Yesterday, I had a shock. I stumbled onto a year old news article online saying a US Navy Veteran I had known for 20 years was a fake. Everything I had thought about him over the years changed. All the times I had talked with him and listened to his stories of valor in combat were fake. What a let down.
I couldn't help thinking about all my other friends and Veterans, many now gone from this world, who, like myself, had also been betrayed over the years by this person. I can see their faces in my mind's eye. What would they say?
This got me thinking. A person who hoaxes or fakes bigfoot stuff is similar to someone who fakes their military background. They are both thieves.
A bigfoot hoaxer is stealing the credibility and integrity of all the past and present bigfoot researchers who have spent years seriously looking into the subject. You are stealing their honor. You are a thief.
A little over a year ago, I moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand to try retirement living. Shortly after arriving here, I met a lady named Nung who is now my wife. About six months ago, I was trying to explain to Nung and her older daughter Joy about my interest in Bigfoot. When I showed them a video of the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film and some of the online artist drawings of Bigfoot and Yeti, Joy said "Oh, you look King Kong". But it still did not register, at least with Nung, until a few nights ago. There was nothing of interest on TV, so I was showing Nung some of my Evening Hike videos I did in California before moving to Thailand. Out of the blue, she told me a story her father had told her. Nung was 10 years old at the time, so this happened about 38 years ago.
Nung's family was living about an hour (by car) south of Chiang Mai. Some of Nung's relatives still live in the area today. When Nung was young, her family, 9 kids in all, did not have much money. Sometimes, Nung's father would go to a nearby mountain to gather wood (maybe bamboo) to make things to sell. Nung did not remember exactly where this was, just that it was nearby. My guess is that it was a little south of Thailand's highest mountain Doi Inthanon. As Nung's father neared his destination in the forest, he noticed another person sitting up ahead and called out a greeting, asking if the stranger was there working as well. Although a little puzzled why the stranger did not reply, Nung's father continued walking. As her father got nearer, the other person stood up. It was then he realized the stranger was not a person at all, but something covered in hair, taller than himself with a human looking face. Fear took over and Nung's father ran away as fast as he could. When her father returned home, he said his arms and legs were covered in period. Nung meant her father's arms and legs were scratched badly from him running through the bushes.
The next day, Nung's father with a gun in hand, one of her brothers who was 13 at the time, along with 2 dogs, returned to the mountain to retrieve her father's stuff. They found large barefoot prints in the mud near a stream close to where the unknown creature had been the day before. As Nung told me the part about the footprints, she held her hands out much bigger than her own foot.
After telling this story, Nung's father warned her to never go to that mountain location, to just stay away. Unfortunately, Nung's father and brother have both passed away, so there can be no direct follow-up to this story.
Nung's story is only the second time I have heard about a possible Bigfoot type creature being seen inside Thailand. Last year, I found this other story on a travel blog about the Mae Charim area in Nan Province: The yetis of Northern Thailand.
I have found a new life and family here in Thailand. And just maybe, I will find King Kong here as well.
Update October 3, 2015:
One of Nung's other brothers was with their father on a different trek to their nearby mountain where they again encountered something unusual. Here's my interview:
We had a new house warming party in Chiang Mai and my wife's brother attended, so I took the opportunity to show him some cryptid ape drawings off the Internet to see if any were the creature he saw some 40-50 years ago near Doi Inthanon, Thailand. He picked a drawing found on the Bigfoot Lunch Club of Orang Pendek with it's left arm raised above it's head:
I showed him other depictions of Orang Pendek and cryptid apes from around the Internet, but he said no to them. We also tried to identify the smaller creatures he saw with the larger one that day, but could not find a match. Although, I did verify again that the large creature walked on two legs and had no tail. The smaller creatures walked on four legs and had a tail.
Following below are my videos for a few of the stories from this week's Finding Bigfoot TV program called "Surf's Up, Sasquatch". I signed an NDA prior to filming last July, so couldn't talk about what they did till the episode aired. I think spotlighting the Bigfoot Discovery Museum, their large tooth and some of the local stories is great.
In 1999, there was a sighting one mile from downtown Santa Cruz.
In 2012, there were two sightings in a Felton area where I've been hiking each week for the past year and a half. The first was on April 25 about 8:30 pm by a mother and daughter out driving. They saw an adult and a juvenile standing beside the road next to a tree. The second was on July 16 about 4:10 pm by my friend Ray. He saw an adult sitting in the bushes by a pond. These two sightings happened about half a mile from each other, so that's why I've focused so much time on that Felton area.
The day of Ray's sighting it was just luck that he tagged along and luckier still that he happened to go in the bushes beside the pond. It never occurred to me that there would be a creature that close to where people were. Since then, I only look in the bushes off trail, lol.
I already have a Bare Stick blog page devoted to these two 2012 sightings, so please go there to learn more and watch my investigation videos: Ray's Sighting.
Two other areas where the Finding Bigfoot team visited were Big Basin Redwoods State Park and The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. Both these areas have had multiple sightings either inside or nearby reported over the years, but here's two I was involved in investigating.
Big Basin Field Trip
Nisene Marks Day Trip
A few weeks after the Finding Bigfoot team had left, I found these two items near the pond in Felton.
I recorded these Howls and Knocks during two Night Ops near Boulder Creek.
This is what the Boulder Creek location looks like in daylight.
(The full story is in my comment pinned below this video)
I've been going to an area near Felton, California to hike and look for signs of bigfoot. This area has had two sightings in 2012 (click here for blog article). After the second sighting which was in the bushes beside the pond, Mike Rugg (Bigfoot Discovery Museum) found dark poop nearby. Since then, other similar looking poop has been found in the area. Following below, are screen stills from various videos shot at the time each poop was found. Click on the Photo to see a bigger view, click on the Title to watch the video. UPDATE: I learned in October 2013 that there is a 1200 pound wild cow in this area that no one has been able to catch for 3 years. It only comes out at night or early morning and bolts at the sight of humans. The large poop below is probably from this cow. The smaller poop is either from deer or other small animals.
In September 2012, I started finding similar poop in another secluded spot half mile from the pond. Some may have been there for awhile, but at least one was fresher because I stepped in it by accident one evening when I was there later than normal and couldn't really see where I was going. I walked around for a week not knowing it was embedded in my right heel.
Photo below found on the approach to the secluded area half mile from the pond. This might be compacted deer, although there's usually other loose pellets around also?
I'd like to talk a little bit about people's memory... In my younger days, I served 4 years in the US Navy. As is true today, the United States was at war, but back then the war was in Vietnam. There was an active draft. I had flunked out of college, so my choice was either wait around to be drafted and probably end up fighting in the jungle or join and maybe have some say in where I ended up, so at 19, I joined the Navy. After my 4 years obligation had ended, I got out on June 1, 1970, when my second boat TJ returned to Long Beach, California from South East Asia and Vietnam. I was 23. As the years rolled by, I became a computer design engineer. At 50, I joined my second Veteran organization, Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). In those days, VVA was very active speaking in the local schools, especially to 11th graders about our experiences during America's war in Vietnam. I even wrote down my talking points for a student in 1999. All those experiences I remembered without a problem then. If you're interested, what I wrote down is here: Students I turned 66 earlier this week. About 10 years ago, I noticed I no longer remembered exact details like I did back in 1999. I suppose partly because we aren't very active speaking in the schools anymore and also I'm just getting older. Which brings me to the point of this article. I think it's important to actively seek out as many bigfoot stories as possible before the details are lost forever to fading memories. If possible, record them on video or audio, so that the expression and body language of the witness is also captured rather than trying to imagine the happenings from a written page alone. It's been 45+ years since the Patterson-Gimlin film, longer for other encounters. In some cases, not only have the witnesses passed, but also the original investigators as well. Once that happens, first hand knowledge passes with them. I encourage people who have never spoken of their experiences to find someone who will listen, understand and record them. You don't have to serve in combat to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or survivor's guilt, you just have to experience something traumatic outside your normal everyday living, like an encounter with something strange and unexplained. Keeping something like that bottled up inside will take a toll in time. It helps to talk about it.
