A photo from AOL news page

Wooly Spanish
Revelers at a carnival march through the village of Ituren, Spain, Jan. 30, in a ritual purifying the harvest land from evil spirits and welcoming the coming spring.

(Alvaro Barrientos, AP)

Your link didn't work for me, but I found another:
http://www.journaltimes.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=3810



I found some interesting stuff on "wild men" in Spain:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/daruc/westeur.htm#e

Spain
Many stories of hairy giants in this country, mainly in north, from Galicia to Catalonia, sometimes in south (Andalucia). José María Satrústegui, relates that about 1940, while crossing the Roncesvalles pass in Valcarlos y Ondarrola, on his way to Pays Basque, some shepherdsd spoke convincingly to him about the existence of Basajaun. One old farmer even confided to him that the Lord of the Wood had visited him at his country house in Aitzurre (José María Satrústegui, Mitos y Creencias, in Obras Completas, Pamplona, Spain, Euskaltzaindia, 1987).

Summer of 1968. A man riding a motorbike said that he had passed Hostalric (Barcelona), "an animal with a big body, hairy, bipedal, and long arms, that crossed the road with a weary appearance." Some days later there was another sighting Vilobí del Penedés (Barcelona). A group of boys claimed to have met a huge hairy being that was drinking from a pond (Horizonte, May-June 1969).

Early June of 1993. A group of speleologists prepared to spend the night at the ruins of a church near Collada de Vallgrasa (Catalan Pyrenees). They heard strange noises resembling those of an enraged cat. When they came close to the church's large doorway, the speleologists saw a frigntened, weird, shaggy creature, 1.5 meters (5 ft.) in height, flee from the building. The wild men appeared again in a wood betwenn Farga de Bebié and Ripoll (Gerona). There two "hairy beings" pounced on a pair of palaeontologists, who ran away from them (Año Cero, 40, November 1993).

The cases above, and many other, are compiled in : Sergio de la Rubia-Muñoz, Wild Men in Spain, The Info Journal, Winter 1995.

That same website has some "Bigfoot" type stories from around Europe.

Dunno about recent times, but here are some historic references:

Basque Mythology: Basajaun

The following was translated from an article originally in Spanish at the Encyclopedia Auñamendi.

Basajaun means «Lord of the forest».

The Basajaun is the spirit that inhabits the deepest forests or caves situated in prominent places. He has a tall body, of human form, which is covered in hair. His long mane falls before him to his knees, covering his face, chest and stomach.

He is the protective spirit of the flocks. He gives shouts in the mountains, when a storm approaches, so that the shepherds may withdraw their sheep. By lurking around a pen or its surroundings, he keeps the wolves from approaching. His presence is announced by the sheep who, shaking, and ring the bells around their necks. Thus the shepherds can go to sleep in peace, knowing that during that night or that day the wolves, great enemies of the flocks, will not come to bother them.

Basajaun is represented at times as being horrific, gifted with colossal strength and extraordinary agility. Other times he appears in popular stories as the first farmer from whom man learned about the cultivation of cereals and as the first blacksmith and the first miller, from whom man stole the secret of making the saw, the axis of the mill and how to weld the metals.

Reference: Vinson, Folk-Lore du Pays Basque (1883), p. 43. J. M. of Barandiarán, Eusko-Folklore (1922); Basque Mythology (1960), pp. 75-76.

http://www.buber.net/Basque/Folklore/aunamendi.basajaun.php

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Basajaun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Basque mythology, the basajaun (plural: baxajaunak) are a race of big hairy wild men who were megalith builders. Baxajaun means "Lord of the Woods". They were a human race who once dwelled in the mountains of the Basque Pyrenees of northern Spain. They had knowledge of magic. The Basajaun was heavily built and about 2 to 3 meters tall. Dark hair reached their knees. They were very agile.

Fifteenth century carvings depicting the baxajaunak can be seen in the Saint-Maria Cathedral of Burgos, Spain, and in Sainta-Maria-la-Real, in Najera.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basajaun"

==========

Basa-Jaun
by Micha F. Lindemans

A benign wood spirit of the Basque, whose name means "lord of the woods". He protects the flocks and herds against predators and thunderstorms. He taught mankind the art of agriculture and forging. The spirit is mischievous, but not malignant. His wife is Basa-Andre (Basa Andere). Their characters shift considerably from story to story. In some stories Basa-Jaun is an ogre and his wife a witch (who, paradoxically, often helps her husband's victims escape).

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/basa-jaun.html

- -

I'd say that about nails `im. :wink:

I was juuuuust gonna post this as well..., but ya done beat me to it, LOL! :icon14:

They have costume traditions like this all over Europe, associated with various holidays, feast days and harvest festivals. They're considered relics of ancient pagan holidays which fell on or near the same dates before being coopted by the church. Many have horns like this one and supposedly represent some sort of male fertility diety according to some beliefs. That's one of the neater looking examples. The few others I've seen pictures of were usually made of straw.
Oddly, I just recently ran across a clipping I'd saved from Feb. of last year with 2 rather similar costumes from a carnival in Hungary.

Interesting.

Sounds rather like the Hoopa "boss of the Woods", doesn't it?

Links:
Click Here For Videos!*The page is in Spanish, you can translate the page by entering the URL into BableFish.
Click Here To Translate Page

Note: I seen these videos posted in different forums. No one knows what it is and some think its a ghost or demon. I was the first to mention I thought it was a bigfoot. I think you should check it out and let me know. I also sent the videos to BFRO. I hope this hasn't been posted yet, or I wasted a lot of time.

Details: These are videos shot by sewage workers in Barcelona, Spain. There is a creature stuck somewhere down there that is banging against walls very loudly and there is a roar in the last video. I really think its a trapped bigfoot unless this is a hoax. There are 4 seperate videos about 30 seconds long each, they are creepy!

History of Sasquatch in Spain: Many stories of hairy giants in this country, mainly in north, from Galicia to Catalonia, sometimes in south (Andalucia). José María Satrústegui, relates that about 1940, while crossing the Roncesvalles pass in Valcarlos y Ondarrola, on his way to Pays Basque, some shepherds spoke convincingly to him about the existence of Basajaun. One old farmer even confided to him that the Lord of the Wood had visited him at his country house in Aitzurre (José María Satrústegui, Mitos y Creencias, in Obras Completas, Pamplona, Spain, Euskaltzaindia, 1987).

Summer of 1968. A man riding a motorbike said that he had passed Hostalric (Barcelona), "an animal with a big body, hairy, bipedal, and long arms, that crossed the road with a weary appearance." Some days later there was another sighting Vilobí del Penedés (Barcelona). A group of boys claimed to have met a huge hairy being that was drinking from a pond (Horizonte, May-June 1969).

Early June of 1993. A group of speleologists prepared to spend the night at the ruins of a church near Collada de Vallgrasa (Catalan Pyrenees). They heard strange noises resembling those of an enraged cat. When they came close to the church's large doorway, the speleologists saw a frigntened, weird, shaggy creature, 1.5 meters (5 ft.) in height, flee from the building. The wild men appeared again in a wood betwenn Farga de Bebié and Ripoll (Gerona). There two "hairy beings" pounced on a pair of palaeontologists, who ran away from them (Año Cero, 40, November 1993).

The cases above, and many other, are compiled in : Sergio de la Rubia-Muñoz, Wild Men in Spain, The Info Journal, Winter 1995.

Source
----------------------------------
Basajaun

In Basque mythology, the basajaun (plural: baxajaunak) are a race of big hairy wild men who were megalith builders. Baxajaun means "Lord of the Woods". They were a human race who once dwelled in the mountains of the Basque Pyrenees of northern Spain. They had knowledge of magic. The Basajaun was heavily built and about 2 to 3 meters tall. Dark hair reached their knees. They were very agile.

Fifteenth century carvings depicting the baxajaunak can be seen in the Saint-Maria Cathedral of Burgos, Spain, and in Sainta-Maria-la-Real, in Najera.

Source
----------------------------------

Revelers dressed as what the locals call in the Basque Euskerra language, the "Zanpanzart de Ituren" walk through the village of Ituren, northern Spain on Jan. 30 during a carnival celebration. They march through the village every year in a ritual to purify the harvest land from evil spirits and to welcome the coming spring. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos).
Source
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I cant really be for certain if its Bigfoots or not...either way....those videos creep me the hell out!! :icon_stressed:

I'll translate all of this for you guys. :bf: :flageu:

We're Underground[size=4]
I believe that what we witnessed moved. I don't know what it is, but it's alive.

What is that?
This is the important part. The part where we think we were the closest. The best summary of what we saw.

I can't deny that we weren't distressed. In this moment I thought that maybe someone was trapped. This part of the subway/rail have abandoned tunnels and its easy to find everything. We spent some time walking inside this subway passage and listened. Now, we couldn't hear anything. No noise. Or sudden movement.

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The next day
15th Jan

These are some video pieces that we caught the next day.

Video 1: My fellow worker and I lowered ourselves to the same point where we heard the noises.

Video 2: We heard something that we thought came a tunnel from the other side of the canal.

Video 3: We climbed and jumped into the hole. It seemed like a blind narrowing without an exit. You could hear animal-like noises.

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There's something underground

10th Jan

During the holiday/weekend, at 8 in the morning, we went down and realized that more work maintenence needed to be done before the main tunnel was complete. A little before breakfast (before 10) we heard rare noises. I have to say that working in subway sewage systems, you are accustomed to listening to different types of noises, but these were different. They (noises) came from some levels down. We didn't worry about anything usually, but for this case we called the centre to find out if there'd be an incident and they said there hadn't. Later, we returned to listen to the noises. It sounded like roars from an animal. The first thing that came to my mind was a dog. Because every noise became louder, we decided to go get a look. Following the noise we arrived at a some tunnels that weren't in use. Measurring the roars that we approached, they changed to more like shouted words. Or not. We thought that maybe it wasn't a dog and we thought that it could be a person. We spoke loudly if there was anybody there and if they needed help.
Immediately, the noises stopped. We returned and asked several times if there was somebody, but we didn't hear or see anything rare. We went back and climbed up to finish work. Although we didn't speak about it, we thought that there underground is something.

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Test

9th Jan

This is the first log of 'Underground with us', a site where i'm going to publish some facts that occured to me recently.

Sewer-squatch ?

So, it's narrowed down to a ghost a demon or bigfoot.... Another explanation springs to mind - How about BULL. Well it is Spain, you know, bullfighting & all that :new_whistle: .

Kind of bring backs to mind a few of the old "Night Stalker" episodes from the 70's--weird.

Of additional interest is the information concerning the traditions of the mountains and the Basque region. We have discussed European BF before, and this group of myths is interesting to think about. I had not been aware of them before, so thanks.

BTW--maybe it is a ghost: the leftovers of someone's run in with a bad paella. It is a sewer you know . . . .

Why is it..be it the woods of North America or the sewers of Spain, that the cameramen suck? If you're trying to see what's down the "tunnel", point the camera down that direction, or even walk in that direction (what a thought) and POINT the light down the tunnel. Don't illuminate the walls, we know what the walls look like!

How 'bout we send those poor Spaniards a decent flashlight too. We have 20 million candlepower lights here in the US, and this poor schmuck must be using a 10 candlepower light!

I was listening to the roars...I'd never really heard a bull call like this but can someone confirm? if its a bull roaring or some other animal?
to me the roar sounded more like the V-rex from King Kong...kinda like it has more vibration to it...

Austrian "Perchten".

Could be something.... but this is real sketchy.

The easiest kind of fake to me is an audio fake.
Take some video of guys walking through a deserted sewer area and overlay some bangings and a weird roar after the fact. Lot easier to do than faking video or a photo.

Anyone else notice that there are in fact overhead lights in this area of "sewer". maybe I'm just too suspicious... but doesn't this feel like a movie set, sort of. I've got this feeling that someone has put part of a low-budget movie on the internet in the same way that the Blair Witch was promoted...

If this is real... those sewer guys have got some serious nerve. Hearing that noise and knowing that something that sounds that annoyed was that close and trapped by a door somewhere... I wouldn't go poking around a lot.

Anyone read enough spanish to do some exploring on this one?
You would think if those workers really felt that there was a chance that someone or an animal was trapped... that there would be an official attempt to help them. That should generate some level of press coverage

I didn't mean that kind of "Bull". :wink:

I've read many reports on BFRO of Bigfeet being able to make human noises that sounded like someone was "talking backwards". The roar definetly sounds like something big. No where on the blog does this person claim to know what it is. It would be more suspicious if he claimed to have a ghost or some cryptid sounds caught on film. Who knows, it could be a hoax but it is indeed very interesting.

And bulls don't roar like that. If this is real, this is a big powerful creature. It could be possible it ventured into there and got stuck, lost or decided to make the sewers its home.

That's uncalled for Uffda. :dry:

Not a group I'd like to run into anytime soon!

That picture came out of a "tourist information" brochure I've got. Lots of pictures of all the various activities in the village. A friend saw it and said "That looks a fun place - hiking, ballooning, dancing & devil worship!" :laugh:

:new_evil2: --No thanks!

Nobody expects the Spanish Gigantopithecus!

The mods joined my thread to this one & I got warned. Now not as many people will see it. Why are there such lame mods and rules here?

Where in Spain did this happen?

Got warned about what? I didn't see anything wrong with the original thread. Was it due to the fact it was about a thread already in progress? Heck, if that's the case, don't worry about it...it happens all the time.

I am not 100% positive... but I think I've heard this sequence of noises before.
In the 5th or 6th season of the TV show StarTreK: The Next Generation there was a sequence where Lt. Worf reverted to some primative ancestor (all the crew were reverting to primal animals). He was stomping around the ship smashing on the doors and roaring as he tried to reach Troi

I do not have a copy of the Next Generation... but if anyone out there is a trekkie or knows a trekkie well enough to borrow a tape or a DVD.... it may be very illuminating to find this episode, watch it and compare the sound to the sounds on movies on this website.

There was a new picture of the Hungarian performers in the paper yesterday.
They're called Busho men, from the Busho festival in Mohacs, Hungary:

Pictures of same

And I wondered what Perchten were, so I'd looked them up earlier. Wow.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Perchten but were afraid to ask

Lots of info, especially on the Reginheim link at the bottom.
Google image search turned up _tons_ of other pictures too.
Not so much available on the Busho thing, though.

Interesting Oniomancer - thanks :icon14: . I've saved that for a good read later. I was in that area, the Salzkammergut, when I picked up the booklet.

The Busho makes me think of the Lake Worth Monster!