The Bigfoot News That Started It All

Last June, Robert Lindsay published an interview with a hunter who supposedly had inside information about a recent Bigfoot shooting incident. Many important figures in the Bigfoot community was mentioned in the article, but the spotlight was on a lesser-known individual, a hunter from Sacramento, California. This person created a thread on Taxidermy.net titled: "If You Saw Bigfoot, Would You Shoot It?"

Shortly after posting the thread, it was mysteriously deleted by the forum administrator, but later recovered by some tech-savvy individuals:

Post by: Smeja on November 07, 2010, 01:24:27 AM

Call BS if you want but this bear season I saw a bear in Northern California that walked on 2 legs and was pale white in color like a pale yote sorta. Like some grizzlys I’ve seen but whiter. It stood 8 feet tall or so and walked like a man. Could have been a grizzly (highly doubtful). I don’t know for sure what it was. Maybe just a monster black bear that got shot in the front leg years back and learned to walk different. I don’t know. I do know I was not alone when I saw it.

I shot it with a 25-06 behind the shoulder at 120 yards. It ran 70 yards into the brush and crashed. Sounded like a car wreck. I never found it. Not saying it was bigfoot at all – it just looked different from any bear I’d seen. If it looked any more human-like, I would have passed on it. Something wasn’t right there, oh and it was prob 600+ lbs or more. So to answer my question, I suppose the answer is probably yes for me, but not if he looked any more human then what I shot.

In the following news article from June 27, 2011, Robert Lindsay was still scrambling, trying to recover the original Taxidermy.net thread. At the time, he had only heard rumors about the shooting and had no idea who the hunter was: 

Posted June 27, 2011

New Erickson Project News: Bigfoot DNA Project Using Two Dead Bigfoot Bodies for Samples

Note: Long, runs to 24 pages.

I was recently put into touch with a hunter from Western North America who is quite well known in his field. You might even say that he is famous. He and others were the subject of a recent book, and he often gives talks at various forums. He was formerly employed at America’s foremost science museum but is no longer working there.

He is considered to be at the top of his field, which I will not reveal here. He is also a hunter and travels around North America hunting. He especially likes to hunt bears. This puts him in touch with many other hunters. He is also active on taxidermy boards. He has deep ties to the Erickson Project and the Olympic Project.

He will be known anonymously as Bear Hunter in this article, as he only talked to me on the grounds that his identity was kept secret.

Robert Lindsay: Hi, what made you decide to get in touch with me?

Bear Hunter: Well, I read your article where you interviewed Richard Stubstad, and I thought, “Wow! This guy is hot on the trial! He’s really close. He’s closing in. So I decided to fill in some blanks for you.”

RL: Is there a reason why you decided to spill the beans on this hot news to me just now?

BH: Yes, I am getting very impatient with the pace of this project. You know, it’s always coming out this year, then next year, then this year again, then next year again, then this spring. I’m getting tired of it. I want to jumpstart this project and tell them to get going and finish it up.

RL: You say you have some blockbuster news regarding the Erickson Project Bigfoot DNA study, right?

BH: Yes I do. This all started from a thread on Taxidermy.net, a website where I hang out. There are sometimes threads on Bigfoots, and in this one thread, in November 2010, a guy said that he had just shot two Bigfoots! The guy is a trapper, a taxidermist and a hunter. This was huge news of course, and pretty soon there were lots of followup posts. Somehow the guy’s name and number got out, and there were reports of people bothering him and harassing him. He asked the webmaster, George Ruff, to shut down the thread. George shut it down.

Well, afterward, I got in touch with the guy and talked to him for a while. Adrian Erickson, Matt Moneymaker and Tyler Huggins all got involved. Moneymaker and Huggins are with the BFRO (Bigfoot Field Research Organization). Erickson had heard of Bigfoots getting shot; actually, he has lots a number of stories from Canada where they get shot pretty regularly. But, as he put it, “I’ve never been two weeks behind a shooting before.” Everybody was scrambling after this guy!

RL: How was it that the Bigfoots came to be shot, and were they killed?

BH: In November 2010, [name withheld] was hunting on the border between Nevada and California, inside California, near a game refuge. (RL: Based on my investigation, it took place in or near the Dixie Mountain Game Refuge west of Frenchman Lake on the Plumas National Forest in Plumas County. It borders Washoe County in Nevada. See a map here).

On one side of the game refuge, there was this single road in a canyon leading into and out of the refuge. Bigfoots were apparently using the game refuge, since they are safe from hunters there.

The guy was on this road when he came upon a large dirty-white (RL: supposedly female) Bigfoot standing in the road. Since the narrow road was the only route in and out of the place, the Bigfoots were forced to use this road whether they wanted to or not. The Bigfoot was standing there waving her arms at him. I thought maybe she was telling the hunter to back up so the Bigfoot could move through, since the Bigfoot was stuck on the road, no?

The guy stopped his truck and jumped out. He knew it was a Bigfoot, but he thought she was threatening him. The Bigfoot knew his intentions by now, and she started to run away. He shot her with a 25.06. He shot her through the side of her chest, piercing her lungs. The Bigfoot took off into the brush, but he heard her crash down soon afterward.

Next thing he knew, he heard barking sounds coming from the side of the road. There were two young Bigfoots there that popped up out of nowhere. They were brown-colored. The hunter shot one of the young Bigfoots dead! He’s an idiot, right?

It died in his arms. 4 feet tall, 80 pounds. He said it had a huge head, and then I knew it was a young Bigfoot, because the young ones have gigantic heads while they are still young. The head is more normal sized as they get older. Remember that “Pancake Video” from the Kentucky Project, where the young Bigfoot has a huge head that everyone was saying was a human with some birth defect? Well, that is what they look like when they are young.

Have you seen the Jacobs footage that they say is a mangy bear? The shooter told me the juvenile he shot looked just like the Jacobs creature.

RL: Yes, what is it? A bear?

BH: No way. It’s a juvenile Bigfoot. You can tell by the hips. And the neck. The thing has no neck. I know bears. I love bears. No way is that a bear.

RL: Why did he shoot the adult Bigfoot? He says he thought it was a bear.

BH: No. He knew what it was. Because of the color. Bears don’t come in off-white. Anyone knows that. He shot it because he thought it was threatening him.

RL: Why did he shoot the juvenile Bigfoot? He says it got up on an outcrop and was threatening him.

BH: No, that’s not true. Why did he shoot it? He’s that kind of guy. I know a lot of hunters. Most are good people, but some are not. There are a lot of guys like him out there hunting. People shoot things just because they can, just to kill them. That’s why he did it. He did it because that’s what kind of person he is.

RL: What did he do with the Bigfoots?

BH: He told us that he left them lying there. There was snow on the ground, so we figured that there might still be enough time to go in and get the bodies. Pretty soon, we decided that the guy was probably lying. We thought he probably took the bodies, because taxidermists are hoarders – they never leave anything they shoot in the field.

RL: The Olympic Project says they went back to the site over two weeks later and found a bit of flesh on the ground, left over from the shooting. They used this bit of flesh to slice up and submit to the DNA project.

BH: No, they told me they never went back there.

RL: What happened to the dead Bigfoots?

BH: Well, we put the hunter in contact with the Olympic Project that is working on Bigfoots in Washington State. We didn’t hear much for a while, only that the OP folks kept saying, “We are just trying to keep [name withheld] out of jail.” The hunter was convinced that if California figured out he shot these two Bigfoots, he was going to jail. He was really afraid of going to jail.

RL: Ok, then?

BH: Moneymaker and the BFRO were in on this too. It was a mad rush for those bodies!

We didn’t hear much more for a while until the Olympic Project starting sending samples to Melba Ketchum for her DNA project as part of the Erickson Project. Some of the samples that the EP was getting were of tissue, and they looked like they were carved off a dead body!

(RL: One sample appeared to be carved off of the thigh of a human or hominid cadaver. Dr. Ketchum was so freaked out by the sample that she called people up asking them to hold it for her in case the police came to her lab, because she was afraid of going to jail.)

The samples had two different colors of hair. Obviously, the Olympic Project was sending Ketchum samples carved from the bodies of the two dead Bigfoots? Isn’t that incredible?

RL: Who has the Bigfoots, the hunter or the Olympic Project?

BH: I think that the hunter still has the bodies or he has parts of the bodies. Maybe he cut parts off them before he left. If he has the bodies, he has probably cut them up, cut off the heads and has them on ice. They can last a long time like that. I don’t think the Olympic Project has the bodies.

We did a lot more digging, and we found that now the hunter is associated deeply with the OP. He’s part of their project. The OP is not admitting to anything. They deny it all, they say they have no dead Bigfoots, and they don’t have access to any.

RL: Incredible news!

BH: Yes, there’s more too. Notice how the Olympic Project is all over the Internet boards talking about how they have enough Bigfoot samples to last for years? Guess why they say that? Probably because they have access to two dead Bigfoot bodies! Think about it.

RL: Too much…Do you know about any leaks from the Erickson Project DNA study?

BH: Yes, I do. They are very close to humans. Say if chimpanzees are 2 clicks away from humans, these things are maybe 3/4 of a click away.

RL: Ok, and they are in the Homo line?

BH: Yes, I am sure of that. Recall that say 50,000 YBP, there were maybe five different hominids on the planet. Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo Floresiensis, Denisova, Homo heidelbergensis and Neandertal Man. All of these other hominids are gone. What happened to them?

RL: We killed them all.

BH: Yes, we killed them all. So the only thing that could survive was something that was huge, very stealthy and wary, hated humans, favored the most remote areas, had the use of bad smell to ward off enemies, used an intense EMF field to paralyze and disorient enemies, was very strong and had a very thick skin that was hard to penetrate. They’re the ultimate survivors of our genocidal wars.

RL: Do you think they are humans or apes?

BH: I don’t know. You know Bindernagel wrote that book, America’s Great Ape, but then after he saw the Bigfoots in Kentucky, he changed his mind. Now he thinks that they are hominids. But I know one fellow who saw one face to face on a trail. He said it’s ape-like; it’s an ape-man. So who knows?

RL: Do you have any info on the Kentucky Project?

BH: I do. Erickson bought that place, and he got a lot of great video out of there. He installed Dennis Pfohl and Leila Hadj-Chikh there, and they shot quite a bit of Bigfoot video. Erickson said he had so much good Bigfoot video that he was getting tired of taking pictures of them. At one point, he brought Bindernagel down there to see the Bigfoots. Bindernagel was able to see them. He also wanted to bring John Green down there, but he was very sick with prostate cancer and could not make it.

A friend of mine saw the famous video of the young female Bigfoot walking in the forest. She walks towards the camera, then sees the camerawoman, growls and turns away. He said there is no way that this could be a costume. They also shot video of a huge male at that site, but everyone is keeping very quiet about that.

RL: Do you believe that Erickson is in it for the money?

BH: I get tired of hearing this. Erickson has sunk $3 million of his own money into this thing. $3 million! He hasn’t made one nickel back.

RL: Do you have any information about Erickson’s movie about Bigfoot?

BH: Yes, it’s finished! 100% completed. They are just waiting for the DNA study to finish up, and I have no word on that yet.

RL: Do you know if Dr. Ketchum has any TV or film interests in the works?

BH: Yes, she is involved with National Geographic. They want to do a special on Bigfoot, and she is involved in that.

RL: What’s the relationship between Bigfoots and trappers?

BH: Bigfoots hang out along traplines and raid them. I heard of one case where a Bigfoot got caught in a trap. The Bigfoot got himself out of the trap by bending the solid steel! Unbelievable!

RL: You say you hear a lot of stories of Bigfoots getting killed?

BH: Yes, I get a story about every 2 months. They range from recent to pretty far back in time. There are many stories coming out of Canada too. Erickson also has many stories. It’s the same story every time. People kill it, and it looks so much like a human being that they leave it in the field because they are afraid they are going to be prosecuted for murder.

RL: I say that if you believe in Bigfoot, you must also believe in a few things. 1) People are shooting at and killing these things fairly regularly. 2) There must be a government coverup. 3) We are photographing and videotaping Bigfoots on a fairly regular basis.

BH: I agree. As far as a government coverup, of course the government must know about these things. And I know that the timber industry knows about them. And people shoot them all the time.

There was a recent case in Alberta where the Fish and Wildlife people were poisoning wolves. They are supposed to tell trappers about this, but they didn’t in this case. A trapper found a dead wolf partly eaten and huge tracks leading away from it. The tracks were of a Bigfoot that had been poisoned by eating the wolf. The guy tracked it for a while but then lost the trail.

He reported it to the Game people, but they paid him $20,000 to shut him up. They kept saying, “So, you lost 5 cougar dogs tracking that thing. That’s worth about $20,000.” He hadn’t lost any cougar dogs. He finally figured out they were offering him money to shut him up, so he took the money.

RL: What’s the motivation for the coverup?

BH: In Canada, they are worried about resource lockup. They are afraid it will shut down logging. I know that up there, as soon as there is a Bigfoot sighting, the timber people get word of it and come in and clearcut the area. They do that to drive the Bigfoot off, because they don’t want the Bigfoot on their logging land. They’re afraid it will keep them from logging the land.

RL: Do you think Bigfoots are getting habituated to humans in any way?

BH: Yes, a friend of mine in Alberta told me about a Bigfoot that was living on the outskirts of the Nordegg dump, living off the garbage, foraging food out of the trash. People tracked the thing way back into a remote area and found its nest. All sorts of stuff from the dump had been hung in trees 8-10 feet up, bicycles, chairs, you name it. The Bigfoot was decorating its home with that stuff.

RL: Wow!

BH: Yes, I have so many stories. When I go to give my talks, I always say if you have any Bigfoot stories, come up and talk to me afterward. Every time, people come up to talk to me. All sorts of people. They haven’t told many others about their sightings, and every case, they have not reported it to any private or public agency.

One guy told me how he was hunting in a swamp in the Southeast US, and he passed out from the swamp gas. The stuff can overwhelm you and make you pass out.

He woke up, and he was next to a spring. There was a huge 8-foot Bigfoot crouched down next to him, offering a cup of water from the spring. The cup had been hanging from the spring. People sometimes hang metal cups from springs. He took a drink, passed out again, and then woke up again later on. The Bigfoot was still there, and it offered him another drink. He drank it and passed out again. He woke up the third time, and the Bigfoot was gone.

RL: Do you think that tracking dogs are good for tracking Bigfoots, say in order to capture one? Jeff Meldrum has been talking about that a lot lately.

BH: I think dogs are useless when it comes to tracking these things. You know, I am a hunter, and I use tracking dogs all the time. We take people out on guided hunts, and I hunt myself all the time using guides. Dogs will track anything, but they won’t track these things. The meanest dog on Earth will be left pissing, shivering and whimpering by his master’s legs.

I knew one guy who sent six dogs after a Bigfoot. Only five of them came back; the sixth was torn up. The other five dogs were so traumatized that they were useless as trackers. They would never track another animal again. And these were good tracking dogs.

RL: What do you think of Bigfoots’ use of infrasound?

BH: I am not sure that they use infrasound. You see, all animals have an EMF field that they give off, and these things do too. One of my theories is that these things have a very strong EMF field that they give off, and they may be able to manipulate it. One thing you notice is that when these things are around, everything goes quiet, and most of the animals around take off. That’s because of the strong EMF field that the Bigfoots give off. It scares the crap out of other animals.

I know that they use this field to disorient people. Erickson said he was being chased out of the forest in Canada by one once, and he was so disoriented and delirious that he had to keep looking at the moss on the trees, because you know, moss only grows on the north? That’s because the Bigfoot was disorienting him so much that he kept getting lost.

I am going to test this theory out by buying an outfit that they sell for $100. It neutralizes your own EMF field. Supposedly, you can wear it and walk right up to animals and touch them.

RL: Were you always a Bigfoot believer?

BH: Not at all. I was a skeptic until five years ago. Then I started looking into this thing, and all of these people started coming forward, including people I had known for years and trusted completely. I started getting swamped with these stories, even people I had known a long time had stories, but they had never told me! I dove into it, started doing a lot of research, and soon it became completely obvious that these things exist. People can ridicule me all they want to, and they do, believe me. But I don’t care; I know they are real.

RL: Have you met any skeptics who saw one?

BH: Many times. And a lot of them were hardcore skeptics. But then they saw a Bigfoot, and they all changed over to believers. They said that their lives were changed completely.

Here's the official word from the Olympic Project regarding the incident. This report by Derek Randles cleared up most of the rumor/disinformation:

Olympic Project

Sierra shooting

This incident occurred in October of 2010 in Northern California. The persons involved will be known as Hunter 1, and Hunter 2. Hunter 1 is the shooter. Hunter 2 was driving the vehicle.

While driving down a dirt road looking for bear, hunter 1 and hunter 2 were noticing large piles of feces along their route. They commented on the amount they were seeing, and at the strange nature of it. They were having a rough time figuring out what was responsible. To big for Cougar, and didn't appear to be bear. It is important to note that they were hunting at considerable elevation. It's also important to note that they were legally hunting, with appropriate bear tags in a legal hunting area.

As the truck came around a corner they both noticed a large hair covered figure standing approx 80 to 100 yards in a meadow off to the side of the road. ( On the Bigfoot forum I previously said it was off to the left, that was my mistake, it was actually off to the right of the road.) The figure was standing on two legs with it's arms above it's head. It took roughly eight to ten steps toward the vehicle. The arms were moving a little either because it was walking, or it was intensionally swaying them. It was dirty grey in color with some black mixed in. The figure was very large. Hunter 1 decided it had to be a bear. It was completely hair covered, and from that distance good definition was impossible. Hunter 1 got out of the truck and leaned against the door aiming his riffle at the figure. He does admit that it looked strange but in his mind it had to be a bear. He did not believe in Bigfoot at that time. Hunter 2 was now looking at the figure and said " I'm not sure that's a bear". The shot was fired hitting it's mark in the chest region. The figure went down. It got back up immediately and started running on two legs, and then on all fours. It went from two legs to four legs a couple of times before it left view. A short time later they were very sure they heard it crash into the brush, although they never did confirm this. They couldn't believe what they were seeing.

They exited the truck and started across the meadow still wondering what just happened. When they reached the spot where it was standing they noticed movement in the nearby brush. Two smaller figures appeared from the brush and started circling around their position. The smaller ones were totally hair covered, but were much more black in color. They would go back and forth from two legs to four. They were exhibiting some type of chatter back and forth to each other. Hunter 1 and Hunter 2 described them as a cross between a gorilla and a bear. They said that they had very large heads, almost too big for their bodies. They also stated that the little ones had a much flatter face than a bear. They spent as much time on two legs as they did on four. The smaller figures began getting closer and closer, at on point, just a few yards. One of them climbed up a small outcrop above hunter 1. Hunter 1 started to get the feeling he might be attacked. He made a quick decision, turned and fired. The figure went down and rolled right down to Hunter 1's location. He lifted it up, and then placed it in the brush. They then decided that they needed to leave, now.

I, Derek Randles was put in touch with the hunters about two weeks later. I interviewed them both by phone extensively, and separately. I found that their story matched perfectly with no inconsistency's. I could also tell that they were natural and not rehearsed. Consequently, I've spent many many hour talking with hunter 1 one about all aspects of the story, and I completely believe him.

I then urged hunter 1 to return to the site and look around for any evidence from the incident. Upon returning they were greeted with roughly two feet of snow. The little one was not found. They concentrated their efforts in the area where they thought they heard the larger one go down. After digging though the snow for many hours they were able to find a piece of flesh, greasy fat and hair, but no body. The flesh and hair matched the color of the larger one exactly. White gray hair with some black in it.

I then asked him to forward a small piece of the flesh to Dr. Ketchum to have it analyzed for the current DNA study she's involved in. I cannot speak to the results at this time due to an NDA I've signed, but I will say that I 100% believe the story. Read into that what you will.

The site has been under snow since last November. Further study of the site is ongoing. To date, no bodies have been recovered or found. If and when a body or remains is discovered, the appropriate authority's will be notified.

The Olympic Project and Dr. Melba Ketchum do not advocate or condone the killing of a Sasquatch to advance science. That being said, if this sample can help with species verification and protection, then some good can come from a unfortunate incident. It's also important to note that this is but one of over a hundred samples the Olympic Project has contributed to this study.

Updates on this story will be available on this web site, and the story in it's entirety will be told by Hunter 1 when the time is right.

Thank You,
Derek Randles.