Bigfoot Hunting Buffoonery

Last year, my friend Dinell shared a link to a NY Times article about a man who was killed while trying to create a Bigfoot sighting. It happened in Montana. The man was dressed in a “ghillie” suit, which is made to resemble foliage and camouflage military snipers.

“He was trying to make people think he was Sasquatch so people would call in a Sasquatch sighting,” Schneider told the Daily Inter Lake (http://bit.ly/PWJvA5) on Monday. “You can’t make it up. I haven’t seen or heard of anything like this before. Obviously, his suit made it difficult for people to see him.”

Here’s an example of the type of getup the man was wearing.

You know, hunting for Bigfoot has never gone well for me. Luckily it’s never gone as bad as it did for this guy. However, I never tried to dress up and make people think they were seeing a Sasquatch either. I just went in search of a sighting to see for myself.

I thought about this after our latest jaunt to Bermuda. I still have yet to see a Bigfoot, but I did find something else. And I have survived some great mishaps in an attempt to find proof.

BIGFOOT HUNT MISHAP #1

The first time we hunted for Bigfoot wasn’t even really a hunt. It was when we lived in Arizona. We decided to spend the weekend camping up near Flagstaff. We ended up getting lost and didn’t pitch camp where we’d first intended. Instead, we ended up back down at Theodore Roosevelt Lake.

Like I said, I wasn’t exactly thinking about Bigfoot when we set out to camp, so this isn’t an on purpose Haunt Jaunt. However, when we finally got set up, the terrain where we were sparked a recollection. In this case, it was about something I’d read. A report of a Bigfoot sighting and people having had rocks thrown at them.

It was a miserable night for sleeping. Super hot. It was 11:30 p.m. and we were sweating in our tent. I’d smelled a skunk and told my husband. “Watch Budly. There’s a skunk around.”

Budly was our crazy Cocker Spaniel. No sooner had I uttered the words than Budly tore out of the tent barking at something. Wayne and I both scrambled after him. Wayne was first out of the tent. Seconds later Budly yelped in pain as Wayne simultaneously shouted, “No! Get away!”

I was thinking either bear or coyote, not Bigfoot, and certainly not skunk. (Even though I’d just uttered the warning about one.) Then I saw Budly, desperately wiping his eyes with his paws…and there was the skunk waddling away.

That ended our camping expedition. We ended up loading everything up and driving home in the middle of the night. You don’t know miserable until you’ve suffered on the road at 3 in the morning with 90 degree heat, a car with no A/C and a stinky Skunk dog in the backseat.

BIGFOOT HUNT MISHAP #2

The second time we went hunting for Bigfoot was on purpose. It was after we’d moved to Jacksonville. Florida and I’d learned about the Skunk Ape in the Okefenokee.

I’ve written about that misadventure before. (See: Travel Mishaps: Camera Overboard in Search of the Skunk Ape.) To re-summarize it: we didn’t find a skunk ape that time either. All I saw was mere inches separating me in my canoe from the massive lizards swimming all over that swamp. When Wayne informed me the camera was overboard, I didn’t even care. I was too busy paddling back to the safety of the dock and land.

BIGFOOT MISHAP #3

Okay, so this next one isn’t a mishap. It’s a joke. We found a trail of Bigfoot footprints when we went to Bermuda.

Of course it’s not a real trail of Sasquatch markings. I’m not sure why the Royal Naval Dockyard area where we were decided they needed to paint monster-sized footprints on their path, but it made for a fun Haunt Jaunt-type “find” for me to document.

Three different places, three similar results: no Bigfoot sighting. But at least I lived to tell about it!