Bigfoot
Evidence of the existence of Bigfoot has been disputed
for more than a century with confiicting reports, hoaxes
and occasional falsified photos like the one at right.
Possibly the most convincing evidence to date was a
film taken by two cowboys in 1967. A frame from that
film is displayed above.
It stinks, it eludes captors and it’s a legend
By TIMOTHY SPARROW
Of the Emerald
It's fat, smells like rotten carrion,
and looks like a seven-foot-tall
brillo pad. So say believers in the
legendary Big Foot also known as
Sasquatch. One such believer,
Hood River resident Peter Byrnes,
has devoted his life to its pursuit.
Byrne gained experience for the
hunt in Northern Bengal, where, in
dense jungles and tea estates, he
stalked great leopards and Bengal
tigers. In 1955 Byrne became in
terested in monster hunting and
soon undertook an expedition in
search of the Abominable Snow
man.
He never sighted that monster,
but now he has turned his atten
tion to Bigfoot. Dedicated to estab
lishing the existence of these eva
sive creatures, Byrne is searching
the mountains of the Pacific
Northwest. He also operates the
Bigfoot Information Center in
Hood River, which gathers and
consolidates sighting information
on Bigfoot.
Tall, graying and British, Byrne
looks like the kind of man who
would come charging out of a
thorn thicket dressed in a white
explorer s suit and sun hat yelling
“Pip, Pip."
Vet, he is in fact quite sincere
and unassuming. Prying hunting
stories out of him is like trying to
skateboard in sand. He recalls an
incident where a client wanted him
to “gut shoot" a tiger, so that an
agonized, thrashing death scene
could be used for an “action" film
shot. Similar experiences ulti
mately led Byrne to give up hunt
ing to kill.'
Byrne s objective now is to find
irrefutable proof of Big foot's exis
tence. That doesn’t necessarily
mean he needs to capture the
creature, though. He believes that
a captured, tranquilized or mur
dered Sasquatch would have
Oraifnn Hoiln li'mAvalfl
‘‘undesirable consequences.
Rather, Byrnes hopes to get a
quality film of what is proving to be
a rather elusive subject.
While it is fine with Byrne that
many people whose regular
habitat is along the lines of the
Eugene mall or a local Dairy
Queen to say that no such animal
has ever existed, Byrne feels that
anyone who is familiar with the
vastness of the Coast range is
likely to concede the possibility of
a great ape in the Northwest.
A trickle of alleged sightings
and contacts meanders through
the Sasquatch legend. The first of
ficial recorded sighting of Bigfoot
in Oregon was in 1810, when tre
mendous footprints were found in
the Dalles.
Indian superstitions were
strong enough for missionaries to
record their stories of “a race of
giants" inhabiting the Washington
mountains. The story of an un
identified ape-like creature ap
pears in an 1884 issue of The
British Columbian Daily Colonist
and Theodore Roosevelt re
counted a story of supposed
Sasquatch-perpetuated violence
in a book published in 1893.
But the most controversial and
esteemed proof of Sasquatch's
existence so far is 28 feet of film
taken by Roger Patterson and
Bob Gimlin in 1967. Armed with a
camera, Gimlin and Patterson al
legedly came upon what they took
to be a female Bigfoot. The two,
cowboys and professional
horsemen, were thought incapa
ble of perpetrating a hoax of the
magnitude of the film.
The footage was examined by
experts ranging from film tech not
Quality Food
at
Reasonable
Prices
Live entertainment every Sunday night
Open (or lunch, dinner & late night snacks
ogy in Southern California to
Bio-mechanics in Moscow.
Byrne was still guiding wealthy
hunters around Nepal when the
questionable footage was taken.
Since then, he has done much in
the effort to determine its validity.
“I took it to Disney,” he relates,
“and I said it might be faked. They
said that to reproduce the muscle
movements seen in the shoulder
and the leg you’d need to build a
robot.” Byrne added that the chief
technician at Disney Studios con
cluded theirs was probably the
only facility in the world capable of
producing as convincing a film.
The official screenings by the
Academy of Sciences in Moscow
did not resolve the question of the
film’s authenticity, either. Instead,
they raised the question as to
where the brute fits into the evolu
tion of higher primates.
Byrne does not pretend to know
or to nurture any theory on Sas
quatch as a possible “missing
link.’’ “I'm not a scientist,” he re
marks. “It’s our job to prove they
exist. He does consider that it’s
possible, because he thinks the
creature to be “much more man
like than ape-like.” And so his
quest continues.
1411 14 I 1>
561 E. 13th Ave. — Across from Max's — 344-1714
NATURAL HAIR DESIGNS FOR WOMEN & MEN!
$11.50
includes shampoo, moisturizing conditioner, hair cut
designed for you, and air-waved — a
completed easy care style
$8.50
a wet cut designed for you and your hair for easy care, and
air-waved — a completed style to go
anywhere.
$6.00
a dry cut for those who prefer dry cuts — designed for your
hair and you. Remember: we carry the finest of
professional hair care products for you to use
Paifo Q