Is it possible that there is a conspiracy afoot that has moved to suppress the existence of Sasquatch in the United States? According to a series of tweets by Big Foot researcher William Jevning, that is exactly the case. Jevning relates an incident that he was involved with in 1994.

While scouting a favorite hunting spot the father of one of Jevning’s co-workers and his friend came across a series of what they believed to be Sasquatch tracks running down a little used access road in the Mt. Adams area of Washington state. On the way out of the area the two reported the prints to a forest service supervisor. The supervisor then headed out to the area with a camera to document the tracks. When they returned home, the two contacted Mr. Jevning and offered to take him out to the area. On the way in, they passed a forest service water tanker that was leaving the area. Upon arriving where the tracks had been, Jevning discovered that the water truck had been driven down the access road spraying water, destroying any evidence. Jevning attempted to follow-up with the forest service, but was told the supervisor the hunters encountered didn’t exist. According to him, the forest service personnel he spoke with responded in a less than honest tone.

But why would the forest service cover-up the existence of a big foot? According to Jevning, it all has to do with the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the logging industry. While researching his new book, “Notes From the Field: Tracking North America’s Sasquatch“, Jevning discovered that if the existence of a North American Hominid or Great Ape were proven, the entire logging industry in the area would be shut down while scientists conducted research on the new species and studied the impact that continued logging would have, costing the industry what would certainly amount to billions of dollars.

I have to say, I never thought to consider the effect that the “discovery” of Sasquatch would have on the logging industry. After seeing the lengths that other industries have gone to protect their bottom line, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that the logging industry was taking steps to prevent the formal identification of Sasquatch as a living species. While all we have right now is a single anecdote which hardly proves anything, I would love to see more research into this facet of the Big Foot story. (I will admit though that this has peaked my interest and I have a copy of Jevning’s book sitting in my cart at Amazon as we speak.)

[via "Recent Cryptid Odds and Ends" @ Phantoms & Monsters]

©2001 David Barkasy & Loren Coleman

Recently, the Valdosta Daily Times published an article about the Skunk Ape, the bigfoot like cryptid said to inhabit the south east. Since then it has received numerous calls from readers who claim to have seen the creature. One of the sightings happened as recently as the 21st of April when a reader, identified only as Joy, was driving down a stretch Highway 37 in Berrien County that is lined with swampy terrain, Georgia when her headlights caught something walking into the woods.

“I saw the back of something,” Joy says. “It was tall. … I thought it was a bear but a bear don’t walk on its back legs. … Honestly, it looked like an ape.”

According to the report, the witness gauged the hight of the creature to be approximately 6 feet tall.

A skunk ape was also sighted earlier this spring in nearby Brooks County when a witness, who asked that the paper withhold his name, spotted the reddish brown creature from the back porch of his house. Watching through binoculars, the witness observed the skunk ape for several minutes and estimates that it was over six feet tall. Originally, the witness thought what he saw may have been a human wearing a ghillie suit, but as he looked on, the creatures movements appeared strange.

“It didn’t walk like a human,” he said. “It’s joints don’t quite move like a human.”

In search of the skunk ape [via Ghost Theory]

A statue commemorating the first Mothman
sighting near Point Pleasant, WV

photo by Fokket

Quite possibly one of the worlds best know cryptids, the Mothman has been seen on and off across the United States for the past 40 plus years. Just recently a witness came forward and contacted About.com’s Paranormal Phenomena Guide Stephen Wagner with the details of an encounter near the Ft. Worth suburb of Mansfield, Texas.

In the fall of 2007 the witness was driving with her daughter along FM 157 between Mansfield and Venus, Texas around dusk when something caught her eye. At first she thought she was seeing a plastic bag caught in the wind, but as the object neared she saw it was no bag. It appeared to have a “human-like form with wings attached”. The witness reported the creature made no noise as it glided towards her car. Filled with fear she instinctively rolled up her window. When her daughter didn’t say anything, the witness began to think she was seeing things. Finally after driving a few miles she asked her daughter if she had seen the creature. The daughter replied that she had. They then sheepishly opened the inside cover of the sun roof to see if the creature, which had disappeared from sight, had landed on the roof, which luckily it had not.

Mothman in Texas