QUOTE
On a mission to find Bigfoot - in California
A San Juan Capistrano man hopes to make history as the discoverer of Sasquatch and hosts trips for amateur Bigfoot enthusiasts to help make the find.
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by GWENDOLYN DRISCOLL - THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
First of two parts
Devil Peak, El Dorado National Forest - Matt Moneymaker is standing on a mountaintop, screaming.
The noise he makes – a low, inhuman moan rising to a shriek. It echoes over the hillside, then slowly dies, leaving Moneymaker standing in the inky darkness, listening. Above him, the black silhouettes of ponderosa pine loom against a star-flecked sky.
It is about 2 a.m. in a place called Devil Peak – an apt name, as it turns out, considering what Moneymaker is searching for.
In the distance, there is a sound. A faint knock.
Moneymaker spins. His walkie-talkie crackles. He jams an eyeball against the scope of a $9,000 thermal-imaging camera.
“Did you hear that?” he whispers.
It is not the first time Moneymaker has stood on a mountain listening for things that go bump in the night.
The 42-year-old San Juan Capistrano resident with a military crew cut and the pugnacious demeanor of the lawyer he once trained to be has made a major bet.
If he’s wrong, Moneymaker will have to endure the ridicule that has dogged him from the backwoods of Oklahoma to the deep, green forests of the Pacific Northwest.
If he’s right he will make history as the discoverer of a new and fearsome species of animal – a giant North American primate with superhuman strength, carnivorous appetites and the ability, Moneymaker speculates, to “zap” pursuers with sickening bursts of telekinetic energy.
Bigfoot.
Or “Sasquatch” – “Squatch” – as Moneymaker affectionately refers to the creature that he, as the director of the San Juan Capistrano-based Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, has made it his mission to find.
Like the Loch Ness Monster, the Abominable Snowman and the mysteriously un-dead Elvis, the shaggy backwoods beast known as Bigfoot has long been a fixture of myth and tabloid.
Moneymaker hopes to make Bigfoot a fixture of science.
“What we’re doing we know is going to have a huge impact on society,” Moneymaker says. “We’ve gotten so close so many times. When we get some clear, close-range footage of these things – things people have been told don’t exist – people will be shocked by what they look like.”
Along with a group of amateur BFRO “investigators,” Moneymaker wants to prove that the hundreds of reports of Bigfoot sightings his organization receives each year are not mere figments of overactive or insincere imaginations – but evidence of a yet-undiscovered North American ape.
That a 7-foot-tall, bipedal, nocturnal hairy hominoid has remained undiscovered so long in the wild might seem ludicrous, except for the fact that a few respected names in science, such as the primatologist Jane Goodall, have signaled their belief in the possibility.
Finding proof has been harder.
It is the reason that Moneymaker is here on Devil Peak, howling at the moon and hoping for a reply.
The hunt begins
Moneymaker grew up in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Griffith Park, “with a view of endless humanity on one side and the illusion of endless mountains on the other,” he says.
As the son of a prominent Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney, he seemed destined for a career in law.
Moneymaker eventually got a law degree from the University of Akron in Ohio. But the view out the window of his family home – the contrast of civilization and nature – tugged at him.
“It was scary to see L.A. getting more and more and more crowded,” Moneymaker says. Bigfoot “for me became an emblem of everything opposite of what I saw as almost the suicide path of human growth.”
A childhood fascination drew him as a young man to documentaries and books on Bigfoot – then believers themselves.
One of those believers pointed Moneymaker to the Sespe Condor Sanctuary in Ventura County. Moneymaker hiked to a remote trail and found what he describes as inhumanly large, flat footprints.
“I fell to my knees and was just stunned,” Moneymaker says. “From there it was a long journey of trying to understand how these things could be here. I started studying the subject a lot and talking to more and more people.”
The witnesses he encountered convinced him that the Bigfoot phenomenon was too widespread to be a conspiracy of pranksters.
Witnesses “had nothing in common, not one social demographic,” Moneymaker says.
Still there was a part of him that doubted – especially after eight years rolled by without one direct sighting of the creature.
A trip to the backwoods of Ohio changed everything.
It was 1994 and Moneymaker, then a young law student, hiked into a remote area with a guide.
It was dark – but not so dark that he could not see a 7-foot-tall creature emerge from the woods and growl at him, he says.
“It wasn’t a ferocious growl,” Moneymaker says. “It was almost like an old man, a raspy, deep growl. It was warning me.”
Moneymaker says he wasn’t scared. He was elated.
“It was like ecstasy …because that last little bit of doubt that had always nagged me,” he says. “There’s a huge difference between 99 percent and 100 percent sure.”
He started the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization the next year.
Amateur Hour
Back on Devil Peak, the muffled thudding noise has faded.
Moneymaker barks into his radio.
“Did you guys just do a knock?”
A distant voice, filtered through static, answers back. “Yes, that was us.”
Moneymaker’s face falls. “Please don’t do that.”
The voice on the other end of the radio belongs to one of the more than 20 amateur Bigfoot enthusiasts who have joined Moneymaker for this expedition to El Dorado National Forest.
The BFRO hosts about a dozen such trips in locations around the country each year. Anyone can participate – for a $300 fee that does not include food, transportation or shelter.
The payment, Moneymaker says, is for the experience itself. Part investigation, part spooky campfire adventure, BFRO expeditions allow enthusiasts who might otherwise be ridiculed for their beliefs to meet and mingle with fellow believers – and careen over rough dirt tracks in search of “squatchy” territory.
Sasquatch – Bigfoot – likes water and deer, according to Moneymaker. When a spot friendly to both is identified, the group parks, then scatters into the woods to wait for the beast.
That’s when the screaming starts.
To be continued tomorrow...
A San Juan Capistrano man hopes to make history as the discoverer of Sasquatch and hosts trips for amateur Bigfoot enthusiasts to help make the find.
Click to view attachment
QUOTE
SEARCH PLANS: Matt Moneymaker and Cliff Barackman review their search plan.
GWENDOLYN DRISCOLL
GWENDOLYN DRISCOLL
by GWENDOLYN DRISCOLL - THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
First of two parts
Devil Peak, El Dorado National Forest - Matt Moneymaker is standing on a mountaintop, screaming.
The noise he makes – a low, inhuman moan rising to a shriek. It echoes over the hillside, then slowly dies, leaving Moneymaker standing in the inky darkness, listening. Above him, the black silhouettes of ponderosa pine loom against a star-flecked sky.
It is about 2 a.m. in a place called Devil Peak – an apt name, as it turns out, considering what Moneymaker is searching for.
In the distance, there is a sound. A faint knock.
Moneymaker spins. His walkie-talkie crackles. He jams an eyeball against the scope of a $9,000 thermal-imaging camera.
“Did you hear that?” he whispers.
It is not the first time Moneymaker has stood on a mountain listening for things that go bump in the night.
The 42-year-old San Juan Capistrano resident with a military crew cut and the pugnacious demeanor of the lawyer he once trained to be has made a major bet.
If he’s wrong, Moneymaker will have to endure the ridicule that has dogged him from the backwoods of Oklahoma to the deep, green forests of the Pacific Northwest.
If he’s right he will make history as the discoverer of a new and fearsome species of animal – a giant North American primate with superhuman strength, carnivorous appetites and the ability, Moneymaker speculates, to “zap” pursuers with sickening bursts of telekinetic energy.
Bigfoot.
Or “Sasquatch” – “Squatch” – as Moneymaker affectionately refers to the creature that he, as the director of the San Juan Capistrano-based Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, has made it his mission to find.
Like the Loch Ness Monster, the Abominable Snowman and the mysteriously un-dead Elvis, the shaggy backwoods beast known as Bigfoot has long been a fixture of myth and tabloid.
Moneymaker hopes to make Bigfoot a fixture of science.
“What we’re doing we know is going to have a huge impact on society,” Moneymaker says. “We’ve gotten so close so many times. When we get some clear, close-range footage of these things – things people have been told don’t exist – people will be shocked by what they look like.”
Along with a group of amateur BFRO “investigators,” Moneymaker wants to prove that the hundreds of reports of Bigfoot sightings his organization receives each year are not mere figments of overactive or insincere imaginations – but evidence of a yet-undiscovered North American ape.
That a 7-foot-tall, bipedal, nocturnal hairy hominoid has remained undiscovered so long in the wild might seem ludicrous, except for the fact that a few respected names in science, such as the primatologist Jane Goodall, have signaled their belief in the possibility.
Finding proof has been harder.
It is the reason that Moneymaker is here on Devil Peak, howling at the moon and hoping for a reply.
The hunt begins
Moneymaker grew up in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Griffith Park, “with a view of endless humanity on one side and the illusion of endless mountains on the other,” he says.
As the son of a prominent Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney, he seemed destined for a career in law.
Moneymaker eventually got a law degree from the University of Akron in Ohio. But the view out the window of his family home – the contrast of civilization and nature – tugged at him.
“It was scary to see L.A. getting more and more and more crowded,” Moneymaker says. Bigfoot “for me became an emblem of everything opposite of what I saw as almost the suicide path of human growth.”
A childhood fascination drew him as a young man to documentaries and books on Bigfoot – then believers themselves.
One of those believers pointed Moneymaker to the Sespe Condor Sanctuary in Ventura County. Moneymaker hiked to a remote trail and found what he describes as inhumanly large, flat footprints.
“I fell to my knees and was just stunned,” Moneymaker says. “From there it was a long journey of trying to understand how these things could be here. I started studying the subject a lot and talking to more and more people.”
The witnesses he encountered convinced him that the Bigfoot phenomenon was too widespread to be a conspiracy of pranksters.
Witnesses “had nothing in common, not one social demographic,” Moneymaker says.
Still there was a part of him that doubted – especially after eight years rolled by without one direct sighting of the creature.
A trip to the backwoods of Ohio changed everything.
It was 1994 and Moneymaker, then a young law student, hiked into a remote area with a guide.
It was dark – but not so dark that he could not see a 7-foot-tall creature emerge from the woods and growl at him, he says.
“It wasn’t a ferocious growl,” Moneymaker says. “It was almost like an old man, a raspy, deep growl. It was warning me.”
Moneymaker says he wasn’t scared. He was elated.
“It was like ecstasy …because that last little bit of doubt that had always nagged me,” he says. “There’s a huge difference between 99 percent and 100 percent sure.”
He started the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization the next year.
Amateur Hour
Back on Devil Peak, the muffled thudding noise has faded.
Moneymaker barks into his radio.
“Did you guys just do a knock?”
A distant voice, filtered through static, answers back. “Yes, that was us.”
Moneymaker’s face falls. “Please don’t do that.”
The voice on the other end of the radio belongs to one of the more than 20 amateur Bigfoot enthusiasts who have joined Moneymaker for this expedition to El Dorado National Forest.
The BFRO hosts about a dozen such trips in locations around the country each year. Anyone can participate – for a $300 fee that does not include food, transportation or shelter.
The payment, Moneymaker says, is for the experience itself. Part investigation, part spooky campfire adventure, BFRO expeditions allow enthusiasts who might otherwise be ridiculed for their beliefs to meet and mingle with fellow believers – and careen over rough dirt tracks in search of “squatchy” territory.
Sasquatch – Bigfoot – likes water and deer, according to Moneymaker. When a spot friendly to both is identified, the group parks, then scatters into the woods to wait for the beast.
That’s when the screaming starts.
Nice word play, Tig.
