotted the foot-tracks of his wife and kids going off toward the river. He followed these until he picked them up on the sand beside the river and saw them going off downstream without any giant ones following.

    Somewhat relieved, he was retracing his steps when he stumbled across the giant's foot-tracks on the river bank farther upstream. These had come down out of the potato patch, which lay between the house and the river, had milled about by the river, and then gone back through the old field toward the foot of the mountains where they disappeared in the heavy growth.

    Returning to the house, relieved to know that the tracks of all four of his family had gone off downstream to the village, George Chapman went to examine the woodshed. In our interview, after 18 years, he still expressed voluble astonishment that any living thing, even a 7-foot-6- inch man with a barrel-chest could lift a 55-gallon tub of fish and break it open without using a tool. He confirmed the creature's height after finding a number of long brown hairs stuck in the slabwood lintel of the doorway, above the level of his head.

    George Chapman then went off to the village to look for his family, and found them in a state of calm collapse. He gathered them up and invited his father-in-law and two others to return with him, for protection of his family when he was away at work.

    The foot-tracks returned every night for a week and on two occasions the dogs that the Chapmans had taken with them set up the most awful racket at exactly 2 o'clock in the morning. The Sasquatch did not, however, molest them or, apparently, touch either the house or the woodshed. But the whole business was too unnerving and the family finally moved out. They never went back.

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    The Chapman's house at Ruby Creek

    After a long chat about this and other matters, Mrs. Chapman suddenly told us something very significant just as we were leaving. She said: "It made an awful funny noise." I asked her if she could imitate this noise for me but it was her husband who did so, saying that he had heard it at night twice during the week after the first incident. He then proceeded to utter exactly the same strange, gurgling whistle that the men in California, who said they had heard a Bigfoot call, had given us. This is a sound I cannot reproduce in print, but I can assure you that it is unlike anything I have ever heard given by man or beast anywhere in the world.

    To me, this information is of the greatest significance. That an Amerindian couple in British Columbia should give out with exactly the same strange sound in connection with a Sasquatch that two highly educated white men did, over 600 miles south in connection with California’s Bigfoot, is incredible. If this is all hoax or a publicity stunt, or mass-hallucination, as some people have claimed, how does it happen that this noise — which defies description — always sounds the same no matter who has tried to reproduce it for me?

    These were probably the last words on the Sasquatch that the Chapmans uttered and I absolutely refuse to listen to anybody who might say they were lying. Admittedly, honest men are such a rarity as possibly to be non-existent, but I have met a few who could qualify and I put the Chapmans near the head of the list."====http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/ruby.htm

    Ivan T. Sanderson, True Magazine,March 1960
     
  18. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    So what do you think all these people who claim to have seen Bigfoot are doing? Just lying for the fun of it? I highly doubt that. All these witnesses so far are very credible and would have no motivation to make up such encounters.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2015
  19. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    You have been given several (dozen) possibilities as to why people claim these fantastic fantasies... as well as multiple reasons why Bigfoot cannot, at a biological level, exist.

    Do you deny the issue of genetic degradation due to small population sizes, caloric/nutritional needs problems, etcetera?
     
  20. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Just because people may think/believe they are telling the truth, they can only ever tell their subjective experience of events - which is not necessarily the same as what really transpired.
    Are they lying? Perhaps, perhaps not - which is why personal testimony is so far down the list on what is considered convincing evidence - at least from a scientific viewpoint.
    It is quite possible they all wholly believe what they are saying, but their interpretations are simply mistaken.

    Corroborating evidence, please - and not just more testimony.
     
  21. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    THE STORY OF MUCHALAT HARRY

    by Peter Byrne

    "According to the Indians, there was once a large number of Bigfoot living on Vancouver Island, a large island, 12,408 square miles in area, off the west coast of British Columbia. The Indians knew about them, feared them, and respected them, but granted that they were harmless. One of the Indians of the Nootka Tribe, who lived at Nootka in 1928, claims to have been carried off by them and held captive for some time.

    The story, told to me by Father Anthony Terhaar of Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon, is a curious one. Father Anthony, a much-loved missionary priest who traveled the west coast of Vancouver Island for many years, was living at Nootka at the time of the story and he knew Muchalat Harry very well. Muchalat Harry was a trapper and something of a rarity among his fellow tribesmen. He was, according to Father Anthony, a tough, fearless man, of excellent physique.

    In the course of his trapping; he was wont to spend long weeks in the forest alone, something that the average Indian did not do in those days, The Indians of the coast were apparently a rather timid people and they seemed to regard the deep forest as the home and territory of the Bigfoot. When they went into the deep inland forest for any reason, they never went alone. Muchalat Harry was different from other Indians. He went in the forest alone and feared nothing.

    Late one autumn Muchalat Harry set off for the woods, with his traps and camping gear. His plan was to set out a trap line and stay in the woods for several months. He headed for his favorite hunting area, the Conuma River, at the head of Tlupana Inlet. From Nootka he paddled his own canoe to the mouth of the Conuma. There he cached the canoe and headed upstream on foot. Approximately twelve miles upstream he made his base camp and, after building himself a lean-to, started to put out his trap line.

    One night, while wrapped in his blankets and clad only in his underwear, he was suddenly picked up by a huge male Bigfoot and carried off into the hills. He was not carried very far, probably a distance of about two or three miles, at the most. When daylight came he was able to see that he was in a sort of camp, under a high rock shelf and surrounded by some twenty Bigfoot They were of all sexes and sizes. For some time, they stood around him and stared at him. The males to the front of the curious group females behind them and young ones to the rear. Muchalat Harry was frightened at first and his fear grew to terror when he noticed, he said, the large number of bones lying around the campsite. When he saw these he was convinced that the Bigfeet were going to eat him.

    The Bigfeet did not harm him in any way. Occasionally one came forward and touched him, as if feeling him, and when they discovered that his "skin" was loose — it was in fact his woolen underwear — several came forward and pulled at it gently.

    While they looked at him and examined him, Muchalat Harry sat with his back to the rock wall and did not move. He was cold and hungry, but his thoughts were only on escape. Some time in the late afternoon, curiosity on the part of the Bigfeet seemed to slacken and with most of the Bigfeet out of camp, probably food-gathering he thought, there came the opportunity that he needed. He leapt to his feet and ran for his life, never looking back. He ran downhill, toward where he guessed the river to be and sure enough, he soon came to his campsite. In what must have been blind panic he bypassed his camp and ran for twelve miles to where his canoe was cached at the mouth of the Conuma.

    Father Anthony describes the story of Muchalat Harry’s arrival at Nootka as follows. It was probably three in the morning. He and his brother Benedictines were asleep and the village was quiet. Suddenly there was a series of wild cries from the waters of the inlet. Lights were lit and he and others hurried down to the water's edge. There, near-frozen and exhausted in his canoe, lay Muchalat Harry. He was barefoot and clad only in his wet and torn underwear and he had paddled his canoe through the winter night 45 miles from the mouth of the Conuma River.

    Father Anthony and his companions carried the almost lifeless form up from the water's edge. It took three weeks to nurse Muchalat Harry back to sanity and good health. Father Anthony, who took him into his own care, did the nursing and he told me [Peter Byrne] that during the course of these three weeks, Muchalat Harry's hair turned to pure white.

    The story of the kidnapping came out slowly. At first Muchalat Harry would talk to no one. Then he told Father Anthony what had happened and, later, others. When he was fully recovered to health he was asked when he planned to go back to collect his belongings, the camp equipment, his pots and pans, his trap line and above all, his rifle, at the lean-to on the Conuma. In 1928 a trap line and all of its pieces must have been worth a great deal to an island Indian. A rifle alone would be regarded as a highly prized possession. But Muchalat Harry never went back to the Conuma. Not only did he never return there; according to Father Anthony, he never left the settlement at Nootka, never went in the woods again for the rest of his life. He preferred to lose all of his valuables and probably hard-won possessions rather than risk another encounter with the Bigfeet.

    Late in 1972 I had occasion to visit Vancouver Island. I was on a routine investigating trip and when I found myself at Nainimo, not too far by road from the west coast and the scene of Muchalat Harry's adventure, I drove there. I stopped in Gold River and obtained from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police some maps and instructions on how to get to the Conuma River area. Nowadays there is a logging road that runs all the way down to the mouth of the river, and one Sunday morning, with the logging trucks out of the way, I drove there and made camp on the Conuma. I spent several days there, walking the riverbed and exploring. I tried to make a rough determination of where Muchalat Harry might have had his lean-to and I found a place that offered a good campsite, twelve miles from the mouth of the river on the edge of a series of high bluffs. The salmon were running in the Conuma while I was there and all night long I could hear them splashing up the shallow waters of the river. In the morning black bear worked the river, getting the salmon that had come ashore in the night or had become tangled in the limbs of fallen trees that lay in the river. I counted six bears in several days.

    The country was generally wild and deserted and the actual mouth of the Conuma, where it flowed into the salt waters of the inlet, was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Some of the forest close to the river had been logged off, but the logging work had moved on west and while I was there it was quiet.

    The days began with morning mists on the river and then warmed to the clear crispness of perfect autumn weather. Evenings were cool and damp and nights bright with starlight that provided almost enough light to read. I found no sign of Bigfoot on the Conuma, nor any sign of Muchalat Harry's trap line or lean-to. I hardly expected to find anything of the latter, after forty-odd years. But even though Muchalat Harry was long gone, the river and the forest remained unchanged, The splashing salmon, the cold, clear water of the Conuma, the moss-covered banks, the shallow pools in the forest that the Conuma drained, that were the breeding places of the salmon, the river birds, the plodding bears, the deep silent waters of the inlet, all were as they must have been forty years before, when Muchalat Harry cached his canoe and made his camp there."====http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/muchalat.htm

    © Peter Byrne, The Search for Bigfoot, 1975.

    The story of Muchalat Harry is an outtake from Mr. Byrne’s book with his permission 1999. Bobbie Short
     
  22. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    Terrifying experiences such as these tend to be remembered more accurately. Indeed, they tend to be very hard to forget. There might be small details about the order of the events and what happened next that are in error, but nobody is going to mentally construct a vivid memory like this out of the blue. Unless they're schizophrenic or something. These eyewitnesses are all level-headed people who were successfully surviving in the wilderness. I entirely trust their judgements and memories of their own lives. There's simply no reason not to, unless you are disengenously trying to handwave away these accounts because you've already concluded Bigfoot can't exist.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2015
  23. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,359
    The more incredible the claim, the more incredible the evidence should be. Personal testimony should be, and is at least for most people, regardless of how reliable, how trustworthy you consider the person to be, insufficient to overturn the scientific evidence to the contrary.
    You seem willing to trust people's stories without knowing anything about the person other than what you've read - i.e. on a basis most people find insufficient. You then seem to judge that testimony to be superior to the scientific evidence that exists to the contrary, again something that most people do not. And you deem it sufficient to perpetuate your belief.

    Feel free to believe - I'm not stopping you - just have the balls to admit what the testimonies are and aren't: they are not proof, they are at best the claimed recollections of experiences that people might have interpreted as Bigfoot.
    And please do not be surprised when others fail to hold the same belief as you based on what you present as evidence: they/we merely have higher standards of what is sufficient and convincing.
     
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