It seems to me, after a few days of BF research/reading on the web, that Sasquatches have been captured or killed on numerous occasions througout this century, and in the latter part of the last century.

A quick perusal of this list: http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rfthomas/cb/chrono.html (look at the earliest two time periods) indicate that a number of Sasquatches have been killed, and at least one or two captured alive. Particularly interesting was the mention of a female Squatch captured in Alaska in the 1940s which died in captivity.

Now, could all these reports be fake? Where is the evidence of these killed or captured Squatches?

I have a theory about this:

Firstly many of the early reports (pre-1950) involve people shooting at Squatches on sight, while very few recent reports involve human aggression. This is probably related to a different attitude to wild animals (now seen as things to be protected, rather than hunted), and more people in the woods with fewer guns (recreational hikers/campers etc, rather than 'frontiersmen').
If more people carried guns and had the attitude of 'if it moves in the woods, i shoot it', we'd probably have modern specimen of a dead sasquatch to examine by now.

But why no evidence of these early captures/killings? Well, I think that it's only recently where we have had, to put it bluntly, educated people gallavanting about in remote wilderness areas. It is now a popular recreational activity for the upper middle class, or what have you, to go camping, backpacking, etc. But until quite recently, the only people likely to see a Sasquatch were native indians, hunters and trappers, and inhabitants of remote mountain villages. These people, worthy as they were, were unlikely to have the knowledge that certain creatures were 'unknown to science'. Even if they had some idea that the creature was unknown, they would not know how to contact the right people, and it might not occur to them to preserve the specimen etc etc.

It may have happened many times that Squatches had been killed, dragged back to the village at to be stared at and poked by curious onlookers, and then tossed into the river or buried when it started to rot. The idea of recording the event for the benefit of science or to prove it's existence to the rest of the world would not have crossed anyone's mind. This probably happened from time to time until the middle of this century (judging by the reports we have), and may even still happen occasionally.
People living on the land in remote places have difficult enough lives as it is, and chasing around some skeptical scientists (or even tracking down somebody with some expertise) would probably be the last priority on anyone's mind.



So anyway, i think the chances are than people have had a lot more contact with Squatches than we, in modern, Western 'educated' society, know about, but the information probably wasn't passed on.

The chances of similar captures or slayings have gone down recently due to a change of attitude, and a decrease in weapon carrying, among backwoods travellers. This of course is basically a good thing (i hate reading reports where people shoot at Squatches, no doubt maiming them and leaving them to crawl off and die slowly..)

OTOH, the publicity given to BF recently has made it so that a far greater number of people have heard of the BF phenomenon, whether or not they believe it, and if one was dragged back into even a remote village, somebody there would probably say 'Hey! that's one 'o' them there Sasquatches! Call Fox News!'...



So we'll find one yet...


Ok.. there's my rambling for the day. What do you think?



-robo

Just re-read my post.. i hope i didn't sound too condescending regarding 19th and early 20th century native indians, trappers, pioneers, etc.
I just meant that there was a good chance they didn't have the background to connect with established scientific institutions that would have given their finding widespread creedence, and thus fame.

-robo

Hi Robo, I must respectfully disagree with a couple of things you are saying. For one, I don't think that people who hunt are uneducated. For two, hunters do not shoot at everything that moves. Hunters have a huge respect for wildlife that a city-person who has never lived in the wild areas would understand. Hunters have a much more vested interest in say, the deer population than so called environmentalists do. They respect the things they hunt and they respect the hunt. If you read all of the reports out there where an armed hunter has an encounter with bigfoot, they do not take a shot for two main reasons. One they know what certain types of guns and ammo can take down certain sizes of animals. You don't try to take down a bear with the same gun/ammo that you hunt hooters with or even deer. The second reason I have heard over and over is, it looked to much like a man so they would not shoot it.

There definitely aren't as many people feeding their families by hunting nowadays like there were 60 years ago, I agree with that but, the reason that people didn't save carcasses and get blood sample years ago was that they didn't have anything to prove to science then. They all new they were seeing these things and that they were real. The indians never doubted that Sasquatch existed. Even today in the the wild areas where people keep to themselves and live as they did years ago don't have anything to prove because they have seen it they know its there and their neighbors know its there. Its the so called "educated people" who scoff and say they are hicks and believe sensationalistic things to keep their boring hich lives enteretaining. The "educated people"want a body and dna. Now I am no way against education, I just think there is education and then there is complete BS (Barbara Streisand).

I am sorry if there is a tone in this post. Its really not intentional, I have just been dealing with this sort of elitist attitude lately and its getting to me. You may not even have realized you came across that way and maybe I am just reading it in there all on my own because its a sore spot right now. So anyway just my opinion, brought to you by my unique perspective which may or may not be correct.

Thanks for the response Leeloo. I'm sorry if there was an elitist tone in my post.. i did sorta notice that, which was why i posted the second message.

However, i don't mean to be elitist, but rather to point out how a lack of communication between the people actually seeing these animals, and the ivory tower 'experts' (who for some reason are trusted much more than the actual, 1st hand, witnesses), has probably led to much lost information about Squatches.

I guess my usage of the word 'educated' was somewhat wrong. But i was mainly talking about people much earlier in this century, when very few people outside of major cities had time for what we would now call an 'academic education'. I guess what i was really trying to convey was the idea of different groups of people in society: The city-dwelling zoological 'experts' in one group, and the people living on the North American frontier, who were actually seeing the animals, in another. Neither group had much contact with the other, nor much interest either. Yet it is the 'experts' to whom mainstream society now looks to for the truth about Squatches.. So it probably won't be until the 'experts' have a living, kicking, Squatch shoved in their faces than mainstream society will feel convinced of BF's existence.


As for hunters' respect for the environment and for their prey, I was going by the tone of early reports (did you read the ones in the link in my first post?). It seemed to be that the normal response for early frontiersmen at seeing a strange, shaggy, man-like creature was to shoot at it!

In later reports, from the mid-20th century on, the reports of shots being fired diminished rapidly.. It was my assumption that this was because people's attitudes were changing. I have no doubt that most hunters today do have tremendous respect for the environment and for their fellow creatures.. that's why most modern reports from hunters indicate that while they could have shot the creature they saw, they did not.


-robo

This is a wonderful thread and discussion. I also feel that people living in remote areas, back in the 1800's and before, just did not realize that there was not supposed to be anything like a Bigfoot, if they saw one or heard of one or more. Same with any other unknown creature. So they accepted BF or other cryptid as just part of the environment, and other than being frightened or amazed when they saw such a thing, it was no big deal to them. No more than a bear or a cougar, say. Just another large, possibly dangerous animal.

In southeast Texas, there's a legend of the "Wild Woman of the Navidad" River in the latter part of the 19th century. She was probably a female BF. But no scientists and university professors rushed to Texas to check it out, and certainly no BF researchers, as there weren't any yet. So the "wild woman" was considered very strange, but quite probably only one strange thing on the Texas frontier among many and nothing to really write home about.

Today if such a BF lady were spotted repeatedly on the Navidad or anywhere else, researchers would be hightailing it to the site and checking it out in a New York minute. Because now we know what an extraordinary find it would be.

Thanks Robo, I didn't see your second post until I had posted mine. I can totally see what you are getting at. The dynamics have certainly changed nowadays with the amount of information and ways of communicating via the internet etc. There still exists a gap, which is what I think your main point is, between the people on the frontier and the scientific community. I totally agree. I do think with the internet and more reports and communication, and more media coverage when something big gets some attention (ie. Psycologist Matthew Johnson's sighting), is slowly narrowing that gap. So I think that we are getting closer to the type of circumstances that will allow these groups to come together. Groups like the BFRO are bridging the gap.

Okay...I will post to this because ya got my panties in a bunch over it.

First of all, not all Frontiersmen were uneducated hicks. A complete and total misconception to most. You have a very distorted view of early Western life. Yes, you are correct that you sound elitist, but you admit it. So I will give you a couple of points. Now tell me, if you were a woodsman, hunter, trapper and came upon one of these greatbeasts...alone...in a vast forest...with no one around for miles...what would you do? Whip out the cell phone and call the local primatologist? If one was captured, it would be far more likely to be shoved into a circus as a side show freak than to be studied by an intelligent scientist (who might I add, in those days did very little to help any species, most specimens were killed, then studied)

Gee Wiz! You make it sound as though our West was settled by a bunch of illiterate hicks. Try studying some of the great Mountain Men, many of whom were college educated and came west for adventure and to get away from the overcrowded, smelly and crime laden cities.

As for modern day hunters, I know more hunters (especially bowhunters) who have a deeper sense of the wilderness and can read sign better and longer than any college educated, upper middle class, granola crunching, new age environmentalist!

But hey! That's just my opinion lol.

The Mountain Men!

Here's one on the first and probably one of the only Black Mountain Man, Jim Beckwourth: http://www.beckwourth.org/Links/MountainMen.html

Benjamin bonneville (Westpoint education!):
http://www.linecamp.com/museums/americanwe...e_benjamin.html

Remember also that Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith and the like not only trapped and hunted, but mapped the Rockies for future generations.


So while I have calmed down a bit, I am still in dismay at your attitude that hunters, farmers and frontiersmen were poorly educated. Your attitude seems to extend into modern day from your comment about "upper middle class" recreation.

Class has nothing to do with intelligence!




The Redwolf

I can understand all the points that have been made, and they are good ones.

But, IMHO, I don't believe that the actions of our ancestors were so much a matter of intelligence or education as I believe it was simply the mindset and mentality of those past generations.

These men that journeyed out into the frontier found themselves in the midst of what must have appeared to be limitless resources. It had to be somewhat overwhelming in fact. Imagine looking out across a prairie and seeing not hundreds of buffalo but rather tens of thousands of them dotting the plain as far as the eye could see. For anyone to witness that, they would probably scoff at anyone who told them that regardless of what they thought, they were in fact looking at a limited resource.

Conservationism wasn't a term that was really known back then. Hell, for that matter, conservationism wasn't really known as recently as a hundred years ago.

That being the case, it wasn't hard to justify killing something just so you could drag it back to camp and show it off. Real big snake? Kill it and show it off. Eat it??? Hell no! Not no nasty snake! I just wanted to bring it back so you fellows could take a gander at it.

Even Theodore Roosevelt, who was most definitely a well educated man and who even established our first National Park, Yosemite, didn't think twice about going on safari and busting a cap in some elephant's ass just so he could get his picture taken with it.

It was the mindset, not the intelligence level that dictated that type of behavior. I suppose that it's just fortunate for us that we've begun to really learn these lessons before we made a few more species become extinct unnecessarily. Or, at least I like to think that we've learned. I'm an optimist after all.

Fishbone - yes, you said it much better than me, but that's exactly what i was getting at regarding attitude, and how it has changed.


Redwolf - A few things: I think you're confusing intelligence with education. At no point did i ever say (or even infer) that one class had a higher intelligence than another. I did say (and i stand by this) than certain classes had more education (or, to be more accurate, different education) than others. That there were highly educated individuals who explored the frontiers is no surprise - the call of the West was felt by many - but these frontier scholars were a tiny exception to the rule. For the most part, these wild lands were inhabited by people who would not realize the scientific significance of the 'monster in the forest'. Since Squatch encounters were rare, the chances of them happening to people who _would_ appreciate their significance was slim (and yes, who knows whether even a highly educated 19th century person would see the Squatch as we might today...).

Your point about the side show freak is spot on, however. Who knows how many true cryptids disappeared into the huckster's world of the circus side show, to be lost among freaks and fakes.
But by making that point, you concede that an educated person's actions upon finding a Squatch would probably be different from those of an uneducated person. The educated person of the time might see the place for a strange new creature on the dissecting table of a university, while the common person would associate strange creatures with the circus side show - and that is where they would take their captive.


-aoeu

My guess is simply that these pioneers, frontiersmen etc. simply had more important things to do like find food.

The lack of communications would mean that a story like this would takes days or weeks to get out, and then people probably were not that interested, bearing in mind that a lot of north american wildlife was very new to european settlers.

Redwolf :!: :!: Glad to see youve joined us !!! Welcome !!!!

I agree with The Fish on this one, and would like to add,
in those days, blackpowder was king (trappers, western exploration) and it was a one shot deal, no repeating cartridge rifles then. So, if you fired your rifle, it was either to obtain food, or self defence. As anyone who still shoots these smokepoles can attest, it doesnt exactly take second to reload, and the thing can be on top of you before you get off the second shot. If they thought they couldnt knock it down with one shot, chances are, if it didnt impose an IMMEDIATE threat, it was left un-shot upon.

Does anyone have a complete copy of the journals of the Corps of Discovery? (Lewis & Clark), i've seen a good chunk of theirs, and they wrote down everything from bugs to big bears, and a sasquatch would not go unnoted, certainly. But some of the other expedition members kept journals too, and i havent had the chance to read theirs.

The early settlers prob thought of sasquatch either as an indian legend or as "just another animal", and many were told by the local indians not to settle along the side creeks of side creeks, because "*insert local sasquatchian name* lives there".

Thanks RobUstes..Glad to be here!

Hey, good call on the Blackpowder rifle, these were one shot deals. I believe it was the turn of the century before smokeless powder came into general use? LOL, tried to shoot a blackpowder rifle once that was a long as I am tall...interesting results to say the least lol.

I agree with Fishbone about the mindset during the Western Expansion, that the land was an endless bounty. We know that to be false now. Wouldn't it have been an absolute high to see the West as it was once?

Now



So if it's doubtful (and it is) that a 19th century person would know what to do IF he came across a Sas....What in heavens name is your point? Your elitist attitude is tiring. You are still trying to say that you believe that an "academically" educated individual could have solved this riddle long ago. I counter that you are mistaken. Even an "academically" educated individual would have had to have faced the daily rigors of frontier life, food, water, shelter and survival. Beyond those things, the lack of communication would have hindered a scientific study to great degree. I won't even touch your comment that an "educated" person would have been less likely to put such and animal in a side show like a"common" person would..except to say....P.T. Barnum!

Listen, you sound like a nice guy, let's call it a truce and you can come on over to Oregon and I'll take you on a nice long Snipe hunt ...no charge!


The Redwolf

I would just say depends on what we mean by "caught" . In rehashing this stuff the monumental circumstance which was chewed on significantly was that Jacko affair. Supposedly that ended up maybe as a PT Barnum deal. Lots of people involved in that one from a train crew on. Dimensions given were 4 feet 7 in 127 pounds. Solid little fella.after that, I dont know much regarding other claims. Welcome RedWolf. Interesting ideas put forth here. Attitudes and takes I would think would border between shock, fear, curiousity and perhaps changing ones ways so that the profession maybe was a bit easier to take (get out of the frontier and become a banker!)

is it just me and my browser?? or is this a really wide thread ????

Sideshows, yeah. how many ended up in sideshows and are now lost, or declared hoaxs ? I mean, aside from the real hoaxs ... er the not-real deals, ... oh spoo, you get my point (anyone really take a good look at those things in those tents??)

Just wanted to apologize for the tone and elistist comment in my previous post. While I still think Robo is on the wrong track, insults should not be issued. Sorry.

Although I am still up for the hunt :wink:

The Redwolf

Although, your right about insults, i know you and how passionate you can be, regarding discussions and i really dont think you meant it the way it sounded when read ... (Red gives a Great Heated Debate ya wanna pick a fight ? Reds the one, no punches pulled either hehe). Feelings run deep in calm water, ... and after all, you are a Red head so, ...
Your still a Top in my book , dont worry (when we going hunting ???)

8)

As a hunter myself(not sassy, mind you), just gota give a big thanks to those here who posted the true feelings of most of us.
I don't personaly think that Robo meant anything negative to hunters in general, but that he may not have realised how seriously most of us take our love, and respect for, the wilderness and its residensts...all of them.

Hey, I resemble some of the remarks in this thread. But this prejudice about redheads must stop! One must realize that not all redheads are temperamental, argumentative, combative, egotistical maniacs – well, except for the ones like me!

But now I feel it’s necessary to put in my two cents worth about this topic. I know I’m rehashing thoughts that have already been posted but wanted to share my limited insights with the group as well.

There are hundreds of tall tales from settlers in the early days of our country and from the first post in this thread it’s apparent that some involve possible squatch activity. Tales of wild men and women permeated frontier life so it was an accepted norm back then. Hell, there are probably other stories of squatch encounters that were contributed to Native Americans wrapped in furs that probably were also Sasquatch related. IMHO, I don’t think that education, or lack there of, plays much part in the lack of evidence obtained or saved from this period. It was a mixture of the other factors as outlined in the previous posts such as lack of communication and survival that prevented the preservation of evidence.

Even those who were considered “educated” were eking out an existence from the land. They were dealing with survival issues and not taking a leisurely stroll through the woods. If an animal wasn’t edible or the hide sellable, it was of little value and probably wouldn’t be shot at unless the squatch posed a threat. Mountain men were known for their tall tales because descriptions were sometimes the only thing they could bring back to civilization with them - it would have been more than a little difficult to drag a thousand pound carcass over the mountains just to say “see what I killed”. I’ll admit that they could have skinned a bigfoot and persevered the hide – who knows, that old bearskin rug next to the fireplace might not be bearskin after all. I also agree that some may have been captured with plans to exhibit them as sideshow freaks such as Steamrunner suggested. Science be damned, anything to make a buck.

I think Fish said it all. 8)

What I say is:

Guns don’t kill people and people don’t kill people.

But hot lead, copper and steel does kill people.

So let’s ban heat and all metals!

It would make the world a safer place. :wink:

Guns don't kill people - it's the big holes the bullets leave behind that kill them !

We should ban holes !

Paul... good one...

Falls off of buildings don't kill people, the sudden stop when you hit the dirt kills people!

Ban dirt now!

Well ......

Archie Bunker said it best, when confronted by his daughter, Gloria, with a statistic on murders by firearms.

Wow. I just invoked Archie on my last post. I hope the world is that small when I go looking for BF.

I always found it amusing in the Jacko capture story how they "disloged some rock and allowed it fall on Jacko's head", or something to that effect. Despite my general distaste for euphemisms, I have to tip my hat to someone who can write an account of bashing a humaniod's head with a rock, knocking it into sleepy land, yet give it the air of serenity and naturalness of a new mother breast feeding her new twins. Or something like that. Oh, the power of the pen.

Someday, somebody searching Google for info on Michael Jackson (aka Jacko, for those of you who are a bit slow today) will find this post and suffer great bewilderment.

monkeyman - That might be the funniest post this week. And yet not. Good point on the
"collection" of Jacko. There is some seriousness involved on how 'train" guys could have caught this fellow... apparently he was stunned and laying alongside tracks and then he went up the hill to get away and somehow these "train" guys overtook him? Either a.) he must have so groggy and rocked by the accident he initially had that he couldn't move well or b.) this is just not true. Good point. Excellent point and a laugher regarding Jackson. great stuff.
Also, to add that they "got him" knocked out to capture him...... that's like a NUMBER of extreme claims all in the same sequence. I had thought about it before, but not like this. Makes you wonder the accuracy of the claim, that's for sure.

I was reminded yesterday of this story from Hartlepool in the north east of England, which dates from 1805.

The reason I am posting it here is to illustrate that at the time humans were pioneering into the American West, the rest of the western world wouldn't have recognised a primate even if it came up and said "hello, I'm a primate".

Anyway, the story is this - in 1805, during the Napoleonic war, The monkey-hanging legend is the most famous story connected with Hartlepool. During the Napoleonic Wars a ship was wrecked off the Hartlepool coast.

The fishermen of Hartlepool fearing an invasion kept a close watch on the French vessel as it struggled against the storm but when the vessel was severely battered and sunk they turned their attention to the wreckage washed ashore. Among the wreckage lay one wet and sorrowful looking survivor, the ship's pet monkey dressed to amuse in a military style uniform.

The fishermen apparently questioned the monkey and held a beach-based trial. Unfamiliar with what a Frenchman looked like they came to the conclusion that this monkey was a French spy and should be sentenced to death. The unfortunate creature was to die by hanging, with the mast of a fishing boat (a coble) providing a convenient gallows.



So, you can see that white man, travelling in the American west, seeing a Sasquatch for the first time is not necessarily going to think "I'll shoot that - might be worth a few bob" - they will probably just assume that they are the only ones that don't know of the creatures existence.

Hi all, my first post.

Reading this thread made me recall an incident described in Sanderson's Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life. In 1941 a Soviet medical officer was asked to examine a creature, presumably a Kaptar, in order to determine if it was a spy in disguise, or some form of animal. After a close physical inspection, the medical officer gave his opinion that the creature was, in fact, a wild man of some sort and thought nothing more about the incident.

The medical officer in question, while perhaps not an actual M.D., presumably had some form of higher education, or at least some kind of medical training, but seems to have thought very little of this once in a lifetime opportunity. Bear in mind that this happened in 1941, so one would think that the discovery, capture and close physical examination of what appeared to be an unknown hominid would have stirred a bit more interest.

If true, this incident serves to neatly illustrate that even an educated person may not fully appreciate what they observe in the wild.

Welcome Sisemite!

Cool avatar...

...of course you know I drew that image in a previous life and morphed it into a barn for someone to find after I called them there with esp waves...

I hear what you say about the professional passing up on a discovery...

...but considering it was during a war for their survival,...

..and all the possible ramifications of "speaking out" during such a time of oppressive communistic government and an already paranoid social climate...

...I would imagine many such treasures were either buried, forgotten or both due to the driving instinct of self-preservation...

When you are up to your ass in alligators, it can be difficult to remember your primary objective was to drain the swamp.

I just have to ask, what's a sisemite? and I agree with RB, nice
avatar. Welcome to the board (can I say that? seeing as I'm a
newbie too).

RB, I'm glad you like the avatar. Being a Missourian, I thought it only fitting that I use the image of the third most famous resident of Missouri after Mark Twain and Harry Truman.

You are most likely correct that the "excitement" generated in the Soviets with the commencement of Operation Barbarossa probably would make anything not immediately connected with the war effort a very secondary matter. Also, this incident was supposed to have taken place in the republic of Daghestan, so I doubt this guy's superiors would have excused him from his duties to transport a wild man all the way to the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. I can just imagine this guy saying, "Excuse me Comrade General, can I have the keys to your Maria so's I can take this Kaptar to Moscow?"

I always found it strange that the Russian scientific community seemed to be far more open minded towards the possible existance of these creatures than their Western counterparts were. However, that support, limited though it may have been, didn't seem to add that much to what we know about these creatures.

Hey, thanks for the warm welcome Howlingmad.

Sisemite is the name used in Guatemala for bigfoot/ABSM's, and no, I'm not from Guatemala. I just thought it was a cooler name than calling myself Hawley Him, or the Bardon Booger.

Welcome Sisimite. Hey you coulda chosen Mono Grande but then we all would have thought you were just a big monkey.

Oh I don't know, Bardon Booger has a certain jene se qua

Guatemala has BF? Not that big red haired thing that twists off
the heads, mapunigari (sp?).

Hey Sisemite! welcome!

I was going to ask who Momo is, but then googled it and found this:
http://www.n2.net/prey/bigfoot/creatures/momo.htm

Its a fun read - thanks for adding my knowledge of these big smelly beasts!

-Ray

(wondering where I can find a shaggy Momo wig...)

And another, slightly more frightening account from Loren Colman:

http://www2.truman.edu/~adavis/momo.html

-Ray

not enuf coffee this mornin' Ray ??

Please dont tell me you put any stock in what Coleman says or reports :rolleyes: He's confused .... about ALOT of things .... *ahem*

Oh, and yeah, Welcome Sisemite !! If youve seen the infamous Momo, please tell us about it (and how does Momo, according to local lore, differ from a typical sasquatch ??)

RobUstes wrote:



Thanks Rob. Unfortunately, I've never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Momo. The whole Momo thing happened when I was ten years old, but I do remember it clearly. I would send my dad into orbit by cutting up his evening paper in order to remove all the Momo articles before he got a chance to read it.

I am by no means a Momo expert, but I do recall that witnesses reported that it was extremely hairy. So much so, that it looked rather like a walking haystack. No visable facial feature, just a lotta hair. Like many Southren bigfoots, it was more than a little aggressive towards humans and canines. The most famous report about it claims that it tried, unsuccessfully, to abduct a small child.

There have been on again, off again reports of these types of creatures from around the area of Pacific, Missouri. In that locale, they are refered to as brush apes, however, I'm not aware of any recent reports from this region of the state.

I have always been rather surprised that Missouri doesn't have more sighting reports. I'm sure that like any where else, there are an untold number of sightings that never see the light of day, but stilll, I would think that we would have more recorded sighting reports than we do. I live in the Ozarks and assumed our part of Missouri would be the source of most sighting reports since we have a lot of forested, thinly populated, well watered terrain, but such is not the case. (I sound like I'm writing a Missouri travel guide for bigfoot. ) Oddly, most of the sighting reports come from the Northeastern part of the state, except for two old reports from the 1940's. One of those was from Sedalia, Missouri and the other is about the killing of a bigfoot type creature dowm in the bootheel, either Dunklin or Pemiscot county.

Welcome Sisemite. Glad to see you here. I'd never heard of MOMO before. And thanks for the links Raven. That was good reading.

Welcome Sesimite.

I don't know for sure what area of Missouri you live in. But I have had 2 reports in the last year from Missouri. One from Miller county and one from Crawford. Is this close to you? The report from Miller county I believe took place in Dec. 2002.

I haven't checked out the authenticity of the reports however, because they weren't Arkansas reports and I had no one in Missouri to forward them to.

Just wanted to add my comment about hunters. There is no blanket statement one can say about hunters.



This does not cover the hunters who shoot at anything that moves and put holes in peoples homes when they are poaching on private property.

There are all kinds. Unfortunately, the bad ones get all the attention. The good ones are never noticed, because they show respect.

thought

backwoods folks. independent. seclusive. distrustful of government and any kind of officialdom.

where i am from, on th edge of th big thicket of east texas, stories about monkey men abounded in th area.
IN TH AREA. it was not th sort of thing country people really dwelled upon. ah, that is except to try to skeer th bejabbers out of city folks. what was in th deep wooods and thickets wasnt much talked about to outsiders.

suggest parallels with ozarks folks and appalachian folks and heck, lots of folks out in th booneys.

QQ at bipto " this IS on topic"

Arkansan wrote:


Hi Arkansan,

I live in Greene County, Missouri, which is in the SW corner of the state. Crawford County is just Southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. Miller County is in the central part of the state and contains a large part of the Lake of the Ozarks.

If it's allowed, I could post a small map that shows all the counties of Missouri, if that would be of any use to you.


Shaman, your description of the hill folk is spot on. Get off the beaten track and start asking a lot of nosey questions about apes, and you are likely to find that people here can be very clanish and less than open with "foreigners."

> For one, I don't think that people who hunt are uneducated.

That's not exactly true. People who hunt are, OVERALL, less educated than those who do not. It's a simple cultural and sociological fact. Golfers tend to be more educated than hunters. Polo players tend to be more educated than golfers. BF enthusiasts tend to be more educated than polo players. OK, maybe not.

Same for people who fish. Not long ago I was looking for a boat on eBay and noticed that near functional illiteracy in the fishing boat listings was rampant, far beyond that of any other category I ever viewed. A whole bunch of the people selling Ranger Comanches spelled it "Ranger ComManche". That blasted boat has the word "comanche plastered all over it. Even the emblem in the middle of the steering wheel. How is something like that even possible? Yet I saw it again and again and again.

Same for spelling "trailOr", or TYPING IN ALL CAPS on the Internet and disregarding polite advice that it's rude. You can tell much about any group of people by how they write. Look at the posts on this board, then go to Yahoo sports and check some of the NBA message boards. You'll note that the monkey people seem to be much more refined as a whole.

Being able to notice the obvious is not any more elitist than being aware of the fact that a black man tends to make a much better running back or wide receiver than a white man is racist - not at all.

It would only be elitist if one concluded that the intellectuals were worth more, as a whole, than the hicks, so to speak. I've known more than enough disgusting educated "urbane" people, and twice as many exceptional (but simple) people in the backwoods of East Texas to know that is not true. Many intellectuals are weenies who know just enough to be dangerous, and lots of hicks have so much common sense and deep understanding of nature and how things work that they're slicker than Crisco on a billiard ball.

It all boils down to your operational definition of "educated", and that's a hell of a can of worms right there. I think you can't be educated without having an awareness of both the urban and rural mindsets. By picking out the finer points of each side a well-rounded individual just may emerge.

> For two, hunters do not shoot at everything that moves. Hunters have a huge respect for wildlife that a city-person who has never lived in the wild areas would understand.

Agree 100%. This image of hunters as lunatics is a curious one. I remember even back in the 70's whenever hunters were shown in a cheesy made for TV film, they were generally bloodthirsty madmen. I had a related discussion with a friend about group portrayal in TV recently. We concluded that if you are a hunter, smoker, user of any illegal drug, extremely overweight, German, or Arab, you can count on being negatively shown on TV.

The belief that every square yard of the US wilderness is being trampled by indiscriminately marauding hoardes of hunters is a widespread, but preposterous notion.

Another thing I've noticed - while running a large marina in Texas a few years ago it became a clear pattern that the only people who littered the lake were the "educated" people (generally pleasure boaters, not anglers) and the most raggedy of the "peasants". The people in the middle, and especially those that eggheads would refer to as "uneducated", were pretty doggone diligent about picking up their trash. They had an awareness and respect for nature that actually overpowered their need for pleasure and convenience.

On the other hand, go to a wholly disgusting event like a rattlesnake roundup and you'll see what happens when the "uneducated" unleash their wrath upon nature. It's a given that, in the crowd that fans out to smoke snakes from their dens, you'll find many more hunters than people who have read Aristotle's De Anima. (Yes, we're back to the education issue).

The word "educated" is a term we impose on the world according to our views. How educated you are at any given moment depends in the situation. If your boat won't start as storm clouds roll in, or you're lost in the woods, knowing the periodic table and how to conjugate verbs (or spell "trailer") ain't good for squat.

If I had to spend the rest of my life with one "group" or the other, I'd gladly pick the "hicks". Gotta have someone to go fishin' and drink beer with, ya know.

This was a topic I've been itching to write something about for a while and the opportunity popped up here. Great thread.

My understanding of the whole 'Jacko' incident is that it was pretty much a story blown up out of nothing.

I recall reading one newspaper report of the time where 200 people went to the jailhouse to see the 'ape boy', only to find a very confused jailer.

Shaman,great post.It makes you laugh and think at the same time.

Hey MonkeyMan. I resent the implication that hunters and fisherman are less educted than other people. My third grade teacher had nothing but good things to say about me. In fact she was still saying them that third year I was there

> Hey MonkeyMan. I resent the implication that hunters and fisherman are less educted than other people. My third grade teacher had nothing but good things to say about me. In fact she was still saying them that third year I was there

Better watch out. I hear that in some states, at the end of the third year you're common law married.

I never thought the Jacko story cut much ice. If it happened, the critter was probably a lost member of the Allman family.

had to bump this thread....some great posts here!!

will MonkeyMan ever return? haven't read much until I went searching in the "classics"....

I think everything you mentiond was good Robo and I know the way you intended it to sound.
I just wonder that if even though they may have buried the body when it rotted, there must have been somebody who took a picture. Even if they were not sure of the significance of the thing or if they felt they may have done something wrong, you still get those who want a sneak picture of " the kill" for bragging purposes.

This may seem a little off but when the meanie head's committed their atrocities, they weren't supposed to leave any evidence behind whatsoever. But there were still those sadistic, disturbed guards that took pictures of their handiwork that we know so well exist because we've seen them.
Not saying someone who kills a bigfoot and takes a picture is sadistic, just that there is that tendency for at least a very small minority of people who want a momento of their kill.
So, how about it? Do ya think some of your older hunting relatives or someone you know may have a dusty photo in an attic somewhere waiting to be brought out?