Ahhh...I bet you thought I was going to follow that up with, "I never thought this would happen to me..."

But no. Actually I am refering to the first time you can remember being aware of Bigfoot/Sasquatch (or, "Whatinthef&*^%*&sh#twasthatm*&herFingthing!"). Either seeing/reading a book, or by personal experience (what I would like to call, "personal empirical evidence" IF I didn't get the full name correct, forgive me.)?

There are events in our lives that stay in our memories, at the forefront, for years, maybe to the end. Like the time I heard More Than a Feeling on my mom's Cadillac's stereo for the first time. I know, I'm starting to sound like Billy Crystal in City Slickers.

I remember my first introduction to Bigfoot. Monkey Man recalls 1980(?). I remember 1974. Glenn G. walks into our 4th grade class with a book on Bigfoot. I got ahold of it and read it that night instead of doing homework (it wouldn't be the first or last time homework got skipped for something more important. And I teach jr. high ). I got my grandma to buy me a copy. Don Monroe calls it "Bigfoot Rapture". I had it, and I never walked through the forests of Calif., Ore., Wash., Ida., Mont., or Colo., the same again.


Chime in, let's hear it.

Johann (Dreaming of Southern Germany tonight)

First time awarenes....sometime in 1978, when my 5th grade teacher brought in a newspaper aritcle about a local bigfoot sighting.
When my interest got serious.....August, 1998....when I looked down at the still filling tracks of something huge, and bipedal, that had walked in the mud of a recenly exposed beaver pond bottom deep in the wilderness of Baraga Co. MI....

First time for me had to be Boggy Creek. I remember the house I lived in when I saw it because there was a window in the bathroom above the tub and I always half expected a big hairy arm to come through it. I was younger than nine in that house...

The first real interest (and I guess what eventually led to this website) was John Green's Sasquatch File. Picked it up on a trip to visit my grandparents in Oregon. Had to be '81 or '82. Still got it. Dog-eared and stained, I actually snatched it from the trash can after my wife had a particularly severe case of "let's throw away half of Brian's crap when he's not looking". That's how I lost my Sega Genesis. Anyway, I digress. Saved the book, saved the marriage. She knows better now.

Hmmm...mid 70's - our family had just moved to a small rural community in Saskatchewan. A friend of my mother's who lived in the community warned her about a kid in my class who had a nasty habit of scaring kids with stories about "monsters" (even to the extent that several of the kids had to sleep with lights on).

Yep...my first day as the new kid in class, Donny Z. makes his introductions, invites me over to his place for supper and then starts talking about massive, hairy, "monsters" known as Sasquatch. For a 4th grader, this guy was one heck of a story-teller...even to this day, I always get a slightly queasy feeling when I hear the word "Sasquatch" (I still remember us being in his room on the second floor and listening to him tell stories about houses in B.C. where huge hairy arms would come through 2nd floor windows and try to grab someone) - geez...the little bastard really wrecked a lot of my summer vacations to the mountains.

James

For me, it was when I was really young, prolly like 6 or 7 years old and seeing the movie Legend of Boggy Creek. The scene that had me scared my whole life was one of the 'quicky' little scenes where the creature darted in front of someones car as they drove along at night. That movie, and the whole Bigfoot craze of the mid-70's ( Bigfoot and Wildboy tv show and the Bigfoot shoes) were my introduction to the existance Bigfoot.

While living in Jackson parish (north lousianna),I saw the movie Legend of boggy creek at the theater when It first opened. I was about seven y/o then.
We lived out in the swampy areas with no neighbors,kinda spooky back then. That did it for me.

My first time: 12…had the scare of a lifetime then! Didn’t even have a clue what it could have been then…
To make it short, I grew up in a trapping and coon hunting family, spent most of my youth in the woods…
I was bow hunting, opening day, skipped school…had an old recurve of my fathers and two arrows…any how, listened to two things fight for what seemed an eternity, was probable 10 or 15 min. long enough to have both my legs go numb from not moving…. The catcher was that when it was over, one went yelping [which I know sounds odd but that is what I heard] off down along a fence row, the other, crashing threw the corn in front of me……
I could not identify what I heard! Though I was young and it could have been….? …. well I am not sure, but I wasn’t into BF then… I sure got into him after that!!!! Didn’t go back into the woods alone for years…my friends used to call me the great white hunter and make fun of me…
Funny thing…when I got home crying and all, my ma put a 22 in my hands and told me to get down there and figure out what it was…. Ahhh Love!
In some ways it helped, cause some thing used to come up to my house and pound on the walls…freak me out. I would sleep with a knife at night…I remember my father would sneak out of the house some times with his 44 ….never really told why…checking on some thing…?
At least I could put a name to the fear….

“What is fear, what can it be, its what you hear, but do not see”

Hey Medic,

I didn't see that one until recently that I can remember. But, when I was 12 0r 13, "Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot" came out. I saw that in the old Tower Theatre in Roseville, CA. We have a copy of that one now also.

They weren't big budget films, but The L of B.C. and S:tLoBF were fun to watch and got a person, who wasn't stuffy.

Thinking.

Jon

It was Legend of Boggy Creek for me too. I went to the movies to see it and it scared me so bad I went back and saw it two more times!

It really terrified me. I slept with my Mom for about a month after seeing it. I was young teenager at the time. The part of the movie that scared me the most was when the sun would start down and you just knew that someone was going to be catch heck that night!
The spooky music and the narrators voice made my blood run cold.

My first time was at a party ...I met this girl.....damn it wrong thread.

Heh Heh Jim

Seeing Legend of Boggy Creek trailer on TV in the 70's, just the ad was enough to scare the s**t outa me!

What is this whole Boggy Creek thing?! I ain't never heard of no tv show or movie called the legend of boggy creek or anything like that. First time i'd even heard about it was here... Does it have anything to do with that film "the legend of bagger vance?"

Damn living in England... It feels like i have missed out on something important...

But then again, it sounds kinda scary...

WHAT??????

Dude! You gotta' get Legend of Boggy Creek! Someone help a brutha' out. If I had a copy, I'd sure as hell burn you one and mail it to ya'.

You NEED to see that movie if for no other reason than it was really the first of it's kind.

So, did ya figure out what was fightin ??

Wall banging , gee, THAT sounds familar

Ever any word from your dad on this "sneaking around with the 44" thing?

Like you, my first "awarness" came from "what very well may have been " an encounter with one.
Young teen, backpacking on the Appalachian Trail (runs from Maine to Georgia along ridgebacks and the tops of mountains), camped for the night below the ridgeline. Fire just about to embers, horrific screaming, foot stomping and brush thrashing from up on the ridgetop. Scared stiff, first light, hoofed it out in a rapid fashion. Never went up to the top to see what it was. Found a book on bigfoot later that month. Read alot after that. Up until i found the book, never heard of bigfoot.
But whatever it was, it sounded frustrated at the fact that we were there, threw a tantrum for a few minutes, then went silent. No stalking around the camp thing, nothing being thrown at us, it just went silent.

I had a rather interesting "first time" of interest in BF. As a kid growing up, I always loved the haunted houses that people would create for halloween. Well, one yaer when I was about 10 years old, I went to one that had this incredible scene that to this day is burned into my mind. There was a huge room-like corridor, all done up in black lights, and like the himalayas, and in the middle of it was a huge snow covered cave. They had a super loud tape playing a howling wind sound, like in a blizzard, and giant fans hidden away that were blowing air like all hell. Then, it emereged. This guy in a VERY well made Abominable Snowman outfit comes bursting from the cave, screaming at the top of his lungs, and getting in my face while I damn near s**t my pants. It was the best monster I had ever seen in any haunted house, up to that point, and forever after. It was THAT good.

Needless to say, soon after, while looking curiously into the Abominable Snowman legends in the local library books, I naturally came across Bigfoot books as well. From there on out, I've been an addict, and every year finds me more and more obsessed. I'll never forget that scene and costume.

Let see......I was about 10 years old and we were visiting at my uncle's house. Very boring time, so I picked up a magazine or book, can't remember which, and looked through the pages. Came to a picture of Sir Hillary's expedition in mountains.......and there was a giant foot-print in the snow.. sized up beside a climber's ice pick. Didn't know what made it then, don't know what made it now! But it captured my attention and I am still looking for an answer!! As I sit here typing this now, it takes me back all those years to finding such a wonderful mystery. That led to this...and this leads to what? Hopefully, we will all know what made footprints that big in our life time. (Hey, but I'm a believer!!!!} I JUST WANT TO SEE ONE......(on tv).
"Coward Fran"

"Hey Travis Crabtree, do you see what I see?" .........GAHHHHHH!!! Make it Stop!!!!!!!

Here is my history of my interest in Bigfoot.

When I was a child I was always interested in strange and unusual subjects. I was extremely interested in dinosaurs as I'm sure most kids are. When I was 9 years old the story of the Lake Worth Monster hit the front page of the Ft. Worth Star Telegram. My grandparents had a cabin cruiser boat on Eagle Mountain Lake which was separated by a dam from Lake Worth. I had spent many a night on that boat anchored out in the middle of Eagle Mountain Lake. As you can guess, the many scenarios involving the creature ran through my head. The story died down in November of 1969.

The next year I obtained a copy of John A. Keel's book "Strange Creatures from Time & Space". It was very influential to me.

Of course, like probably everyone else here, I saw the movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek". I saw it in the theater and it made me think about the possibility that Bigfoot was closer to me than I had previously thought.

Ok, this is a grave matter indeed...

Now, you DO know who "The Bumble" is right?



A little pate' du ungulate anyone?

-Sarge

For me, it was the one, two punch of "The Legend of Boggy Creek" combined with the whole Missouri Monster (Mo-Mo) flap. I would search through our local paper for the latest report about what was going on in Louisiana, Missouri had a little collection of clippings that I would read over and over again.

When "The Legend of Boggy Creek" came out, I bugged my mom for a week to take me to see it. She finally relented and I remember being scared to death, but I was hooked. Afterward, I went to several used book stores and bought everything I could lay my hands on connected with bigfoot.

Several years later, my family took a vacation to British Columbia and Alberta Canada. At some little roadside shop I found Green's Year of the Sasquatch, On the Track of the Sasquatch and The Sasquatch File. I blew all my "vacation" money and bought all three. My dad was sorta peeved at me because I spent the rest of our trip sitting in the camper reading those books rather than looking at the scenery.

Oh- I almost forgot to mention; I first became aware of bigfoot through some Saturday Morning Scooby Doo clone (Goober and the Ghost Chasers?) where they were investigating BF around a lumber camp or something. (My parents wouldn't take me to see Boggy Creek )

I know it wasn't a Scooby ep. because he wasn't unmasked at the end, he just ran off into the woods

The cool thing was, the writers seemed to stress it was real! Even at age 9, I picked up on this and started scouring the grade school library for more info!

-Sarge