Michigan Bigfoot Expedition Results
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on July 16th, 2007
Bigfoot researchers record thermal images
MANISTIQUE — A group that searched for bigfoot in the U.P. woods this weekend plans to return in August.
A four-day expedition in Marquette County by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, collecting evidence supporting the existence of “sasquatches” began with mixed results but concluded with “excitement,” according to BFRO organizer/ researcher Matthew Moneymaker.
Just after midnight Saturday, veteran BFRO investigators Pam Porter of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Don Young of Phillips, Wis., saw “grainy blips” through the viewfinder of a thermal imaging camera near where a previous bigfoot sighting had been reported, Moneymaker said, and they caught some of what they saw on film.
About the same time, Minnesota-based researcher Chris Perlock filmed “something behind trees” on his thermal camera, “possibly hunkered down or crawling,” Moneymaker said.
“We are very excited,” Moneymaker said. “We definitely cannot claim to have bigfoot on video, or even that what we have will impress the rest of the world. We still have to review the footage. But I can say that these are our best thermal images yet, on two cameras.”
“We’re going to alter our schedule in order to come back to Marquette in August,” Moneymaker said. “We’re going into that area again with more equipment.”
The exact location will remain confidential, Moneymaker said.
The next BFRO expedition is scheduled for Northern Utah July 19-22, followed by New Mexico on Aug. 2-4.
It was Wednesday night, Moneymaker said, as BFRO investigators were attempting to “lure” bigfoot into camera range with a series of “howls” and other sounds that Porter captured a single response with her audio recorder. The tape of that response was evaluated during a Thursday briefing by the rest of the BFRO team.
“We weren’t sure what it was,” Porter said, “but we were able to rule out an owl, a coyote, or a wolf. It was not any of those animals.”
Thursday night that area was “uneventful,” Moneymaker said, and the decision was make to move the search area to remote site near Ishpeming, with only the Minnesota team of Perlock and Andy Peeper remaining behind in their tent. Friday night Perlock and Peeper heard “bi-pedal footsteps” and other sounds.
Friday night near Ishpeming, BFRO researchers set up a central “basecamp” from which “call” teams were sent out, each carrying a walkie talkie, recording equipment and a thermal imaging camera. While the area looked promising, Moneymaker said, the effort was called off at about 1:15 a.m. “We have never had much luck in a steady rain.”
Saturday, BFRO investigators rejoined Perlock and Peeper at the original location with recorders, radios, and thermal-imaging cameras.
“After we review the footage we will download it to our Web site,” Moneymaker said. “It’s going to be a big file, 10 or 20 megabites.”
Fox News Reporter Griff Jenkins filmed several BFRO Marquette expeditions for an upcoming television documentary. “I don’t know if they’re going to find Bigfoot,” Jenkins said, “but you have to appreciate the effort they put into it, and their sincerity. They are absolutely certain that bigfoot exists.” The BFRO Web site is one of several devoted to bigfoot. The BFRO has approximately 200 active member/researchers, Moneymaker said, and has conducted more than 30 expeditions in the U.S. and Canada since 1995.Robb Lucas
Daily Press, Escanaba, MI
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Hmmm. Imagine That!
hey craig wow thats definetly a very interesting new update article about the bfro michigan bigfoot expedition. very informative. good evening bill green
That’s not surprising; Michigan has a good Sasquatch record. And a huge amount of fresh water. Is that guys last name really “Moneymaker”?
Nothing then.
Always keep just enough interest piqued to get people to cough up the $300+ for the next one. I certainly hope for the sake of all who care about BF that Moneymaker is really trying and not just working the money and fame angle.
If I could be more convinced that they are truly on a quest I wouldn’t mind going along myself although attempting to “call” them in seems a bit hokey and unprofessional to me. Like something they would do as a gimmick because I certainly don’t think BF is dumb enough to believe a human imitation. Before you could even attempt to “call” (which I wouldn’t) you would have to know what they mean.
Credible….hmm….
Sad that the BFRO is on dial-up still.
“It’s going to be a big file, 10 or 20 megabites.”
You know, I’ve gone on here quite a bit about the lassitude of science on the sasquatch topic. They’re lazy, they’re ignorant of the evidence, they want other people to do their work for them. Yadayada.
Sometimes ya gotta give the boyz and girlz in white a bit of slack, and this is one of those times.
I know that you always want to make sure you have something worth going public with before you go public. (Operating exception: you like posting dumb video to youtube.) But the thing begins to smell of dead sturgeon when you go: we have something worth going public with! but not yet. Right. And my Aunt Minnie is the Princess Anastasia! maybe.
You’re a scientist, you’re looking at this (if you even are) and going, sheesh. The search for the more-tannish subspecies of the Malagasy Pointy Rock Formation Brown Mouse Lemur is at least pure science. This is hucksterism. I want to soil my lab coat by association with this? Not on your block grant. YOU do it, and good luck to you. I’m saving a bottle of bubbly, because I think there might be something to this. But I’ll leave the scrum to others, thanks.
In my more lucid moments, I ask myself, hey. Science, say, does get involved; somebody puts up big money to pull big hitters in for a serious field search. Now, where is the data from which the search must be planned coming from? Who has it? Right. Largely, amateurs, competing with each other to be first, who have something that is, to them, seriously not worth giving up. And maybe that truck stalls just as it gets out of the driveway.
Maybe, I then think, that is the way to go if you want to look for Bigfoot. Search for him yourself. Because it may not get done any other way.
It’s the rare Bindernagel who immerses himself in this, who gets past the personalities and the politics and the showmanship and grasps the data.
And on this site, as it chronicles the Sylvanics and the Moneymakers (still a great site you don’t want to screw up there, Matt) and the Discardis (what typo?), you frequently see why.
What, no drawings of the eyes? 🙂
I am skeptical of how much strict attention is being made to scientific procedure and the collection of evidence on these expeditions. After all, you don’t see Jane Goodall trekking about with amateurs who paid 300 bucks a pop to go study gorillas. The adherence to proper evidence collection and methods is going to be of utmost importance if these guys want anything they find to be taken seriously by science. I know, I know, sasquatch is not proven to exist and these guys are trying to prove that, but their methods are going to have repercussions on anything they find. This is one thing that worries me about these expeditions because there IS a chance they could find something out there and I don’t want whatever it is they find to be compromised because of the way they go about things. If they don’t follow certain protocols, even very amazing evidence could be dismissed based on the way it was obtained and evaluated. I suppose finding a Bigfoot carcass would speak for itself though, no matter who found it.
I think that like DWA said, amateurs could possibly contribute a lot of data to field scientists, but those amateurs have to be sure they are playing by the rules as far as documentation goes and of course that data would have to be willingly made available. Somehow, I get the feeling that is going to happen with anything uncovered on these expeditions. I am all for the idea of scientifically savvy amateurs in the field though, for sure. Especially if they are interested in actually sharing their findings.
I agree with mystery_man. The BFRO has caught a lot of flak and for good reason, but a guy’s gotta eat, right? Kudos to Moneymaker for turning his obsession into a business. Other blogs make harsh claims, saying these expeditions are baited with elaborate hoaxes to keep ’em coming back for more, so tread with caution.
Might I make a recommendation? Form groups of your own and hit the field, keeping away from the “masses” often associated with BFRO expeditions. I can assure you that Giganto won’t stay close to a mass of people using calls, recordings or otherwise, but they will certainly pay a visit to a small group who don’t run around the forest half-cocked. Trust me on this one.
Wondering where to begin? Use BFRO’s site as a guide and go from there. There are no secret locations, really. If you have any forest sense, and dont’ fear leaving the trail, you can figure it out.
I love how on all of these so-called expeditions nobody every mentions taking a specimen or locating a body. That’s probably a good thing though, somebody would eventually get killing or seriously injured. People seem to spend a lot of time laughing at this Moneymaker fellow (could he have a better name?LOL) but he seems to be laughing all the way to the bank.
Moneymaker going back in August?
He has done this before. 2nd trip is always much worse. He apparently doesn’t learn from his past errors. He did this in Washington and New Mexico. The memories of BFRO will still be fresh in the minds of the Wisconsin Bigfoot. They will still remember what thermal imaging cameras are. They will know what to expect. They will know their tricks. They will know that his howls are not coming from a Bigfoot. They will know who Matt is and have consulted the Bigfoot grapevine and downloaded his resume. Biscardi will probably be there between now and August. The Bigfoot are smarter than the entire BFRO put together, and MM has not figured that out yet.
I am going to go way out on a limb here and predict that the BFRO won’t get squat in August. Oh, and the current thermal photos will never see the light of day on the internet.
As I said in another post, he generated $15K from this expedition alone? No wonder he changed his name to Moneymaker.
I hope the IRS is tracking this and, more importantly, he’d better be careful and not get caught if he is proven to be a hoax because the law suits would be costly.
Moneymaker claims to be a lawyer, so maybe he won’t need to hire one, which should save some money up front.
I agree with Silver Eagle. It seems like MM would spend some of that 15K and hire a scientist or animal behavioralist or at least an efficiency expert to maybe give him suggestions for some new strategies. If BF was attracted to loud noises and crowds of people he wouldn’t still be on the lamb.
I think we should recognize Dranginis over at VBRO for his forward thinking concerning BF. He’s coming up with new ideas and strategies and sharing them with the public for free, wow interesting concept. I can see why some short sighted people might want to villainize him.
Some of us love BFRO and some of us love to hate BFRO but either way they have the sighting reports I read because they have an organized way of publishing them. I just wish they had a new vision when it comes to expeditions.
But VBRO has the new theories concerning field research here in my home state of Virginia. Virginia Bigfoot Research
What we possess are not “thermal photos” but thermal video footage.
He didn’t change his name to Moneymaker; that’s always been his name. He doesn’t “claim to be a lawyer.” We went through law school but decided not to become a practicing attorney.
If our methods are so wrong-headed, then why did the Michigan Expedition yield so much, soon to be released? A side note: I notice there’s no belittling commentary from Craig this time around; I take his silence as a grudging acknowledgement of success. Am I right?
Many of the people on the Michigan Expedition didn’t pay a fee. The fee applies to one’s first expedition only.
Hello Chris,
When is the BFRO going to release the video?
so, this expedition yielded so much..?
Well, we’ll see.
Call me a cynic, but this is what i expect- nothing that gets us any further along at all.
thermal images? The ultimate tool for blobsquatchery.
Prove me wrong, and i’ll eat my words (and book a trip).
I don’t know about the Marquette area sightings, but I do know about Marblehead Creek, 5-6 MI East of Manistique just North of the Railroad Bridge. Check out the trail just a few feet west of the Creek in the spring, when the smelt and suckers are running.