Big believers renew search for Bigfoot

By Rick Steigmeyer

Wenatchee, Wash. — Paul Graves recalls waking to a chilling sound: a haunting, whooping scream that carried across the valley in the icy dawn.

Graves, 43, of Wenatchee, described the long, piercing call as sounding like a woman's cry, but in whooping breaths as those made by an ape.

"We just looked at each other in disbelief," Graves said about himself and a friend, both avid Sasquatch believers, who had spent the first night of 2005 camped in a tent near Stevens Pass hoping to hear just a sound. "We heard it scream twice. It wasn't close, but it had the volume to carry across the valley."

There are many believers, Graves among them, nearly a year after the most-accepted Sasquatch documentation was debunked by a Yakima man who claimed to have worn a gorilla suit for a film of the mythical creature striding through a Northern California forest.

Graves is a researcher-investigator for the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, one of dozens of Bigfoot organizations that have taken off with renewed interest and new reports in the past few years thanks to Internet communication. Graves was one of three state investigators named by the organization last year after participating in a weeklong search for the elusive creature.

Graves is a local general cement contractor, musician and sculptor. He said his new role as an investigator for the BFRO lends credibility to a work that has consumed him for more than 15 years.

The Los Angeles-based BFRO maintains a Web site and claims as its goal to resolve the Bigfoot mystery by collecting data and physical evidence that may one day conclusively prove the species' existence.

"We're looking for credible witnesses," he said. As a BFRO researcher, his job is to interview people who make reports of sightings to make sure they are credible and then add them to the database.

He's come up with a few, including the Ellensburg firefighter and his family camping at the Loup Loup Campground near Twisp who heard two or more animals calling each other through the night. The sounds were unlike any the experienced hunter had ever heard and unnerved the family so much they had to abandon their tent and spend the night in their car, Graves reported.

Graves believes there are many people with Sasquatch stories to share who haven't for lack of a credible group to document the information without bringing embarrassment. He hopes to find those people as well as relatives of those who have passed older stories down.

Reports of a shy 6- to 8-foot-tall ape-like creature with 18-inch feet that walks erect like a man and lives deep in the forest have circulated for more than 150 years, Graves said. Called Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, the Abominable Snowman and many other names, sightings have been documented and become the substance of legend for hundreds of years throughout the world.

More sightings (338) have been reported in Washington than anywhere in the nation, according to the BFRO Web site. Most, 46, have come from Skamania County, near Mount St. Helens.

Other groups also are eager to find more clues about the hairy man of the woods. Ray Crowe, director of the International Bigfoot Society, based in Portland, said modern technology is on the verge of proving Bigfoot's existence. New cameras, Internet connections, sophisticated DNA and fingerprint examinations have already produced a wealth of new information that has scientists believing that a species of early man may have somehow survived, Crowe said.

If Bigfoot is out there, he knows how to keep to himself. Paul Hart, spokesman for the Wenatchee and Okanogan National Forests, said while there have been occasional reports of Bigfoot sightings in the forest, there's never been anything that he can recall that's been verifiable.

From: The Wentachee World, 21 March 2005.