Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh, Pa. Sunday, Oct. 5, 2003

Bigfoot believers gather in Jeannette

Faithful come together to discuss the legend at 5th annual convention

Sunday, October 05, 2003

By Rebekah Scott, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

They're huge and hairy and stink of sulfur, and some say several lurk in the
wild places of Westmoreland County.

No one has ever captured Bigfoot, the mythical proto-human whose legend
appears as far back as 5,000-year-old American Indian petroglyphs. But in
the past 30 years, an inordinate number of people say they've spotted,
smelled or tracked the 8-foot-tall animal within the county.

So it is only fitting that the Fifth Annual East Coast Bigfoot
Conference/Expo was held last month in Jeannette. Almost 200 Bigfoot
believers gathered in a dusky dance hall to hear speakers, examine hair
samples and plaster footprint casts and trade stories and theories.

"I'd say half the people here are researchers and members of our group,"
said event organizer Terry Altman, president of the Pennsylvania Bigfoot
Society. "The others are curiosity-seekers or just interested. Bigfoot isn't
so taboo to talk about any more, not since "The X-Files" and Science Fiction
Channel has brought mainstream legitimacy to all the possibilities out
there."

Altman said he's been checking out local Bigfoot claims for five years. His
report of Westmoreland investigations for 2003 includes:

In January in Derry Township, investigators followed the tracks of two huge
hominids for more than two miles along a remote logging road, in foot-deep
snow. The larger track measured 18 inches long, 9 inches wide -- a big foot,
indeed.

In June, a woman in Derry Township saw a huge, apelike creature watching
her as she gathered lettuce in her garden.

In July and August, in two places outside Greensburg, something large
crashed through the woods near witnesses' homes. Dogs and horses panicked.
Large, not-quite-human footprints were spotted along a nearby creek. In one
case, strange screams and cries were heard in the night.

None of the witnesses was named, nor exact locations provided -- presumably
to protect the traumatized from ridicule, and the Hairy Man from harassment
by untrained, do-it-yourself "investigators."

Paul G. Johnson, a Duquesne University chemistry professor, shared Bigfoot
research he collated from the early- to mid-1990s, including a
county-by-county breakdown of "creature events." Allegheny County had 31,
including "an 8-foot-tall black creature seen drinking from an above-ground
pool in Allison Park." Washington County had 23; Armstrong, 18, and
Westmoreland 155.

"I don't think there are more Bigfeet living in Westmoreland County than
anywhere else," the professor said. "There are just more Bigfoot
investigators here looking for him. This is not just a Pennsylvania
phenomenon."

Indeed, other convention speakers outlined sightings and research from
Canada, Maine, Virginia, Indiana, Florida and Washington state -- even
Russia and China.

Johnson said he's spent scores of days and nights in a remote valley along
the Chestnut Ridge of the Alleghenies where Bigfoot are said to roam. He's
never seen anything extraordinary.

"Other people do, repeatedly," he said. "Why not me? I don't know."

There were plenty at the gathering who said yes, they'd seen something out
there. Bob France, of Vandergrift, said he once saw an entire family of the
creatures quietly grazing at a blueberry patch. Vince Bruno, of Kittanning,
said he saw a pair of horrifying, glowing eyes one night in the deep woods
of Mc Kean County.

"I don't know what it was, but there was something there," he said. "You
can't understand it till you see or hear something that you just can't
explain. It makes a believer out of you."

The typical Bigfoot believer, judging from the convention crowd, is a
middle-aged, working-class white male in camouflage pants and a T-shirt
bearing a Bigfoot portrait.

Bigfoot is not pretty, but framed "fine art" prints, paintings and drawings
of him were hot items at a fund-raiser auction. * * *
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