An open letter to Animal Planet and the Producers of "Finding Bigfoot"

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Josh Brown, Anthropology Major (Physical) from Sacramento CA, and CEO of "Skye Highland Outfitters".

I'd like to first thank you. In 2 seasons of your hit show "Finding Bigfoot", you have succeeded in bringing the seriousness of the idea of Sasquatch to the front realm of possibility, if not plausibility. You have assembled a FANTASTIC cast of 4 unique personalities to use their respective skill sets to make a real attempt at capturing proof that this mythical creature exists. Thats about where my praise ends though… Please take note.

We head towards a 3rd season of your show with rumor mills noting that some international trips to Australia and Malaysia are in the works. I'm going to start this… plea, if you will, with a first request. Probably the most important. The show quickly became redundant and a predictable joke as the last season attested to. Every show started with a car drive into an area, with some back ground information about why the team was there. An initial meet up, a brief search, a town hall meeting, a mapping out of sightings in search of trending factors, agreement on the 3, or 4 most convincing stories, CGI retell, a meet at the places, a final search in the most "Squatchiest" area that was related to one of the witness stories. A lot of night vision, mood agitating music with panicky edits leading into commercials with a 5 minute review into the backstory when the show continues. Of course nothing is ever found, nor is there any real evidence to speak of.

The serious Sasquatching community fell ill to this schematic as late as season 1. Many of us turned to cynicism into season 2 because of this method, even promoting drinking games to be played during episodes. For Chist's sake-You were even lampooned by South Park. Your massive ratings are based largely on the passive interest of the "Non-Sasquatching" public, but I assure you that your methods will fail this season should you not change things up. The general viewing public will certainly tire this year of no-result TV. Unfortunately, you are focussed on the specific (Unlike shows like "Fact or Faked, or "Destination Truth" that are able to spread themselves thin within the realm of the unknown in many directions -They both even achieve results within the paranormal, something that you have yet to do). Your schematic and framework for this show has produced nothing and will collapse if you don't change things up a bit. I don't count making the addition of having 1 of the members "Stay" in an area for 2 nights as was employed in season 2.

I understand that you need to make as much money as possible for as long as possible since this is a business and not a "real" scientific show, but here's a little advice to make this show live up to its name.

1.) A week long trip with 2-3 nights in the bush are not sufficient. Split shows into dual episodes and spend more time in one place. Simply meaning 1 area will be covered in 2 episodes. With your editing techniques, and hopefully with the achievement of evidence, you can make this work and be exciting for both episodes.

2.) Let Matt put his massive group to work by prepping areas with camera traps, pre-searches, and all the other things BFRO could provide as a lead in to these guys actually arriving.

3.) Spend more time with ideas for attracting the Big guy. Zac Bagans has had a technical advisor build him all sorts of gadgets for his Ghost Hunting that have paid off with great results. Be a little more progressive than just baiting an area with bagels, donuts, and peanut butter.

4.) Maybe enlarge the team for certain investigations. let each respective member be a team leader for 4 other researchers (Up and coming) and let the group investigate a massive spread instead of a small one.

5.) And lastly, bring some real science into it other than Cliff's input (Which is far too little IMHO). Dr. Meldrum comes to mind, but there are others too.

This is just an idea, and I hope our readers here at the best blog concerning the Sasquatch phenomena will chime in their ideas. Take a look and take to heart. WE WANT YOU TO SUCCEED!