Comparing Purported Bigfoot Vocalizations with both Non-human and Human primates.

Author Randy "Rebelistic" Savig, Missouri State Director, MABRC

Over the years of researching the elusive primate that we have come to call Bigfoot, there seems to be some consistently purported vocalizations in areas of activity.  Even though I suspect that that Bigfoot uses a much wider variety of vocalization, some of which it has probably never been recorded, the most common seem to be the long howls(calls), the whoop, knocks, and screams.  Others that have been reported are grunts, whistles, roars, as well as woohoo.


As we know all primates also use gestural communication also.  The most common of these is rock or stick throwing, thumping and stomping, branch breaking, and bluff charges.  One other thing that seems to be significant with researchers is the feeling of being watched. If you have ever been someplace and got the feeling you were stared at and looked around and found someone doing it you can understand this feeling.  It happen a lot with people.  Other primates such as a gorilla it seems to be for a fairly specific reason.

staring: This where the sender has its eyes fixed on the receiver, the eyebrows are lowered, the head is angled down, and the lips are parted and pursed (Estes, 1991). This communicates aggression or annoyance (Estes, 1991).

We all got that look from our parents and grandparents so we all know what this one means!

With the modern-day advances of the Internet, researching sounds and animals has become easier.  Facebook and YouTube has in a lot of ways made Bigfoot research even harder with all the hoaxing that goes on with YouTube videos, as well as all the fringe groups with their cult-like followings.  However, you can use both as a positive thing.  When looking up primate vocalizations YouTube is full of them.  In doing so it is easy to copy the file and put it on a spectrogram compared to the purported Bigfoot vocalizations.  Facebook is not a great place where you can compare vocalizations with other researchers as very few do the background work and think everything is bigfoot.  I have heard so many normal animal vocals like owls, foxes, even squirrels being said is bigfoot.  But if a person is diligent you can find good folks who are willing to share and compare.    

In doing this paper I find it much easier to post a video with primate vocalizations than it is to try to describe.  The YouTube videos that I am using here are for comparison and educational use only.  And by no means am I claiming ownership of the majority of them.  However I have done what I can to insure that what I have used is authentic to the primate being represented.  I have done a lot of reading of information available on the Internet and come up with this hypothesis.  A list of referenced material are shown at the bottom of the page.  But as a disclaimer goes, this is my opinion based on extensive fieldwork, hundreds and hundreds of hours of audio review, and talking with other researchers about the suspected Bigfoot vocalizations.  I would really like to see other researchers use some of this in their research areas to either help confirm that it is a correct hypothesis or a false one.

It seems like a lot of times in Bigfoot research.  We hit a spot where what we used to do just does not seem to be working anymore or were not getting the answers to the questions our research is brought about.  I have put a lot of time in thought into this project and I am hoping with using this as a template that may be some more interactions can be made and knowledge increased.  All the skeptics out there will look at this and say that it is a bunch of BS because Bigfoot is not been proven to exist.  However, with all the researchers that have had sightings and other interactions know that they exist.  This entire paper is been written from a researchers point of view.

When looking at the vocalizations and gestural communication of the known primates, there seems to be a pattern of the use of certain vocalization that all primates use.  I believe that if we use what is known in the primates, it could help in deciphering what the purported bigfoot vocalizations may mean, as well as how we can use them in the woods while researching these animals.  By no means am I saying that this is the only possibility for the purported bigfoot vocalizations.  Until such time where they can be monitored by science to where the vocals are seen in context we will not know.    

 Historically, the common view of animal communication was that each vocal utterance corresponded to a particular emotion; screams for fear, barks for aggression, and coos for comfort (Smith, 1977; reviewed in Cheney & Seyfarth, 1990a; Hauser, 1996)

There is an ongoing debate about whether and to what extent nonhuman primate vocalizations are intentional, voluntarily controlled communicative means (TomaselloandZuberbu¨hler 2002). Although vocalizations seem to be largely innate, with a limited number of vocalizations in an individual’s repertoire, there is flexibility in regard to the usage and comprehension of vocalizations, with some species even comprehending the calls of other species, which requires learning (Zuberbu¨hler 2000a). In addition, there is some variation in certain calls as a function of population-specific dialects (Mitani, Hunley, and Murdoch 1999) or affiliation to a particular matriline (Hauser 1992)

There the specific vocals seen by scientists in context are talked about.  When we compare that to the purported Bigfoot vocals, it may be useful in the woods while researching.  Here is a good site for comparing a lot of non-primate vocals.

http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/av/vocals/

The long call.

The long call in primate research doesn't just mean the length of the call but more with the distance that it can be heard.  Most of these are used to as a way to joining back up the troop for food or as a possible mating call.  This is even true for humans.  Years back before texting and cell phones your parents would stand on the porch and yell for the kids and family at dinner time.  Even though we couldn't hear the actual words we knew the call.  Even in areas where there were kids from different families everyone knew who's mom was calling.  

In Chimps:  pant-hoot: This is consists of a series of loud calls which are rising and falling in pitch and often end in a scream (Nishida and Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, 1987). This call is most often given by males, but females may also give it (Nishida and Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, 1987). This call is given at abundant feeding sites, after smaller groups have been reunited after a few days, a response to loud calls, and as a response to charging display (Nishida and Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, 1987).

In chimpanzees, the production of vocalizations varies with rank and social context: at Kibale,
high-ranking males call in all social contexts, whereas low-ranking males and females only call in mixed parties (Clark, 1993). At Gombe, all rank and sex classes also call in mixed parties at the provisioning site (Clark, 1993; Marler & Tenaza, 1977). Call production in chimpanzees also varies with ecological context. Captive studies show that production of loud calls (pant-hoots) in feeding contexts differed by the quantity and divisibility of the provisioned food (Hauser et al., 1993). Earlier work on wild chimpanzees at Gombe and Kibale (Ghiglieri, 1984; Wrangham, 1977) suggested that loud calls (arrival pant-hoots, APH) given upon arrival in food patches by male chimpanzees function to attract allies, mates, or both to abundant food sources.

In Orangutans:  loud call: This call is given by the adult male and consists of roars at first and then rises to bellows and is enhanced by the throat sac. This is used to demarcate territories and to attract a mate, and is important because the orang-utan lives in such dense forests that it is difficult to see other individuals.

( Parental Notice:  This one was only selected for the long call and does show mating so it should be watched by adults only)

Bonobo vocalizations have been studied in captivity (van Krunkelsven et al., 1996; deWaal, 1988) and the wild (Bermejo & Omedes, 1999; Hohmann & Fruth, 1994; Mori, 1983). It has been suggested that the long range vocalizations of this species, such as the high-hoot, are structurally better for localization of the source than for carrying over distances greater than 500 m (Hohmann & Fruth, 1994; deWaal, 1988). Male and female calls differ in pitch (Hohmann & Fruth, 1994). Krunkelsven et al. (1996) found that production of soft, “food peep” vocalizations was related to both social context and food quantity, but did not find sex differences in calling behavior in either context. De Waal (1988) described more than a dozen distinct types of loud and soft calls used by bonobos in captivity. During his study, most loud calls were used in exchanges between parties out of visual contact rather than being directed at individual conspecifics. Loud calls were also given during party movement and were associated with feeding (de Waal, 1988).  More recent captive studies have shown that bonobos change their foraging behavior in response to food-associated calls from others (Clay & Zuberbühler, 2009, 2011). Wild studies have found that bonobo loud calls vary through the day and were most frequent in late morning and late afternoon. The later peak was associated with travel to and construction of night nests. Observed parties’ most common response to calls of distant parties was to vocalize and/or travel (Hohmann & Fruth, 1994)

Using this information I think it is reasonable to suspect that vocals like the Missouri Scream and others have the same function. If one is to use call blasting as a way of trying to draw in possible bigfoot from a distance, this is one that I suspect will work.  

The biggest drawback for using call blasting is that with the equipment most researcher can afford can not get an adequate volume or sound quality of the original call.  However it is worth a try and there are those who have had success.  Just try and keep the volume mid-level to keep the mechanical sound to a minimum.

Here is some of the vocals purported to be bigfoot.  It seems to pretty much cover all the categories I've covered here.

Whoops, and other short abrupt calls.

One calls that Bigfoot is purported make is the Whoop.  In primates it would appear that these loud sharp and short vocals are used as an alert or mild aggression. From my personal experience while researching it does seem to be a alert call.  When we spotted what we took to be a juvenile and was mimicking what it was doing there was the vocals about 30* to our left that seemed to warn the juvenile that we had seen it.

Here is a compilation of some of the whoops I have recorded.

An example of the ways in which a communication system is not arbitrary is that across all known animals that make noise, a quick, high, sharp sound means danger. Conversely, a low, sustained sound is reassuring.

Wilson, Hauser, and Wrangham (2001) showed that, in response to the playback of the pant-hoot call of a single extragroup male, parties with three or more males consistently joined in a chorus of pant-hoots and approached the loudspeaker together, while parties with fewer adult males usually stayed silent and approached the loudspeaker less often.

In gorillas
wraaa: This call is given as a fear vocalization especially the fear of something strange (Estes, 1991).

wraagh: This call is also an outburst, but not deep as the roar, and is monosyllabic in nature (Estes, 1991). This call is mostly emitted by the silver-back male (Estes, 1991). This is emitted when the individual is experiencing sudden stress, and group members scatter when hearing this call (Estes, 1991).

pig grunts: This call consists of a series of short guttural noises (Estes, 1991). This call is given by adult males and females, and communicates mild aggression (Estes, 1991). This call is emitted when the adult wants access to preferred foods or right of way (Estes, 1991).

question bark: This call consists of a short series of three notes, the first and third being lower in pitch than the second (Estes, 1991). Mostly this is given by the silver-back male, and he emits this when he discovers someone that was concealed or another individual that is making noise but can not be seen (Estes, 1991).

chimpanzee -- Pan troglodytes

Tanzania, Kigoma 

http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/196297  ML 196297 © 2016 Cornell University (In the middle of the vocal sounds a lot like a whoop.)  

It would seem as if using whoops or other short abrupt call may not be of benefit to have Bigfoot approach.  With that in mind I would like to have others help to test this hypothesis.  I know it is hard for any of us to imagine that a researcher would want to take the chance of stopping an experience that may be bigfoot related, but if a person is getting spooked I would like them to try it to see what response they get before using white light.  Until more data is compiled I wouldn't suggest using this as a way of drawing them in.  


Screams:
Even though screams are a long distant call it appears to a single focus for primates.  

Gorillas scream: This call is loud and is a shrill sound repeated many times (Estes, 1991). This call is emitted by all gorillas, and is given when the individual is upset or fighting with other gorillas (Estes, 1991).

This video is covers pretty much all the known vocals of the Gorilla.

Chimpanzee screams

I highly suspect this to be true with the purported bigfoot screams to.  This has been reported in sightings reports and may also be the "Woman being murdered" vocal that we hear reported.  I have recorded screams in the woods that I have suspected to be related to bigfoot.  There was one time in particular where they seemed to respond to our granddaughters screams.  It even did appear as if whatever was screaming was moving closer.  However there were no possible sightings or suspected close activity so I'm not sure what was going on.  

This next one was recorded at an active research site in Oklahoma.

We do know that in human a scream is usually done when we are startled or scared.  Could on going screams mean that there is something to fear in the woods? In call blasting or mimicking this could be a way of drawing them in.  The researcher should be ready in case this is a scared or threatened bigfoot vocalization.  It could take make for a negative experience. 

Grunts, Knocks, Woohoo,(Woo) and Whistles

There is a unique way that primates keep track of one and another in the forests. Some of the ways are listed below.  I suspect the purported bigfoot knocks and other vocals are used for this purpose.  With the Silent Hill Project showing that knocks do NOT carry long distances, it can be assumed that it is a location type of call.  Each primate has a way of determining parent and offspring vocals through various vocalizations.  Although the differences may be subtle and only seen on the spectrogram each is individual.

Japanese Macaque coos

The coo is a common short-range vocalization between group members. It didn't seem to be restricted to any particular situation, but was just a noise that they made sometimes. He looked at spectrograms of the coos, divided them into different types, and realized that certain types happened during certain circumstances. This suggested that primate repertoires might be bigger than we had thought- and also that their calls were more context-specific than we had thought, which raised possibility that they might also be more representational than we had thought.

Here is what I suspect is the calls of the Woo, Woohoo vocals reported with possible Bigfoot activity.  These are some of what I have recorded during my research.

Knocks.

Knocks are the one of the most common sounds associated with suspected Bigfoot activity.  Even though we do not know the exact mechanism used, whether the wood on wood, rock on wood, or even could be a hand clap, chest beat.  The mechanism used is not known as it has not been observed. Recently we have started to respond when we hear what we suspect is knocks. 

Here is a few times where we did have success to that. 

Here is a real odd one.  A two tone double knock.

Even though we have had some success at getting responses to knocks, we always mimicked them and did not start the knocking sessions.  Again, these are not long distance sounds.  So if you are in the woods and hear one, I would suggest trying to reply.  It may extend the experience. 

Grunts.
This is one of the vocals that is reported and in my opinion is the least understood. As shown above gorillas can make a pig grunt type of vocal. 

pig grunts: This call consists of a series of short guttural noises (Estes, 1991). This call is given by adult males and females, and communicates mild aggression (Estes, 1991). This call is emitted when the adult wants access to preferred foods or right of way (Estes, 1991).

However the belch vocal that gorillas also use is a sign of contentment.

belch vocalizations: This call is given by all gorillas, generally when they are stationary, and generally communicates contentment (Estes, 1991). These noises consist of purring, humming, rumbling, crooning, moaning, and soft-grunting noises (Estes, 1991).

Table 1.
Overview of close call types and their contexts described for mountain gorillas (MG) and
western gorillas (WG).
Call type Species Context
Syllabled calls Grooming, in response to noise, by mothers to
infants, towards the end of resting periods
(Harcourt & Stewart, 1986; Harcourt et al., 1993;
Stewart & Harcourt, 1994)
Single grunt MG/WG Feeding, resting, travelling (Salmi et al., 2013)
Double grunt MG/WG Individually distinct (Seyfarth et al., 1994);
feeding, resting, travelling (Salmi et al., 2013)
2 subtypes MG Spontaneous and reply call (Seyfarth et al., 1994)
Triple grunt MG Unknown
Inverted grunt MG Unknown
Train grunt/whinny∗ MG/WG Mating (Harcourt et al., 1993; Salmi et al., 2013;
Watts et al., 1991; Sicotte, 1994)
Non-syllabled calls As chorus when individuals are feeding and
moving close together (Harcourt et al., 1993)
Grumble MG/WG More by low ranking as compared to high ranking
individuals (Harcourt et al., 1993); feeding, resting,
travelling (Salmi et al., 2013)
Hum MG/WG Mainly feeding, rarely resting and travelling (Salmi
et al., 2013)
High hum/sing MG/WG Feeding (Salmi et al., 2013)

Dog whine MG Unknown

In Chimps

pant-grunt: This consists of a series of soft, low grunts (Nishida and Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, 1987). This is given by subordinate individuals to dominate ones as a response to dominance displays, such as the charging display (Nishida and Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, 1987).

Here is where you can compare a lot of gorilla vocals with.  By listening to this the above vocals will make more sense.

Here is a site with some of the best Chimpanzee vocals I have been able to find for comparison purposes.  Do to high number of vocals that chimps do for the range of reasons there is a lot of stuff here.

http://gombechimpanzees.org/activities/vocal-communication/

Some of the grunts that are reported as possible bigfoot may have the same purpose as some of the grunts we hear could be like the Belch Vocals of the Gorillas and the pant-grunt in the Chimps, a relaxed vocal.  However some of the grunts seem aggressive like the Pig Grunt in Gorillas.  I do think that a seasoned researchers should try to mimic these types of vocalizations to see how they are responded to.  If they are a non threatening vocal it may help to extend the encounter and possibly add to it.  Until this type of vocal is studied more I would not suggest to be alone if you do it. 

Aggressive vocals, Roars, Charge Displays
Roars are I believe with every animal as sign of aggression.  Here is one of a gorilla roar.  Notice the way it charges the people behind the glass.  Because of the glass and it knowing it is there it is really unknown if this was a bluff charge or would have been a real one.  

Here is some of the possible roars that I have recorded over the years.  Even though I can not say definitely they are from a bigfoot they don't seem to match with the known animals in my area.  With primates known to use roars when aggravated it is not out of the realm to think that a bigfoot wouldn't.  Here is some of what I think are roars from my research area.

chest-beating: This behavior is done by all gorillas and the either one or two open-fist hands are clapped against the chest (Estes, 1991). Adult males produce a sound when doing this because of air sacs they have which are located on both sides of their throat (Estes, 1991). For the adult male this is a threat display (Estes, 1991).

http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/126334

In Chimps 
charging display: This is where an individual is running and/or throwing objects such as branches or stones and/or pant-hooting, drumming, slapping, stamping, and screaming (Estes, 1991). This display is performed by adult males and occurs when a dominant meets another individual after a long time or done by the alpha male to keep all others subordinate to him (Estes, 1991). This display also occurs by an adult male when there is a heavy rainstorm (Estes, 1991).

This type of thing may account for the for some of the broken branches and trees that some have attributed to bigfoot.  When other primates use these things to display dominance or as a way to show off to a possible mate it would not be a huge leap to suspect bigfoot could also do displays like this.  

We all know this happens in humans too.  All the behaviors we see such a bullying, trying to gain attention from the opposite sex, even the favorite line of "watch this" in childhood and adulthood is to try and show worthiness.  

Here is an audio clip that was recorded of what I suspect is bigfoot.  It shows all the characteristics of aggressive sounds that is used by primates.  It is unknown of why the vocals were made as it was recorded with a recorder left on the truck during a day hike.

(This is a long vocal event and has not been altered in time or quality)

(This is a shorten clip with comparisons to a gorilla and some of the audio cleaned up for better clarity)

And it is not a one time event.

This type of thing is also somewhat in the grunt category so as I said above using any type of grunt is a risk.  Only researchers that are ready for the possible results should attempt to use it either as a mimic, or in call blasting in the field. 

One other thing that is reported with bigfoot is smell.

There are numerous reports of a smell associated with Bigfoot.  Some primates have a smell at times.  If this holds true with bigfoot as it does in other primates it could also explain why it is not reported every time.  People also have more odor produced if they are nervous or excited.  

In Gorillas

fear smell: This is produced by the silver-back male, and comes from glands under his armpits (Estes, 1991). This signals excitement or an aggressive threat (Estes, 1991).

Information of the Author

Randy "Rebelistic" Savig
Missouri State Director for the MABRC
Investigator/Researcher for the MABRC
Member of the MABRC Evidence Review Board

(This is the link to my research thread on the MABRC forums)

http://www.mid-americabigfoot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5477

(This is my personal YouTube channel as has the audio that I have collected over the years of possible bigfoot sounds.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuv6YBrCjndC78609PtIr9g 

References. 
http://www.primates.com/welcome.htm
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1207/s15516709cog2403_5/pdf
http://primate.uchicago.edu/2008CA.pdf
https://sites.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/seyfarth/files/seyfarthcheney-alb-97.pdf
http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-11-362
http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/proc/files/88p059.pdf
http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/av/vocals/
http://www.brockferguson.com/writeable/custom_uploads/52c29163b37ad0b2181b038322574418.pdf
http://www.iupui.edu/~mstd/a103/primate%20lecture%203.html
http://gombechimpanzees.org/activities/vocal-communication/
http://www.eva.mpg.de/documents/Brill/Hedwig_Acoustic_Behaviour_2014_2043808.pdf

Acoustic structure and variation in mountain and
western gorilla close calls: a syntactic approach

Daniela Hedwig a,∗, Kurt Hammerschmidt b, Roger Mundry a,
Martha M. Robbins a and Christophe Boesch a
a Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Primatology,
Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
b German Primate Centre, Cognitive Ethology Lab, Kellerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
*Corresponding author’s e-mail address: hedwig@eva.mpg.de
Accepted 10 January 2014; published online 14 February 2014

Western Gorilla Vocal Repertoire and Contextual Use of
Vocalizations

Roberta Salmi*, Kurt Hammerschmidt† & Diane M. Doran-Sheehy‡
* Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
† Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, G€ottingen, Germany
‡ Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

Historical Magazine articles

These articles were found on the Internet, and being placed here for the public to see.

MABRC Sighting Report Maps

Courtesy of the MABRC

A few years ago, the MABRC put together a large number of Sighting Report Maps listing the Class "A" sighting reports from all the major research groups.  The MABRC has allowed us to post them here for everyone to check out.

THE DIARY OF ELKANAH WALKER

THE DIARY OF ELKANAH WALKER

If we are to believe the Diary of Elkanah Walker, pioneer American missionary in Washington State to the Spokane Indians, he wrote:
"Bear with me if I trouble you with a little of their superstitions. They believe in a race of giants, which inhabit a certain mountain off to the west of us. This mountain is covered with perpetual snow. They (the creatures) inhabit the snow peaks. They hunt and do all their work at night. They are men stealers.
They come to the people's lodges at night when the people are asleep and take them and put them under their skins and to their place of abode without even waking. Their track is a foot and a half long. They steal salmon from Indian nets and eat then raw as the bears do. If the people are awake, they always know when they are coming very near by their strong smell that is most intolerable. It is not uncommon for them to come in the night and give three whistles and then the stones will begin to hit their houses." (Drury 1976, pp. 122-123)

Reverend Walker's established mission was approximately located twenty-five miles northwest of present day Spokane, WA. His diary entry of the snow peak to the west could be one of several peaks in the Cascade Range such as Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, Mt Adams or Mount St. Helens or possibly he could have meant Mt. Hood on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. But Sasquatch researchers, myself among them, generally believe the missionary was referring to Mt. St. Helens which has always carried legends of Sasquatches, ape-like men and of course the 1924 story of Fred Beck in Ape Canyon.
Missionary Walker also penned pre-civil war references to this beautiful Mt. St. Helens as a place where the white man and the Indians never frequented "and who assert it is inhabited by a race of beings of a different species, who are cannibals and whom they hold in great dread."

In his private writings, he declared the Indians called these different beings "Seatcoes or Selahticks." Words, which he thought at the time of his writings possibly referred to renegade or outcast Indians banished from tribal villages and not the elusive timber giant. Of this referential point we can't be sure, but his diaries were the first to make mention of it.

THE STORY OF MUCHALAT HARRY

THE STORY OF MUCHALAT HARRY

by Peter Byrne

According to the Indians, there was once a large number of Bigfoot living on Vancouver Island, a large island, 12,408 square miles in area, off the west coast of British Columbia. The Indians knew about them, feared them, and respected them, but granted that they were harmless. One of the Indians of the Nootka Tribe, who lived at Nootka in 1928, claims to have been carried off by them and held captive for some time.
The story, told to me by Father Anthony Terhaar of Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon, is a curious one. Father Anthony, a much-loved missionary priest who traveled the west coast of Vancouver Island for many years, was living at Nootka at the time of the story and he knew Muchalat Harry very well. Muchalat Harry was a trapper and something of a rarity among his fellow tribesmen. He was, according to Father Anthony, a tough, fearless man, of excellent physique.

In the course of his trapping; he was wont to spend long weeks in the forest alone, something that the average Indian did not do in those days, The Indians of the coast were apparently a rather timid people and they seemed to regard the deep forest as the home and territory of the Bigfoot. When they went into the deep inland forest for any reason, they never went alone. Muchalat Harry was different from other Indians. He went in the forest alone and feared nothing.

Late one autumn Muchalat Harry set off for the woods, with his traps and camping gear. His plan was to set out a trap line and stay in the woods for several months. He headed for his favorite hunting area, the Conuma River, at the head of Tlupana Inlet. From Nootka he paddled his own canoe to the mouth of the Conuma. There he cached the canoe and headed upstream on foot. Approximately twelve miles upstream he made his base camp and, after building himself a lean-to, started to put out his trap line.

One night, while wrapped in his blankets and clad only in his underwear, he was suddenly picked up by a huge male Bigfoot and carried off into the hills. He was not carried very far, probably a distance of about two or three miles, at the most. When daylight came he was able to see that he was in a sort of camp, under a high rock shelf and surrounded by some twenty Bigfoot They were of all sexes and sizes. For some time, they stood around him and stared at him. The males to the front of the curious group females behind them and young ones to the rear. Muchalat Harry was frightened at first and his fear grew to terror when he noticed, he said, the large number of bones lying around the campsite. When he saw these he was convinced that the Bigfeet were going to eat him.

The Bigfeet did not harm him in any way. Occasionally one came forward and touched him, as if feeling him, and when they discovered that his "skin" was loose — it was in fact his woolen underwear — several came forward and pulled at it gently.

While they looked at him and examined him, Muchalat Harry sat with his back to the rock wall and did not move. He was cold and hungry, but his thoughts were only on escape. Some time in the late afternoon, curiosity on the part of the Bigfeet seemed to slacken and with most of the Bigfeet out of camp, probably food-gathering he thought, there came the opportunity that he needed. He leapt to his feet and ran for his life, never looking back. He ran downhill, toward where he guessed the river to be and sure enough, he soon came to his campsite. In what must have been blind panic he bypassed his camp and ran for twelve miles to where his canoe was cached at the mouth of the Conuma.

Father Anthony describes the story of Muchalat Harry’s arrival at Nootka as follows. It was probably three in the morning. He and his brother Benedictines were asleep and the village was quiet. Suddenly there was a series of wild cries from the waters of the inlet. Lights were lit and he and others hurried down to the water's edge. There, near-frozen and exhausted in his canoe, lay Muchalat Harry. He was barefoot and clad only in his wet and torn underwear and he had paddled his canoe through the winter night 45 miles from the mouth of the Conuma River.

Father Anthony and his companions carried the almost lifeless form up from the water's edge. It took three weeks to nurse Muchalat Harry back to sanity and good health. Father Anthony, who took him into his own care, did the nursing and he told me [Peter Byrne] that during the course of these three weeks, Muchalat Harry's hair turned to pure white.

The story of the kidnapping came out slowly. At first Muchalat Harry would talk to no one. Then he told Father Anthony what had happened and, later, others. When he was fully recovered to health he was asked when he planned to go back to collect his belongings, the camp equipment, his pots and pans, his trap line and above all, his rifle, at the lean-to on the Conuma. In 1928 a trap line and all of its pieces must have been worth a great deal to an island Indian. A rifle alone would be regarded as a highly prized possession. But Muchalat Harry never went back to the Conuma. Not only did he never return there; according to Father Anthony, he never left the settlement at Nootka, never went in the woods again for the rest of his life. He preferred to lose all of his valuables and probably hard-won possessions rather than risk another encounter with the Bigfeet.

Late in 1972 I had occasion to visit Vancouver Island. I was on a routine investigating trip and when I found myself at Nainimo, not too far by road from the west coast and the scene of Muchalat Harry's adventure, I drove there. I stopped in Gold River and obtained from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police some maps and instructions on how to get to the Conuma River area. Nowadays there is a logging road that runs all the way down to the mouth of the river, and one Sunday morning, with the logging trucks out of the way, I drove there and made camp on the Conuma. I spent several days there, walking the riverbed and exploring. I tried to make a rough determination of where Muchalat Harry might have had his lean-to and I found a place that offered a good campsite, twelve miles from the mouth of the river on the edge of a series of high bluffs. The salmon were running in the Conuma while I was there and all night long I could hear them splashing up the shallow waters of the river. In the morning black bear worked the river, getting the salmon that had come ashore in the night or had become tangled in the limbs of fallen trees that lay in the river. I counted six bears in several days.

The country was generally wild and deserted and the actual mouth of the Conuma, where it flowed into the salt waters of the inlet, was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Some of the forest close to the river had been logged off, but the logging work had moved on west and while I was there it was quiet.

The days began with morning mists on the river and then warmed to the clear crispness of perfect autumn weather. Evenings were cool and damp and nights bright with starlight that provided almost enough light to read. I found no sign of Bigfoot on the Conuma, nor any sign of Muchalat Harry's trap line or lean-to. I hardly expected to find anything of the latter, after forty-odd years. But even though Muchalat Harry was long gone, the river and the forest remained unchanged, The splashing salmon, the cold, clear water of the Conuma, the moss-covered banks, the shallow pools in the forest that the Conuma drained, that were the breeding places of the salmon, the river birds, the plodding bears, the deep silent waters of the inlet, all were as they must have been forty years before, when Muchalat Harry cached his canoe and made his camp there.

© Peter Byrne, The Search for Bigfoot, 1975. 

William Roe's Sworn Affidavit

William Roe's Sworn Affidavit

William Roe claimed to have encountered a sasquatch in 1955, and was so certain about what he had seen, he made a sworn affidavit:

I, W. Roe of the City of Edmonton, in the province of Alberta make oath and say, (1) That the exhibit A attached to this, my affidavit, is absolutely true and correct in all details.

Sworn before me in the City of Edmonton, Province of Alberta, this 26th day of August, A.D. 1957.

(Signed) William Roe (Signed) by W.H. Clark Assistant Claims Agent Number D.D. 2822

EXHIBIT A. Ever since I was a small boy back in the forest of Michigan, I have studied the lives and habits of wild animals. Later, when I supported my family in Northern Alberta by hunting and trapping, I spent many hours just observing the wild things. They fascinated me. But the most incredible experience I ever had with a wild creature occurred near a little town called Tete Jaune Cache, British Columbia, about eighty miles west of Jasper, Alberta.

I had been working on the highway near Tete Jaune Cache for about two years. In October, 1955, I decided to climb five miles up Mica Mountain to an old deserted mine, just for something to do. I came in sight of the mine about three o'clock in the afternoon after an easy climb. I had just come out of a patch of low brush into a clearing when I saw what I thought was a grizzly bear, in the bush on the other side. I had shot a grizzly near that spot the year before. This one was only about 75 yards away, but I didn't want to shoot it, for I had no way of getting it out. So I sat down on a small rock and watched, my rifle in my hands.

I could see part of the animal's head and the top of one shoulder. A moment later it raised up and stepped out into the opening. Then I saw it was not a bear.

This, to the best of my recollection, is what the creature looked like and how it acted as it came across the clearing directly toward me. My first impression was of a huge man, about six feet tall, almost three feet wide, and probably weighing somewhere near three hundred pounds. It was covered from head to foot with dark brown silver-tipped hair. But as it came closer I saw by its breasts that it was female.

A drawing of the Sasquatch The Mica Mountain Sasquatch, drawn under Roe's direction by his daughter

And yet, its torso was not curved like a female's. Its broad frame was straight from shoulder to hip. Its arms were much thicker than a man's arms, and longer, reaching almost to its knees. Its feet were broader proportionately than a man's, about five inches wide at the front and tapering to much thinner heels. When it walked it placed the heel of its foot down first, and I could see the grey-brown skin or hide on the soles of its feet.

It came to the edge of the bush I was hiding in, within twenty feet of me, and squatted down on its haunches. Reaching out its hands it pulled the branches of bushes toward it and stripped the leaves with its teeth. Its lips curled flexibly around the leaves as it ate. I was close enough to see that its teeth were white and even.

The shape of this creature's head somewhat resembled a Negro's. The head was higher at the back than at the front. The nose was broad and flat. The lips and chin protruded farther than its nose. But the hair that covered it, leaving bare only the parts of its face around the mouth, nose and ears, made it resemble an animal as much as a human. None of this hair, even on the back of its head, was longer than an inch, and that on its face was much shorter. Its ears were shaped like a human's ears. But its eyes were small and black like a bear's. And its neck also was unhuman. Thicker and shorter than any man's I had ever seen.

As I watched this creature, I wondered if some movie company was making a film at this place and that what I saw was an actor, made up to look partly human and partly animal. But as I observed it more, I decided it would be impossible to fake such a specimen. Anyway, I learned later there was no such company near that area. Nor, in fact, did anyone live up Mica Mountain, according to the people who lived in Tete Jaune Cache.

Finally the wild thing must have got my scent, for it looked directly at me through an opening in the brush. A look of amazement crossed its face. It looked so comical at the moment I had to grin. Still in a crouched position, it backed up three or four short steps, then straightened up to its full height and started to walk rapidly back the way it had come. For a moment it watched me over its shoulder as it went, not exactly afraid, but as though it wanted no contact with anything strange.

The thought came to me that if I shot it, I would possibly have a specimen of great interest to scientists the world over. I had heard stories of the Sasquatch, the giant hairy Indians that live in the legends of British Columbia Indians, and also many claim, are still in fact alive today. Maybe this was a Sasquatch, I told myself.

I levelled my rifle. The creature was still walking rapidly away, again turning its head to look in my direction. I lowered the rifle. Although I have called the creature "it", I felt now that it was a human being and I knew I would never forgive myself if I killed it.

Just as it came to the other patch of brush it threw its head back and made a peculiar noise that seemed to be half laugh and half language, and which I can only describe as a kind of a whinny. Then it walked from the small brush into a stand of lodgepole pine.

I stepped out into the opening and looked across a small ridge just beyond the pine to see if I could see it again. It came out on the ridge a couple of hundred yards away from me, tipped its head back again, and again emitted the only sound I had heard it make, but what this half- laugh, half-language was meant to convey, I do not know. It disappeared then, and I never saw it again.

I wanted to find out if it lived on vegetation entirely or ate meat as well, so I went down and looked for signs. I found it in five different places, and although I examined it thoroughly, could find no hair or shells of bugs or insects. So I believe it was strictly a vegetarian.

I found one place where it had slept for a couple of nights under a tree. Now, the nights were cool up the mountain, at this time of year especially, and yet it had not used a fire. I found no sign that it possessed even the simplest of tools. Nor a single companion while in this place.

Whether this was a Sasquatch I do not know. It will always remain a mystery to me, unless another one is found.

I hereby declare the above statement to be in every part true, to the best of my powers of observation and recollection.

(Signed) William Roe 

Ruby Creek Incident

Ruby Creek Incident

by Ivan T. Sanderson
Mr. Ostman's story was related to Queen Elizabeth II when she visited British Columbia in 1959. The story is said to have been submitted to Her Majesty by an official, along with other Sasquatchery, in a remote vacation cabin at a lake near Kamloops on August 28. By coincidence, I was on that same day closeted in a small railroad shack with a charming Amerindian couple named Mr. and Mrs. George Chapman, at Jacko's old retreat of Yale, some miles lower down the Fraser River. I also was hearing a story, but firsthand, and in what turned out later to have been rather extraordinary circumstances.

We had crossed the log-filled Fraser in a small boat, rowing first away upstream, then very rapidly a long way downstream broadside, and then finally a long way back upstream again on the other side in the lee of a tall bank. Scrambling to the top of this we struck a railroad along which an Amerindian family were straggling in from the hills. By some strange quirk of fate, this turned out to be the Chapman family for whom we were looking. They hospitably invited us in to the freight office, behind which they had a small house.

That could have been a very tense or even profitless interview for several reasons. Here we were, two palefaces with locally odd accents — Robbie Christie, though born in New Jersey, has ranched in Colorado, wears a Texan-type hat, and has a vaguely British accent; while I talk a sort of bastardized Anglo-Saxon with an American intonation and a British accent, neither of which are popular in Canada — who had met up with a reticent Amerindian couple, apparently quite by chance on a railroad track, and who now had suddenly demanded to hear the facts of a series of incidents that had happened to these good people 18 years before. Somehow, however, and perhaps due mostly to a kind of mild shock, we all got off on the right foot and within a surprisingly short space of time Mrs. Chapman was recounting those terrible hours with complete clarity, only every now and then being mildly corrected by her husband, or having her account augmented by details which she had not witnessed.

We had heard their story from several sources and had read it in several printed versions, but I wanted to get it firsthand and I wanted to be able to shoot my particular glossary of awkward biological questions at principals, who were alleged eyewitnesses of a living Sasquatch in daylight. It is just as well that we crossed the Fraser River just when we did, and so met the Chapmans, because about a month afterward they were drowned crossing at the same spot late one night. The irony and tragedy of this event upset me greatly for, as I have said, I have a great liking and respect for the Amerindian peoples and I not only found this couple graciously natural and friendly but they also impressed me, as very few other people have ever done, with their sincerity and honesty. The Chapman family at the time of the incident consisted of George and Jeannie Chapman and three children. Mr. Chapman worked on the railroad. They lived near a small place called Ruby Creek, 30 miles up the Fraser River from Agassiz. It was about 3 in the afternoon of a cloudless summer day when Jeannie Chapman's eldest son, then aged 9, came running to the house saying that there was a cow coming down out of the woods at the foot of the nearby mountain. The other kids, a boy aged 7 and a little girl of 5, were still playing in a field behind the house bordering on the rail track.

Mrs. Chapman went out to look, since the boy seemed oddly disturbed, and then saw what she at first thought was a very big bear moving about among the bushes bordering the field beyond the railroad tracks. She called the two smaller children who came running immediately. Then the creature moved out onto the tracks and she saw to her horror that it was a gigantic man covered with hair, not fur. The hair seemed to be about 4 inches long all over, and of a pale yellow-brown color. To pin down this color Mrs. Chapman pointed out to me a sheet of lightly varnished plywood in the room where we were sitting. This was of a brownish-ocher color.

This creature advanced directly toward the house and Mrs. Chapman had, as she put it, "much too much time to look at it" because she stood her ground outside while the eldest boy — on her instructions — got a blanket from the house and rounded up the other children. The kids were in a near panic, she told us, and it took 2 or 3 minutes to get the blanket, during which time the creature had reached the near corner of the field only about 100 feet away from her. Mrs. Chapman then spread the blanket and, holding it aloft so that the children could not see the creature or it them, she backed off at the double to the old field and down on to the river beach, out of sight, and ran with the kids downstream to the village.

I asked her a leading question about the blanket. Had her purpose in using it been to prevent the children seeing the creature, in accord with an alleged Amerindian belief that to do so brings bad luck and often death? Her reply was both prompt and surprising. She said that, although she had heard white men tell of that belief, she had not heard it from her parents or any other of her people, whose advice regarding the so-called Sasquatch had been simply not to go farther than certain points up certain valleys, to run if she saw one, but not to struggle if one caught her, as it might squeeze her to death by mistake.

"No," she said, "I used the blanket because I thought it was after one of the kids and so might go into the house to look for them instead of following me." This seems to have been sound logic as the creature did go into the house and also rummaged through an outhouse pretty thoroughly, hauling from it a 55-gallon barrel of salt fish, breaking this open, and scattering its contents about outside. (The tragic irony of it is that all those original three children did die within 3 years, while, as I have said, a month after we interviewed them, the Chapmans and their new children drowned as well.)

Mrs. Chapman told me that the creature was about 7 feet tall. She could easily estimate the height by the various fence and line posts standing about the field. It had a rather small head and a very short, thick neck; in fact really no neck at all, a point emphasized by William Roe and by almost all others who claim to have seen one of these creatures. Its body was entirely human in shape except that it was immensely thick through its chest and its arms were exceptionally long. She did not see the feet which were in the grass. Its shoulders were very wide and it had no breasts, from which Mrs. Chapman assumed it was a male, though she also did not see any male genitalia due to the long hair covering its groin. She was most definite on one point: the naked parts of its face and its hands were much darker than its hair, and appeared to be almost black.

George Chapman returned home from his work on the railroad that day shortly before 6 in the evening and by a route that bypassed the village, so that he saw no one to tell him what had happened. When he reached his house he immediately saw the woodshed door battered in, and spotted enormous humanoid footprints all over the place. Greatly alarmed — for, like all of his people, he had heard since childhood about the "big wild men of the mountains," though he did not hear the word Sasquatch till after this incident — he called for his family and then dashed through the house. Then he spotted the foot-tracks of his wife and kids going off toward the river. He followed these until he picked them up on the sand beside the river and saw them going off downstream without any giant ones following.

Somewhat relieved, he was retracing his steps when he stumbled across the giant's foot-tracks on the river bank farther upstream. These came down out of the potato patch, which lay between the house and the river, milled about by the river, and then went back through the old field toward the foot of the mountains where they disappeared in the heavy growth.

Returning to the house, relieved to know that the tracks of all four of his family had gone off downstream to the village, George Chapman went to examine the woodshed. In our interview, after 18 years, he still expressed voluble astonishment that any living thing, even a 7-foot-6-inch man with a barrel-chest could lift a 55-gallon tub of fish out of the narrow door of the shack and break it open without using a tool. He confirmed the creature's height after finding a number of long brown hairs stuck in the slabwood lintel of the doorway, above the level of his head. George Chapman then went off to the village to look for his family, and found them in a state of calm collapse. He gathered them up and invited his father-in-law and two others to return with him, for protection of his family when he was away at work. The foot-tracks returned every night for a week and on two occasions the dogs that the Chapmans had taken with them set up the most awful racket at exactly 2 o'clock in the morning. The Sasquatch did not, however, molest them or, apparently, touch either the house or the woodshed. But the whole business was too unnerving and the family finally moved out. They never went back.

After a long chat about this and other matters, Mrs. Chapman suddenly told us something very significant just as we were leaving. She said: "It made an awful funny noise." I asked her if she could imitate this noise for me but it was her husband who did so, saying that he bad heard it at night twice during the week after the first incident. He then proceeded to utter exactly the same strange, gurgling whistle that the men in California, who had told us they had heard an Oh-Mah (or "Bigfoot") call, had given. This is a sound I cannot reproduce in print, but I can assure you that it is unlike anything I have ever heard given by man or beast anywhere in the world. To me, this information is of the greatest significance. That an Amerindian couple in British Columbia should give out with exactly the same strange sound in connection with a Sasquatch that two highly educated white men did, over 600 miles south in connection with California's Bigfoot, is incredible. If this is all a hoax or a publicity stunt, or mass hallucination, as some people have claimed, how does it happen that this noise — which defies description — always sounds the same no matter who has tried to reproduce it for me?

From: Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come To Life by Ivan T. Sanderson.