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QUOTE
Encounter at the Caves
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By Jeff Duewel of the Daily Courier
Eight years ago this month Matthew Johnson’s life changed for good when, on a walk with his wife and children, he saw Bigfoot.
The 6-foot-9, 300-pound Johnson has no doubt it was Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, the at-least-8-foot-tall, primate-like, hairy creature legendary in the Pacific Northwest and considered a myth by most.
The Grants Pass psychologist told his tale on television and in the papers across the country, even internationally. He created the Southern Oregon Bigfoot Society so people could join together to chase the beast.
Johnson still gets emotional talking about his encounter.
“There it was. I had no clue what could happen,” said Johnson, tearing up. “I knew it was watching my family. Everything I knew about the great outdoors came crashing down.”
On July 1, 2000, Johnson left his wife and three children briefly on the Big Tree Loop Trail at Oregon Caves National Monument, answering nature’s call. He’d previously heard odd “whoa, whoaa, whoaa” sounds, and smelled a skunk-like stench.
While occupied off the trail, Johnson got the scare of his life.
“I saw movement, turned and saw Bigfoot leap from the pages of mythology and legend and into reality,” he said. Johnson rounded up his family and high-tailed it back to the Oregon Caves.
Derek Randles, a Bigfoot aficionado from Yelm, Wash., who has investigated well over 100 alleged sightings between 1990 and 2002, said he believes Johnson.
“On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d give him a 10,” said Randles, who said about half of his investigations turned out to be obvious hoaxes. “He’s not your typical person that sees Sasquatch. If he was lying he was doing a really good job.”
John Roth, a 20-year ranger at Oregon Caves, went with Johnson to the site the next day to investigate, and said, “There’s no question at all he did not make this up.”
But Roth, who equates Bigfoot sightings with mythical folklore from Native American days, doesn’t “believe.”
Matthew Johnson “The biology doesn’t add up for them being a flesh and blood animal,” he said. “The reports are too infrequent, too widely scattered.”
There are academics who do believe, such as Jeff Meldrum, anthropology professor at Idaho State University in Pocatello, although he chooses the wording “the evidence strongly indicates something exists.”
“Whenever you use the word ‘believe’ the naysayers use that as a pejorative label, that you’ve abandoned scientific objectivity,” Meldrum said.
Meldrum is a protégé of Gordon Krantz, the late Washington State University scientist who collected hundreds of plaster casts of footprints and other evidence such as hair, and was known as the first academic to take Bigfoot seriously.
Krantz, and now Meldrum, believe that Bigfoot could be a surviving population of gigantapithicus, a tall, ape-like creature from the Pleistocene epoch.
Meldrum said the fact that Bigfoot bones haven’t been found doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Johnson himself pointed out that in his 20 years living in Alaska he never saw a bear skeleton or bones. Acidic soils and moisture can decompose remains quickly.
“Matt was on the right track,” Meldrum said. “You don’t just find remains. We wouldn’t know about gigantapithicus if porcupines hadn’t dragged them into limestone caves.
“If Bigfoot exist, they are very rare, they have a long life expectancy, reproduce infrequently as do other apes, and die a natural death.”
What constitutes a viable population is not well understood, Meldrum said, rejecting notions of not enough numbers for reproduction.
“There are only 400 or 500 mountain gorillas,” he said.
Meldrum, who specializes in primate locomotion, and Krantz both believe the famous Patterson film taken in the late 1960s along Bluff Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River, is real.
He said footprints at the scene are “biomechanically consistent with an ape foot modified for walking on two legs.”
“My greatest resistance comes from my own colleagues,” Meldrum said. “One of them said to me they cringe whenever they see me on one of those documentaries; that they’re very concerned about Idaho State’s reputation.
“It’s mysterious to me why supposedly objective, open-minded scientists, would reject it so off-handedly with the absence of data. It can’t exist, therefore it doesn’t exist.”
The doubters are plenty.
Bob Heironimus, a retired Pepsi bottler from Yakima, Wash., told the Washington Post a few years ago that he was inside a monkey suit in the Patterson film, according to the Medford Mail Tribune’s Paul Fattig.
Fattig also wrote that the father of retired logger Ray Wallace of Centralia, Wash., started the whole Bigfoot legend in 1958 by leaving footprints with 16-inch carved, wooden feet in Humboldt County, Calif.
Johnson, a Christian says, everything happens for a reason. He said he had nothing to gain from going public with his claim.
“I was accused of trying to drum up business,” Johnson said. “Hello. Is that a good strategy to get clients? I work every day to deal with the truth.”
Johnson still takes groups out for camping trips in the area around Oregon Caves, though not as many as in the years shortly after his sighting. He said he’s found trails, bedding areas, tracks and casts of hand prints. He said the animals vocalize at night, sometimes screaming. At one bait pile left by the group, a Bigfoot actually husked some corn, he said.
Infrared video at night hasn’t produced any good images as the animals seem to detect it, Johnson said.
Johnson said following his 2000 encounter, he was caught off guard by what he called a mean-spirited, arrogant, even political approach to Bigfoot research.
“Some were extremely jealous and angry that I’m hiking in the woods and we have our encounter, and we go public with our encounter, and all of a sudden I’m thrust into the pinnacle of Bigfootdom,” he said. “A lot of them were angry and backbiting.”
Johnson, divorced and remarried since the encounter, downsized to a close group of friends in his Bigfoot pursuit, but still hasn’t given up on seeing another one.
“Once you see one, hear them scream at night, follow a set of tracks a mile through the forest you get hooked,” Johnson said. “Some people golf, bowl or fish. This is my hobby.”
o o o
Reach reporter Jeff Duewel at 474-3720 or jduewel@thedailycourier.com
On the Net: www.bfro.net
To comment on Encounter at the Caves or send your own Bigfoot story, email tmoore@thedailycourier.com
Nobody seems to have linked to this yet. If they have, my apologies.Click to view attachment
By Jeff Duewel of the Daily Courier
Eight years ago this month Matthew Johnson’s life changed for good when, on a walk with his wife and children, he saw Bigfoot.
The 6-foot-9, 300-pound Johnson has no doubt it was Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, the at-least-8-foot-tall, primate-like, hairy creature legendary in the Pacific Northwest and considered a myth by most.
The Grants Pass psychologist told his tale on television and in the papers across the country, even internationally. He created the Southern Oregon Bigfoot Society so people could join together to chase the beast.
Johnson still gets emotional talking about his encounter.
“There it was. I had no clue what could happen,” said Johnson, tearing up. “I knew it was watching my family. Everything I knew about the great outdoors came crashing down.”
On July 1, 2000, Johnson left his wife and three children briefly on the Big Tree Loop Trail at Oregon Caves National Monument, answering nature’s call. He’d previously heard odd “whoa, whoaa, whoaa” sounds, and smelled a skunk-like stench.
While occupied off the trail, Johnson got the scare of his life.
“I saw movement, turned and saw Bigfoot leap from the pages of mythology and legend and into reality,” he said. Johnson rounded up his family and high-tailed it back to the Oregon Caves.
Derek Randles, a Bigfoot aficionado from Yelm, Wash., who has investigated well over 100 alleged sightings between 1990 and 2002, said he believes Johnson.
“On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d give him a 10,” said Randles, who said about half of his investigations turned out to be obvious hoaxes. “He’s not your typical person that sees Sasquatch. If he was lying he was doing a really good job.”
John Roth, a 20-year ranger at Oregon Caves, went with Johnson to the site the next day to investigate, and said, “There’s no question at all he did not make this up.”
But Roth, who equates Bigfoot sightings with mythical folklore from Native American days, doesn’t “believe.”
Matthew Johnson “The biology doesn’t add up for them being a flesh and blood animal,” he said. “The reports are too infrequent, too widely scattered.”
There are academics who do believe, such as Jeff Meldrum, anthropology professor at Idaho State University in Pocatello, although he chooses the wording “the evidence strongly indicates something exists.”
“Whenever you use the word ‘believe’ the naysayers use that as a pejorative label, that you’ve abandoned scientific objectivity,” Meldrum said.
Meldrum is a protégé of Gordon Krantz, the late Washington State University scientist who collected hundreds of plaster casts of footprints and other evidence such as hair, and was known as the first academic to take Bigfoot seriously.
Krantz, and now Meldrum, believe that Bigfoot could be a surviving population of gigantapithicus, a tall, ape-like creature from the Pleistocene epoch.
Meldrum said the fact that Bigfoot bones haven’t been found doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Johnson himself pointed out that in his 20 years living in Alaska he never saw a bear skeleton or bones. Acidic soils and moisture can decompose remains quickly.
“Matt was on the right track,” Meldrum said. “You don’t just find remains. We wouldn’t know about gigantapithicus if porcupines hadn’t dragged them into limestone caves.
“If Bigfoot exist, they are very rare, they have a long life expectancy, reproduce infrequently as do other apes, and die a natural death.”
What constitutes a viable population is not well understood, Meldrum said, rejecting notions of not enough numbers for reproduction.
“There are only 400 or 500 mountain gorillas,” he said.
Meldrum, who specializes in primate locomotion, and Krantz both believe the famous Patterson film taken in the late 1960s along Bluff Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River, is real.
He said footprints at the scene are “biomechanically consistent with an ape foot modified for walking on two legs.”
“My greatest resistance comes from my own colleagues,” Meldrum said. “One of them said to me they cringe whenever they see me on one of those documentaries; that they’re very concerned about Idaho State’s reputation.
“It’s mysterious to me why supposedly objective, open-minded scientists, would reject it so off-handedly with the absence of data. It can’t exist, therefore it doesn’t exist.”
The doubters are plenty.
Bob Heironimus, a retired Pepsi bottler from Yakima, Wash., told the Washington Post a few years ago that he was inside a monkey suit in the Patterson film, according to the Medford Mail Tribune’s Paul Fattig.
Fattig also wrote that the father of retired logger Ray Wallace of Centralia, Wash., started the whole Bigfoot legend in 1958 by leaving footprints with 16-inch carved, wooden feet in Humboldt County, Calif.
Johnson, a Christian says, everything happens for a reason. He said he had nothing to gain from going public with his claim.
“I was accused of trying to drum up business,” Johnson said. “Hello. Is that a good strategy to get clients? I work every day to deal with the truth.”
Johnson still takes groups out for camping trips in the area around Oregon Caves, though not as many as in the years shortly after his sighting. He said he’s found trails, bedding areas, tracks and casts of hand prints. He said the animals vocalize at night, sometimes screaming. At one bait pile left by the group, a Bigfoot actually husked some corn, he said.
Infrared video at night hasn’t produced any good images as the animals seem to detect it, Johnson said.
Johnson said following his 2000 encounter, he was caught off guard by what he called a mean-spirited, arrogant, even political approach to Bigfoot research.
“Some were extremely jealous and angry that I’m hiking in the woods and we have our encounter, and we go public with our encounter, and all of a sudden I’m thrust into the pinnacle of Bigfootdom,” he said. “A lot of them were angry and backbiting.”
Johnson, divorced and remarried since the encounter, downsized to a close group of friends in his Bigfoot pursuit, but still hasn’t given up on seeing another one.
“Once you see one, hear them scream at night, follow a set of tracks a mile through the forest you get hooked,” Johnson said. “Some people golf, bowl or fish. This is my hobby.”
o o o
Reach reporter Jeff Duewel at 474-3720 or jduewel@thedailycourier.com
On the Net: www.bfro.net
To comment on Encounter at the Caves or send your own Bigfoot story, email tmoore@thedailycourier.com
Ludo
