Legendary creature
'Bigfoot' sightings reported

By: Eloise Ogden - Regional Editor

NEW TOWN - Paul Danks, administrator of the Natural Resources Department for the Three Affiliated Tribes, now has a Bigfoot-sighting map in his office.

On the map are marked the sites where people have reported seeing a Bigfoot-type creature in recent days on the Fort Berthold Reservation.

"There were several reports. They started last Sunday (Feb. 22). People south of New Town said they'd seen basically, I guess ... Bigfoot," Danks said Monday.

A resident of a mobile home park at New Town told Glenda Embry, who is in charge of tribal public affairs, about that Sunday incident:

"She said all the kids were playing outside in the trailer court and they were the ones that first saw it. They (the children) all started screaming so she came outside but by the time she got outside, they had scared it. She said it was walking away. She said it was huge. She said, 'I don't know how big it was but it just pushed through those trees like you're going through bushes' and it was moving fast." The resident said she was still shaken days after the incident occurred, Embry said.

There was also another sighting that day farther south of New Town.

On Tuesday, Feb. 23, there was another sighting, although unconfirmed, in the Mandaree area.

On Wednesday, Feb. 24, two area men reported they were driving on N.D. Highway 22 near the Lost Bridge when they came upon a Bigfoot-type creature walking on the road. The Lost Bridge is southwest of Mandaree.

They reported it went into the ditch where it continued to walk. Another vehicle on the road also stopped but quickly left, they said. The two men left the area and got several other people to return to the area to look for the creature, but they were not successful in their search. They said its footprints showed it had "almost 5-foot strides."

The Natural Resources office investigated the incident in the Lost Bridge area and Dennis Fox Jr., of the tribes' Independence Program, took pictures of tracks there which the Natural Resources office has. But officials said the snow had melted and there could be a lot of different explanations for the tracks found.

However, one Fort Berthold Reservation resident definitely doesn't think there's anything unusual about the recent reports of Bigfoot sightings.

Phyllis Lincoln remembers when she and her three sisters saw such a creature about 30 years ago near Twin Buttes. Lincoln was 17 at the time.

"I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was scary," Lincoln said.

Lincoln, who lives at Mandaree, works for the Three Affiliated Tribes in New Town. She was raised at Twin Buttes, about 100 miles south of New Town.

Lincoln said that she and her three sisters, Michaela, the oldest, Corrine and Janice, their youngest sister who was 13 at the time, were on their way home to Twin Buttes late on a summer night after going to a movie in Halliday, about 15 miles away.

"I don't remember the movie, but I know what I seen," Lincoln said, relating the incident this week.

Lincoln said it was "not really, really dark" that night. On the way home she said one of her sisters wanted to stop along the road for a "restroom stop," but the others sisters wanted her to wait until they got home.

"We were driving my dad's old International pickup - it was the standard shift. I was in the middle shifting. I was teaching the second to the oldest one, Michaela, how to drive," Lincoln said. "We were kind of talking and laughing, and we pulled to the side of the road."

She said they pulled over on the road at a spot below the twin buttes where there's a coulee or ravine.

"When we pulled over to the side of the road, the thing sat up. And when it sat up, (then) it stood up. It was really tall," Lincoln said. She said the creature must have been resting or lying in the ditch.

"We thought, 'what the heck was that?' We turned to look and when it stood up it was like, I would say, about 8 feet tall. It didn't look at us or anything, but I remember the color of it was like kind of a mouse-colored... grayish. It had real long hair. "

"It took one, two, three steps and it cleared a fence, like the fence was about 3-feet high to it," Lincoln said.

"We were all screaming: 'what is that? what is that?' and getting excited," Lincoln recalled.

"The girls locked the doors and I told my sister, 'Don't kill the engine whatever you do, just ease up on the clutch and put your foot on the foot feed and give it some gas.' And we went in first all the way home. My dad wasn't too happy about that," Lincoln said.

"We were all excited when we ran in the house, telling our parents," she said.

Later, Lincoln said their grandfather, the late Alfred Morsette Sr., told them these creatures have been around for years but they have never hurt anyone. "Once our grandpa said they've been around for years. We thought it's just one of those things," she said.

"This happened back maybe '69 or '70," Lincoln said. "When they said they've had sightings again, I thought, 'Well, I've seen it before and I know it's true, they're out there."

I tend to believe them because I've seen things like that," she said. "I do believe they were around a few years back, too."

According to files of The Minot Daily News, in October 1979, two Dunn County men reported seeing an ape, a Bigfoot, when they were driving a mile south of Werner, a community a few miles west of Halliday. It was standing on the road, the men said. A Halliday area man also claimed he saw a Bigfoot two weeks earlier north of Halliday.

In 1977, numerous sightings of a Bigfoot-type creature caused a stir in the Little Eagle and McLaughlin areas in South Dakota, catching the attention of media from all over. Reports said a huge hairy thing - some reports said more than one - was roaming the countryside along the Cannonball River that stretches from the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota into north-central South Dakota. Within about 2 1/2 months, at least 28 sightings were reported.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, which says it is a scientific organization probing the Bigfoot/Sasquatch mystery, lists a Ward County sighting on its Web site. A hunter reported that in April 1962 he and another hunter who had been out rabbit hunting were stalked by "a great ape" just outside a mobile home park near Minot. When the creature began to move in their direction, he said they ran as fast as they could and didn't look back.

The Bigfoot organization's Web site reports a few sightings of Bigfoot in every state around North Dakota - Minnesota, Montana and South Dakota.

People who hear about the recent sightings in western North Dakota have varying beliefs about it, as well as not believing it. Some tribal members will also say they believe it could be a type of warning. Some also feel it is a spiritual being, they said.

People who hear about the recent sightings in western North Dakota have varying beliefs about it, as well as not believing it.

Bigfoot reports
Number of sightings surprises researcher

By: Eloise Ogden - Regional Editor

- Kelly Berdahl came to the Fort Berthold Reservation Wednesday to gather data about Bigfoot sightings in the area.

He went home with a bundle of details.

Berdahl, a member of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, said a lot of people came to talk to him about encounters or possible encounters.

"I was surprised. It was like the floodgate opened," Berdahl said. "I figured there would be just two or three."

Several recent sightings of Bigfoot in the New Town and Mandaree areas prompted Berdahl's trip from his home in Bozeman, Mont., to the reservation this week.

As Berdahl sat in the chambers of the Three Affiliated Tribes Administration Building west of New Town Wednesday morning, people filtered in. They listened to others telling about incidents and, in turn, related their own incidents. The incidents ranged from recent reports to memories of past years.

Phyllis Lincoln told Berdahl about a time years ago when she and her sisters were driving home to Twin Buttes one night. They saw a large upright animal arise from the ditch, step over the fence and disappear. The girls quickly drove home to tell their parents.

"As soon as the lights hit the ditch, it stood up. We pulled right out of there," Lincoln's sister, Michaela, who was driving, told Berdahl.

Lincoln, 47, said she and her sisters seldom talked about the incident until recently. "Who would believe us? We were teenagers then," she said. Both Phyllis and Michaela said they would never forget that night and what they saw.

Lorry Little Swallow, Mandaree, said she and family members were hunting about two years ago and were pulling a deer out of a ravine. They heard an extremely loud bellering or roaring-type noise unlike any other, and it echoed throughout the area. She believes it was a Bigfoot. Another time she said one of her sons saw a Bigfoot-type animal on a road in the Mandaree area.

Berdahl, who has North Dakota ties - he was born in Dickinson - has been a member of the researchers organization for about five years. It has more than 3,000 members worldwide.

He said a limited number of members are researchers who have special training in the work and are called to areas of sightings, like Fort Berthold, to gather details.

Researchers interview eyewitnesses and others, and also visit the points of sightings, he said. He said those who wish to have their interviews remain confidential can do so.

Berdahl's father, Orlie Berdahl, also of Bozeman, was along with his son, helping with photography and listening carefully to the interviews.

Kelly Berdahl said the information he gathered Wednesday will be used for future reference for researchers. He said that data helps compare the Fort Berthold sightings to other sightings.

"It goes into our investigators' database. The ultimate goal is to say they exist," he said.

Some visiting with Berdahl Wednesday provided him with the names of others they felt he should contact who had either heard or seen a Bigfoot.

Some people just wanted more information on the subject from him.

Berdahl said there are misconceptions about Bigfoot. He and other research organization members have said people should not fear them and that these animals prefer to stay away from humans.

"There's a misconception in our society there's one (Bigfoot)," Berdahl said. "It's a species (usually) found in forested areas in our country." But he said as populations change with more urban sprawl, the animals will move to other areas.

A tribal elder, Judy Young Bear, whose Indian name is Bear Woman, said some tribal members view Bigfoot as a spiritual being.

"And we say when sighted, they come to warn us something is wrong in the close future," she said. When there was talk of Bigfoot in Alaska, she added, then the oil spill occurred, and when the animal was sighted in South Dakota there were forest fires in the Bear Butte area. She felt the sightings may be tied to the war in Iraq or the low levels of Lake Sakakawea.

Another tribal elder said his grandfather never mentioned anything about a Sasquatch, another name for Bigfoot. "He used to tell me a lot of things went on here, and all vanished and disappeared," the elder said.

Lincoln said her grandfather told his granddaughters not to be afraid of Bigfoot and that there have always been Bigfoot around here.

Later in the day, Corey Fox and Shannon Hale told about a sighting last month and that they saw the large-sized tracks which they believe were left by a Bigfoot. They tried to track it but were not successful, they said.

Fox and Hale said they and several other men went to the spot near the Lost Bridge area where two local men said they saw Bigfoot on N.D. Highway 22 the day before.

"I was still pretty skeptical," Fox said, as they started the search off the highway. "He (the animal) had a pretty good stride - 4 1/2 to 5 feet."

"I don't like to sound like crazy, but we saw what we saw," he said.

The average shoe size for male humans is 10 1/2-inches, but Fox and Hale said the tracks in the snow were much, much larger.

"It's a once in a lifetime thing - probably never again," Fox said.

Fox and Hale said they've had some ribbing from friends about their sighting of the large tracks, but they're taking it all in stride.

"I know what I saw," Hale said.

Berdahl visited two of the points of sightings, one in New Town and another in the Mandaree area, before leaving Wednesday.

"It looks like a pattern of things happening here," he said.

He said he hopes to return to Fort Berthold later in the spring to continue his research.