BLM and Dept. of Interior involvement in early 1980's Bigfoot incident
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by William Jevning (@bukwas01), 38 year veteran sasquatch investigator, and author of "Notes From the Field, Tracking North America's Sasquatch". Read more about Jevning at his Bigfoot blog, Bigfoot Researcher.This story has been around for some time, it was from the late Richard Grumley director of the California Bigfoot Organization, it is yet another example of official involvement in the subject of Bigfoot, and if true as would seem, then it gives us a glimpse into motivations for government involvement in this issue:
This was from Rich Grumley who was the director of the California Bigfoot Organization.
In 1980-1981, I was working as a security guard on a high tension tower project here in California. I met a man who was a "cat skinner" operating a bulldozer, leveling off the pads where each of these high tension towers was to be placed. I noted he had on his pickup truck, 25-30 decals from places he had been hunting and introduced myself.
During the conversation I mentioned 'bigfoot' and he told me that in the mid to late 1970's he was doing a little poaching (with forestry officials permission in a locked and gated area near Bishop, California, they had given him a key so he could go in any time he wanted). This particular time the gate was still locked (as it always was); he let himself in with his four wheel drive pick up to the area known as Four Points.
He drove over a hill and there to his surprise were Department of the Interior vehicles and Bureau of Land management men all in their "Smokey the bear" outfits (with guns) searching a campground, the hills, mountains, roads, etc. They grabbed this hunter, took his deer rifle away from him and questioned him for 7-8 hours as to what he was doing there.
The local forestry officials identified him as a trusted friend and he was let go, but told to "Never come back", He had determined during his interrogation that the reason the BLM and Dept. of Interior were there in force was that a Bigfoot creature had gone through there the day before and had turned over a "large" trash container (of the type you find behind large department stores - dumpsters), that no man can even begin to move and had killed several people.
Over the years the story was passed through several people, in fact "quite a few" bigfoot researchers, but "no one" was able to come up with one single "clue".
Then in early to middle 1991, a young student also interested in investigating the Bigfoot mystery, called the C.F.B.O.'s hotline to tell me that he had heard that story several years ago and it had "always" stuck with him. He went on to relate that when he was doing some bigfoot research in the town of Bishop, California (Inyo County), area in 1989-90 he met a former policeman who said he was on the Bishop police force in the mid to late 1970's. The student related the foregoing story of Bigfoot to the ex-police officer from Bishop, and he confirmed it. The officer said the story was the talk of the law enforcement agencies in that area at the time, but they were under very tight orders not to say anything about the incident and the related deaths.
Richard Grumley
1935-2000
Seems unlikely... All of these stories carry this aura of hush hush yet no one ever seems to be able to state who the people were that were killed. What the story told to the families was and that the families bought into it and never conducted an outside investigation...
ReplyDeleteSounds like an urban legend to me.
Multiple muurders! Where's the headlines! No one can find one newspaper article on this.
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to believe that any family member would still have not talked today about these supposed murders.
As the above, sounds like a legend to me. You gotta have more than that to persade me.
Paul
I agree with above, I think the missing people would be the easiest part of the story to investigate.
ReplyDeleteI agree... Definitely an urban legend.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I'm not buying it. Any family who lost family members by some "wild creature" would have talked to the press and such about attacks. Just look at the mountain lion and bear attacks--they get press.
ReplyDeleteAnd a flipped dumpster with filled with "camping garbage", wow! Superhuman? Come on, two drunk teens!
ReplyDeletePaul
It's the first thing any Sasquatch startled at the dump does. He simply throws it.
ReplyDeletelikely an urban legend, but how could the authorities explain that a sasquatch (a creature that has not been confirmed to exist) had killed multiple people? How would you explain it to the families, or the press, without confirming the existence of the creature?
ReplyDeletethere's been dirtier cover ups throughout history. Still, an interesting urban legend, no doubt.
A few years ago I looked into another killing report by Grumely that was supposed to have happened in my neck of the woods here in Oregon back in the mid 70's. This supposedly involved a guide who was hired by a few ladies from Las Vegas to take them up into the mtns around Mt. Jefferson for a nature walk. A 9-10' bigfoot supposedly came out of the brush during their hike and the guide started shooting at it with his 30-30, which subsequently led to the guide being torn to pieces. Long story short there was supposedly a full force response by law enforcement in the area. Where this allegedly occurred was not too far from one of my encounters and where I conducted subsequent field work, so naturally I was very interested.
ReplyDeleteThe story was posted in the Track Record of the International Bigfoot Society. I spoke with Ray Crowe about it as well but he couldn't corroborate nor rule out the incident. I also spoke with a someone from the Forest Service whom I had worked with on the same district in the early 90's and who was around back then, but he could not validate the incident. However I was able to verify on my own that the remote locations described within the report were generally corroborated by what was shown in quad maps for the area. I never bothered to hike into the spot as I felt there wouldn't be too much to be gained doing so plus I had no real reason to locate other bigfoot activity.
While most encounters with the public are without incident, events like this can and probably do happen. I have personally been in a situation where I would have started shooting had I not been familiar with the species. If the incident above did happen, the bigfoot was only pissed off and defending himself. There seems to be a number of stories of shootings that end this way. As for the posted incident above, if true, who knows if the campers had fired on the bigfoot which would have a predictable response we should not be surprised to occasionally happen. Its important to exercise restraint in such situations because our weaponry is generally very inadequate and totally unnecessary under most situations.
I live just south of Bishop and have a place just north of there in Mammoth Lakes.
ReplyDeleteI have played a bunch of softball in Bishop and coached some middle school Basketball teams in tournaments in Bishop. So I have been going up there since 1980 and I have never heard a peep about this place 4 points. There are two main campsites in town one is Browns Town on the south Entrance to the town and then Mill Pond on the north side of town (not including places up the Sierras to the West) I just dont buy this one. This side of the Sierra craves information (Eastern Side) and something like that would NEVER go unnoticed. This is the kind of town that (although beautiful and some GREAT PEOPLE) broadcasts pork belly futures every day on the radio in the farm report.
People would know what happened and it would have been in the paper probably as a bear attack.
I don't think the incident actually happened in Bishop or even that close to it. The witness just claims the campground was in Inyo County and the closest town was Bishop, that could be 50 miles+. Think of how many campgrounds are in a 50 mile radius of Bishop. Either way, it's a very interesting tale and wouldn't be the first report of Sasquatch attacks on humans. I do agree that IF it did happen, there is proof out there. If several people were killed by a "bear", relatives would have to have been notified and funerals planned. I wonder if there is a record of all bear attacks or bear fatalities in Inyo County, that would be the place to start. And if it happened in the mid to late 70s, let's say between 74-79 respectively, that's not terribly long. There might still be a retired Bishop police officer or BLM official out there with a story to tell.
ReplyDelete