Other forms of Bigfoot Evidence.

A lot of people assume that the only pieces of Bigfoot evidence we have is the evidence already mentioned, namely Sightings, Footprints and Video/audio. But researchers have to contend with other signs of the elusive creature. They are :

Scat (excrement or feces)
Bigfoot Nests
Broken or Twisted off branches
Hair Samples

1. Scat

Instances of Sasquatch feces being reported are understandably not as common as say footprints. This is not surprising considering that in a given time frame, a creature can make hundreds of tracks and yet only one piece of scat, and even then this is the quickly degraded by nature.

Scat is an important way of distinguishing different types of mammals, indeed in many wildlife field guides photographs of Mammalian scat is used as an aid to identify different types wildlife. What distinguishes Bigfoot scat from that of any other animal is the size. Dr. W. Henner Fahrenbach in a television interview mentions a stool which was 2 feet long. This he says (jokingly) may account for the screams which are sometimes attributed to Bigfoot.

William Roe, who observed a female Sasquatch feeding on some leaves, found some scat nearby which he assumed to be from the creature.

Ivan Sanderson, writing in 1968 says that he had first hand knowledge of a quantity of scat which was shipped in a plastic container with dry ice for trans-shipment to Professor W. C. Osman Hill, then senior scientist at the London Zoological Society. This specimen shook up the scientist.

“I wish we had space to give you their report in full. It is quite amazing. The points of significance in it are as follows: In general, this fecal mass did not in any way resemble that of any known North American animal. On the other hand, it did look humanoid, but it had some peculiar features, as if the lower bowel had a spiral twist. But above all, it was composed exclusively of vegetable matter and this as far as could be identified of local California fresh water plants. The real clincher, however was that it contained the eggs and desiccated remains of certain larvae otherwise known only in (a) some North American Indian tribal groups in the Northwest, (b) pigs imported from south China, (c) human beings in country districts in southwest China and (d) in pigs in that same area.”1

2. Bigfoot Nests

John Bindernagel in his book² relates a number of examples of Bigfoot nests. One includes the 1934 case of a fourteen year British Columbia girl who while looking for her families cows, stumbled upon a quarter mile of huge tracks, smelled a foul odour and found signs of something bedding down.

John green tells of a 1969 account of Glen Thomas, who tracked 2 Sasquatches over a period of several days and found a place where one of them had bedded down under a large cedar tree.

The above three photographs were taken from an article in the BFRO website by Kathy Moskowitz. She says “On May 13, 2001, three unusual structures constructed of natural materials were located above Sonora, California. Due to their size, shape, construction, and association with recently purported Sasquatch activity, these structures may be related to the occupation of an unknown hominid in the area.

Although two of the nests were incomplete and unused, the third nest was well constructed and appeared to have been recently used.”³

John Bindernagel offers a possible explanation for the construction of nests. He describes something called “functionally inappropriate” behavior, brought on by tension created from various situations (such as contact with humans, etc.). The twisting off and breaking of branches and saplings “may be components of nest-building behavior, engaged in outside of their normal context by sasquatches which are fleeing or otherwise tense or fearful” (Bindernagel 1988:179). If the Sasquatch was recently ousted from a better territory, he would no longer have access to “traditional” sleeping locations. Further, a sleeping area established in the first location (there are at least two known mines in that area, all on private land) may have had to be abandoned due to the presence of the author doing research.

Whatever the reason for the construction of the nests, the evidence presented suggests the possibility of them being constructed and at least briefly occupied by a Sasquatch. Research continues in the area and any new discoveries will be reported.⁴

3. Broken or twisted off branches

When the mechanical advantage of a pipe-wrench-like device was employed by my colleague Henner Fahrenbach, the saplings were invariably shredded, broken or otherwise destroyed. This type of damage does indeed appear to be related to the twisting by an animal with superhuman strength combined with a powerful and flexible grip which twists the stem, splintering it internally, without shredding or removing the bark.

4. Hair Samples

Hair samples allegedly coming from a Bigfoot are potentially the most important pieces of evidence because under the right circumstances DNA can be extracted from the sample. This will help in answering many of the questions that Bigfoot researchers are looking for.

Hairs retrieved from a bush in 1968 near Riggins, Idaho were given to Roy Pinker, a police science instructor at California State University, Los Angeles. Pinker concluded that the hair samples did not match any samples from known animal species. Pinker also stated that he could not attribute them as being Bigfoot hairs without a bonafide Bigfoot hair sample to compare to.

Hair samples were also taken from a house located on the Lummi Indian reservation in Washington. Three more samples were retrieved from Maryland, Oregon and California. Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Ellis R. Kerley and Physical Anthropologist Dr. Stephen Rosen of the University of Maryland, as well as Tom Moore, the Supervisor of the Wyoming Game and Fish Laboratory, examined the hair samples and stated that all the hair samples matched in terms of belonging to a "non species specific mammal". They concurred in finding that the four sets matched each other, were similar to gorilla and human but were neither, and they did not match 84 other species of North American mammals.⁵

In 2005 Geneticists at the University of Alberta had DNA tested hair samples that allegedly came from a Sasquatch. The results were much anticipated and in the event they turned out to be Bison hairs. However, four years earlier in 2001, hair samples which were found during an expedition to find the Yeti were DNA tested by professor Malcolm Sykes of Oxford University. The surprising conclusion was that Sykes was not able to match the DNA to any known animal. "We have never encountered any DNA that we couldn't recognize before," said Sykes, a pioneer of DNA identification as the first genetist to extract DNA from archaeological bone specimens.                                         

Bibliography

1. Ivan Sanderson - More Evidence that Bigfoot exists. Argosy Magazine, April 1968

2. John Bindernagel - North Americas Great Ape: The Sasquatch. Beachcomber books (1998)

3. Kathy Moskowitz - An Analysis of an Alleged Sasquatch Nest.. www.bfro.net

4. Kathy Moskowitz - An Analysis of an Alleged Sasquatch Nest.. www.bfro.net