Historic Bigfoot Track Find in Oregon!

You ever seen an old discarded mattress laying on the side of the road? Well, next time you might want to stop and take a look at it. One such mattress in Oregon has become the center of a historic track find.

This saga started when I checked my email on the morning of February 16, 2018 while in Nebraska for the 2018 Nebraska Bigfoot Conference. An email written at 11:08 pm the night before had the subject heading of “Tracks found today.” I opened the email and found that a friend of the email’s author had located and photographed footprints on an old discarded futon mattress on a pull out along Oregon Route 36. Exasperated, I thought to myself, “Why do all the really cool things happen when I’m out of town!?”

The photographs were very interesting. One of them had a lighter as a scale item showing that the prints were not huge, but were likely larger than most human prints would be. The toe splay was very impressive, as was the prints’ widths. They looked very good to me, which got me very excited about the find.

I had a professional obligation to speak in Nebraska, and I wouldn’t be flying home until Sunday, February 18th. I checked the weather report and saw bad news on that front. Rain and snow were coming. I started making phone calls.

My first call was to one of the best bigfooters I know, and one of my favorite people in general, who lives in the general area, Chris Minniear. Chris was the man who spent that rainy night with me back in 2012 casting the London Tracks at Cottage Grove Reservoir. Chris immediately knew the importance of the find, and spent several hours going to at least six different pull-outs late that night after work trying to find the location of the mattress, but to no avail.

I encouraged Chris to speak directly to the reporting witness in the morning and to try again. This time, he was successful in locating the site. Ironically, the mattress was just a few miles from his home, and he had been passing that same mattress at least twice a day while commuting to and from work. He and his wife had actually complained about the mattress and the lack of respect it shows to throw one’s trash on the side of the road for others to deal with.

Chris videoed parts of his investigation at the scene, took a series of photographs (which I hope to use to make a 3D model of the print find with the help of Dr. Jeff Meldrum at Idaho State University), and cut the footprints out of the fabric of the mattress. He then stored them in brown paper bags and kept them in his heated home to avoid mold or mildew destroying the prints and/or fabric.

For the rest with photos, click here.