“I have a cold,” I mumbled by way of an excuse. It was almost 2 a.m., and we were huddled in the dark in Torreya State Park near Bristol, in the Florida panhandle.
My craggy, toadlike holler yielded no response.
Moneymaker is the founder and president of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (bfro.net), a group of Bigfoot investigators dedicated to acquiring “conclusive documentation of the species’ existence.” Bigfoots, also known as sasquatches or yetis, are famously elusive — if they exist at all. Since 2000, the organization has hosted research expeditions — including some open to nonmembers — to suspected Bigfoot habitats across North America.
The goal is to rouse and record a Bigfoot. The trips — which typically last four days and cost $300 to $500 (not including airfare, camping equipment or food) — are led by an investigator affiliated with the Bigfoot organization who is native to the region. They center on nightly jaunts through the woods.
In December, during an outing in the same park, 26-year-old Matt Craig spotted what he thought was a Bigfoot on a thermal imaging device. He and five others watched as it hugged a tree and popped in and out of hiding, as if it were playing peekaboo. “At that point, my mind was trying to rationalize what it was,” Craig said. “I was shaking so bad, I couldn’t even look through the thermal after that.”
Now, 11 of us — three women and eight men, including Craig — had assembled with hopes of repeating his encounter. I was dubious but also willing to accept that I didn’t know what oddball creatures might be loping around the forest late at night.
The Bigfoot organization’s online database contains more than 30,000 user-submitted Bigfoot reports, and it’s a surprisingly consistent body of data: By most accounts, adult sasquatches weigh about 650 pounds and are 7 feet to 10 feet tall. They are nocturnal; fond of women and packaged sweets; hairy; bipedal; omnivorous; flat-footed; and malodorous.
On the organization’s expeditions, faith in the existence of Bigfoots is presumed, and the hunts proceed with a grim earnestness.
Members are accustomed to incredulity: Detractors — including most reputable scientists — insist that all observed phenomena could easily be attributed to a bear, a rogue primate or a guy in a gorilla suit.
Cliff Barackman isn’t troubled by dissenters. “I don’t care what people think,” he said. “I think skepticism is healthy and good.”
Moneymaker and Barackman co-star on the Animal Planet series Finding Bigfoot, in which they amble through dark thickets, howling at each other and banging blocks of wood together (sasquatches purportedly communicate via “knocking” — the belligerent pounding of trees or their own bodies).
At 10:30 p.m., after we had roasted hot dogs and exchanged a couple of squatching yarns, Moneymaker ran through a few rules.
“Don’t freak out” was the prevailing theme. He said he had seen otherwise-stoic men — soldiers, even — turn into “sniveling messes” when led into a dark forest.
Before attendees can be registered for an expedition, they are required to read a chapter from the group’s handbook that helps people “deal with the terror of a first experience.”
Moneymaker distributed night-vision monoculars called Ghost Hunters, which render everything in shades of green. We split into two groups, putting enough distance between us that we could initiate and return calls. We hoped to hear a few knock backs right away.
“It’s not going to be a human out there making knock backs; it’s going to be a squatch,” Moneymaker said. “If we hear knock backs, then we’re in business.”
Our group of five crept toward the river in a single line. We paused near the sight of Craig’s encounter and, after radioing Barackman’s team, tried a few howls.
Much of Bigfooting is listening, and, like any kind of hunting, it requires extraordinary patience. While we waited for a reply, I pulled a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup out of my back pocket and laid it on the ground. A foraging armadillo let out a few inquisitive grunts, but sasquatches, it seemed, were uninterested in initiating contact just yet.
Eventually, we trekked back to camp and reorganized. About 3 a.m., I followed Barackman and four others east toward the park’s sandy access roads. We howled, knocked and scanned for glowing eyes, but our solicitations were not reciprocated.
By 4:30 a.m., I was asleep in my tent with my hiking boots still on.
The next morning, I sat by the fire snacking on a slice of bacon and a powdered doughnut. The other team had heard and recorded a response howl — a brief, high-pitched hoot. We speculated about whether it was human. Barackman described the results of the expedition as fairly typical. “We recorded something that we don’t know the origin of,” he said. “The mystery continues.”
[dispatch.com]
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