Published: March 18, 2008 10:09 pm            

More than 50 Bigfoot sightings tallied in W.Va.

BECKLEY, W.Va. — The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, an Internet scientific community charged with unraveling the mystery of Sasquatch, lists more than 4,000 sightings and trackings of the furry fellow throughout the United States and Canada.

The Web site www. bfro.net has documented more than 50 sightings in West Virginia alone since 1975, with a majority of them occurring in southern West Virginia. The most recant Bigfoot sighting occurred last summer in Monroe County.

BFRO founder and director Mathew Moneymaker last week revealed for the first time the approximate geographical area in West Virginia where the group’s April 10-13 outing is scheduled. The group last explored a similar area in 2006.

“Our expedition will focus searching for Sasquatch in the Greenbrier River region area encompassing a span of three counties,” said Moneymaker, a law graduate and computer consultant from California.

Moneymaker began compiling his “comprehensive sightings database” in 1995 while still in law school. Since then, he’s received more than 20,000 submissions about sightings, but only about “one out of four have credible enough evidence to document and post on the Web site.”

The database, the first of its kind, gives a county-by-county breakdown not only of sightings and trackings, but also first-hand accounts. Some reports are buffered with notes from BFRO investigators such as retired Army Sgt. Stephen Willis, who will lead the Greenbrier River expedition.

Willis will most likely be searching for Sasquatch somewhere in Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties, which lists five previous sightings. A 1994 Greenbrier eyewitness account documents a man and son who saw “three creatures ripping limbs and bark from trees” at Sherwood Lake.

“I saw two very large black upright creatures ... it appeared they were eating bark. The smallest of the two had an arm reach about 10 to 12 feet. The larger of the two was several feet higher, later a third one stepped out. That’s when I told my son, ‘we have to run,’” the unidentified witness wrote. “I grew up in the area and I spent a lot of time in the woods, and it takes a lot to scare me. Through the years, I stopped talking about it because no believed me or my son.”

BFRO officials said many encounters are never documented because eyewitnesses fear they will be ridiculed after coming forward with information.

The Web site also documents a 1987 Nicholas County sighting by three friends of a “7-foot tall, legged, hairy brown animal” at the “Krofford Hole on the Gauley River.”

“I estimated by the tree limbs that it had to be over 7 feet tall,” the witness, known only as D.A., said. “I am a believer now and I will always be.”

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Moneymaker said BFRO officials are continuing to input information from their expansive database onto Google Map, which he feels will allow him to glean even more information about the elusive, legendary character.

“By mapping the most credible instances, we will learn more about their behavior and use that to target their locations and possibly trick them to walk in front of cameras,” Moneymaker said.

And what of his critics who say Bigfoot is just a hoax? Moneymaker said, “We have been able to convert the best trained skeptic after seeing all the evidence. It’s not a magical thing or something you can show in one photo; it’s a collection of things.”

The state’s most recent Bigfoot sighting, a Monroe County encounter last summer, purportedly occurred just northeast of Lindside near U.S. 219.

“I was walking up to the driveway after getting the morning newspaper,” the unidentified witness wrote. “I saw a big, tannish brown creature that sort of had a bump in its back. Its fur was short and clumped.”

The witness said the creature also “banged on trees in the yard.”

Willis visited the family and set up a trail camera, but “(it) recorded three images, none of any interest.”

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Will the mystery of Sasquatch finally be answered in the Greenbrier Valley? Moneymaker hopes that will be the case.

“Our group wants the rest of the world to know these animals are real and we are out to prove the existence of Bigfoot,” he said.





Christian Giggenbach writes for The Register-Herald in Beckley, W.Va.

        

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