QUOTE
COMMENTARY
Everybody’s Talkin’: Life after a Sasquatch sighting
BY ROGER MOON roger@tmnews.com - July 8, 2008
OK, so you’ve just seen or heard Bigfoot. What do you do now?
Actually, I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t thought about it until over the weekend in a conversation with one of my wife’s cousins. He lives up around Indianapolis, but his family owns property south of Paoli.
I haven’t seen a Sasquatch. My wife’s cousin hasn’t seen a Sasquatch. But, he did tell me of reading about a Bigfoot sighting that had occurred near his family’s Orange County property.
And, I didn’t have to settle for his second-hand account. He told me I could go to www.indianabigfoot.com and read about the Sasquatch encounter in the words of the person who experienced it.
So, that’s what I did. Then, with a quick click on “Hoosier Counties,” I saw that Bigfoot encounters had been reported to the Indiana Bigfoot Awareness Group from about a dozen Indiana counties, including Orange, Lawrence and Greene.
The Orange County encounter was a night sighting in February 2005. The woman who recounted the experience in an anonymous post said she got a look at the elusive creature, estimating him to be 8 to 9 feet tall and to weigh in at 500 to 700 pounds. He was black.
The Lawrence County encounter was reported by an anonymous squirrel hunter who said the Sept. 4, 2005, experience was in a “densely wooded forest with deep hollers.” While he didn’t actually see a Sasquatch, he wrote, “I heard what sounded like two baseball bats (wooden) being struck very forcefully together 3 times, with about a 2-second interval between the strikes.” He concluded that whatever struck those two pieces of wood together did it with a lot of force. The writer shared that he had heard reports of Bigfoot sightings in western Martin County and northeast Lawrence County.
A Greene County incident is reported on www.indianabigfoot.com and is said to have occurred in April 2004 near Bloomfield. There, a man and woman described what’s called a Bigfoot “vocalization,” a loud scream; it was accompanied by cows being chased up on a hill.
The Bigfoot Web site is maintained by Michael R. Bardsley, who writes that the site isn’t intended “to make anyone who doubts the existence of such a creature into a believer, but to allow individuals from the Hoosier state a place to report an experience or just find out more about others’ experiences.”
Roadeo winners
A few years ago I was assigned to cover what sounded like a “rodeo,” I soon learned that it was instead a “Roadeo.” What that meant was that drivers with the Indiana Department of Transportation were engaged in competitive events that allowed them to showcase their skills in handling those big highway vehicles.
I also learned it’s an annual event, and it now has rolled around for this year.
Employees of INDOT units at Paoli, Shoals, Bedford and Jasper gathered in Paoli last month in hopes of winning the title of Indiana’s top snow plow driver. Donald Miller, representing Bedford, was awarded first place. Randy Knight, also of Bedford, finished second. Craig Menke, from Jasper, placed third. These drivers advance to district competition at Vincennes this month hoping to then move on to finals at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in August.
The INDOT Safety Truck Roadeo consists of three skill testing challenges: the “serpentine obstacle,” wherein a driver maneuvers his truck back and forth through an obstacle course; the “alley back,” wherein a driver backs his truck into a confined space; and the “diminishing clearing,” wherein he steers a plow truck through an alley of barrels that increasingly narrows.
Times-Mail Staff Writer Roger Moon welcomes comments at 277-7253 or by e-mail at mikel@tmnews.com.
Everybody’s Talkin’: Life after a Sasquatch sighting
BY ROGER MOON roger@tmnews.com - July 8, 2008
OK, so you’ve just seen or heard Bigfoot. What do you do now?
Actually, I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t thought about it until over the weekend in a conversation with one of my wife’s cousins. He lives up around Indianapolis, but his family owns property south of Paoli.
I haven’t seen a Sasquatch. My wife’s cousin hasn’t seen a Sasquatch. But, he did tell me of reading about a Bigfoot sighting that had occurred near his family’s Orange County property.
And, I didn’t have to settle for his second-hand account. He told me I could go to www.indianabigfoot.com and read about the Sasquatch encounter in the words of the person who experienced it.
So, that’s what I did. Then, with a quick click on “Hoosier Counties,” I saw that Bigfoot encounters had been reported to the Indiana Bigfoot Awareness Group from about a dozen Indiana counties, including Orange, Lawrence and Greene.
The Orange County encounter was a night sighting in February 2005. The woman who recounted the experience in an anonymous post said she got a look at the elusive creature, estimating him to be 8 to 9 feet tall and to weigh in at 500 to 700 pounds. He was black.
The Lawrence County encounter was reported by an anonymous squirrel hunter who said the Sept. 4, 2005, experience was in a “densely wooded forest with deep hollers.” While he didn’t actually see a Sasquatch, he wrote, “I heard what sounded like two baseball bats (wooden) being struck very forcefully together 3 times, with about a 2-second interval between the strikes.” He concluded that whatever struck those two pieces of wood together did it with a lot of force. The writer shared that he had heard reports of Bigfoot sightings in western Martin County and northeast Lawrence County.
A Greene County incident is reported on www.indianabigfoot.com and is said to have occurred in April 2004 near Bloomfield. There, a man and woman described what’s called a Bigfoot “vocalization,” a loud scream; it was accompanied by cows being chased up on a hill.
The Bigfoot Web site is maintained by Michael R. Bardsley, who writes that the site isn’t intended “to make anyone who doubts the existence of such a creature into a believer, but to allow individuals from the Hoosier state a place to report an experience or just find out more about others’ experiences.”
Roadeo winners
A few years ago I was assigned to cover what sounded like a “rodeo,” I soon learned that it was instead a “Roadeo.” What that meant was that drivers with the Indiana Department of Transportation were engaged in competitive events that allowed them to showcase their skills in handling those big highway vehicles.
I also learned it’s an annual event, and it now has rolled around for this year.
Employees of INDOT units at Paoli, Shoals, Bedford and Jasper gathered in Paoli last month in hopes of winning the title of Indiana’s top snow plow driver. Donald Miller, representing Bedford, was awarded first place. Randy Knight, also of Bedford, finished second. Craig Menke, from Jasper, placed third. These drivers advance to district competition at Vincennes this month hoping to then move on to finals at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in August.
The INDOT Safety Truck Roadeo consists of three skill testing challenges: the “serpentine obstacle,” wherein a driver maneuvers his truck back and forth through an obstacle course; the “alley back,” wherein a driver backs his truck into a confined space; and the “diminishing clearing,” wherein he steers a plow truck through an alley of barrels that increasingly narrows.
Times-Mail Staff Writer Roger Moon welcomes comments at 277-7253 or by e-mail at mikel@tmnews.com.
