New BC Sasquatch Sighting
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 12th, 2008
Sasquatch hunter Bill Miller (left) explains the characteristics of Big Foot as fellow hunter Tom Steenburg looks on. Photography by Jenna Hauck. Progress
A seven-foot Sasquatch has been spotted near Chilliwack, a witness says.
And two local Sasquatch hunters are convinced the sighting, reported last month [June 2008] on Mount Cheam, is the real deal.
“This was a legitimate sighting, not a bear, not a deer or anything else,” said Bill Miller, a full-time Sasquatch hunter who lives in Harrison Hot Springs.
The Sasquatch was sighted on June 19 at 2 a.m. when a husband and wife were travelling down the mountain after watching the city lights from a lookout point. The wife was busy fiddling with CDs when the creature crossed in front of them.
“He grabbed his wife’s arm and said ‘did you see that guy cross the road?,’” said Tom Steenburg, a Sasquatch hunter and Big Foot author, who interviewed the couple two days after the sighting.
“His wife started asking him questions, like what was he wearing. He said that he wasn’t wearing anything, he was just really hairy. She asked how tall he was. He just said that he was really big. Finally she asked, was it the Sasquatch? No, he replied. It couldn’t have been, there’s no such thing as the Sasquatch.”
Thomas Steenburg is shown with his former investigative vehicle, a Land Rover, which assisted him in his Alberta research. Now Tom lives in British Columbia, where he feels he has a better chance of catching up with a Sasquatch and finding good evidence.
The man who saw the figure described it as having “long arms, down to his knees,” a “very heavy, big upper body,” a “thin waist,” a “flat stomach,” and no neck, “just kind of a head.”
He compared it to being “big like a wrestler, flexing its back and chest.” He also said it was about seven feet tall, covered in black hair, and walked on two legs.
“He said they came around the bend, then something took a step up from the trees and out onto the road,” said Miller. “It took only two quick steps across the road, looked towards them, and then it was gone.”
Miller, who has been a Sasquatch hunter for 10 years, and Steenburg, who has been one for 29 years, investigated the site in the following days.
“We looked for signs of where it might have gone into the bush and I found it immediately,” said Steenburg, who has investigated over 500 Sasquatch sightings in his career. “I saw exactly where it stepped.”
They found elongated trackings of crushed sprouts and pine needles, measuring a few feet in length, and over four feet apart.
Although there was no Sasquatch hair found at the scene, and the road was too hard to leave behind any detailed footprints, the two hunters still believe there is enough evidence to prove that the Sasquatch had passed through.
“It’s too problematic to explain it as a hoax rather then accept it,” said Miller. “Who would be running around out here in this ankle-breaking country, in a gorilla suite, on a warm night, sweating their tail off, jumping in front of cars?”
The tracks led all the way down a steep 60-metre hill, covered in branches, trees and shrubs. Miller believes that if someone was playing a prank they would have only waited at the side of the road instead up struggling uphill in the dark.
As well, the tracks were in a straight line. According to Miller this is even more supporting evidence, as the Sasquatch has a mid-tarsal break in their foot that allows them to walk one foot directly in front of the other with ease.
“If I, or any other human, were to climb this hill I would need to turn my feet sideways to stay balanced,” he said. “But these footprints are in a straight line, like he was walking a tight rope. They even go straight over a two foot high shrub in one step. This is circumstantial evidence.”
The footprints also proved that the sighting couldn’t have just been a bear.
“A bear walks on four feet, and throws its weight from side to side when walking,” he said. “And their footprints are only the size of baseballs, they aren’t elongated like these impressions.”
Along with the footprints, Miller pointed out that the description the man provided was too accurate to be a joke. He also ruled out the possibility of the man playing a prank on himself and Steenburg, saying that he had no motive.
The man who reported the sighting, an avid hunter, wishes to remain anonymous.
“He was really apologetic, and really agitated,” said Miller. “He seemed to be wrestling with the idea that he just saw a Sasquatch. He didn’t believe in them.”
According to Miller and Steenburg (above) most people who report sighting don’t want to be named for fear of a tarnished reputation.
“Ninety per cent of the population don’t believe that the Sasquatch even exists,” said Steenburg.
Both men receive their fair share of slack when they tell people what they do for a living.
“It’s human nature to laugh at what your ignorant about,” said Steenburg. “But that’s what it’s all about, trying to get people who tell you it doesn’t exist to believe in it.”
Miller feels the same way.
“It’s easy to be skeptical and laugh at it,” he said. “But no one has ever stepped up to give a counter explanation for the evidence we have collected, even when they’ve been offered money.”
Miller and Steenburg both use their own money to keep the dream alive. Miller is living and working off of his pension right now, but is hoping that the video he will one day get of the Sasquatch will support him for the rest of his life.
“I don’t want to see it close enough where I can feel it’s breath in my face,” he said. “But I want a video of it. That’s all I need. Just a video of it, and I’m set.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Donations have dropped to nearly zero since July 3rd. Please don’t forget the museum, and remember you may directly send a check, money order, or, if outside the USA, an international postal money order made out to
International Cryptozoology Museum
c/o Loren Coleman
PO Box 360
Portland, ME 04112
Please “Save The Museum”! Easy-to-use donation buttons are now available here or merely by clicking the blank button below. Thanks everyone!
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
In the photo at the top, is the sasquatch the one on the left, or the right?
I didn’t know they held their arms like that. Looks like he’s in irons.
And I wouldn’t say Steenburg is “looking on.” He’s looking AWAY. (I might too.)
Hey. I wanna know how you can be a FULL-TIME SASQUATCH HUNTER. (Bet there’s a catch.) Maybe you can only do this in Canada.
“Now Tom lives in British Columbia, where he feels he has a better chance of catching up with a Sasquatch and finding good evidence.”
Hmmm. I’d move to Texas and join the TBRC.
All that having been said:
1. Sounds like a classic encounter to me.
2. Sounds like a pretty standard squatch description to me. The same details, recurring over and over, each related in terms the witness understands, but very easy to compare and add up.
3. The guy is a standard witness too. Doesn’t want to talk, but does, because he doesn’t believe it exists, but well, he saw one.
4. And it’s pretty hard to swallow that every one of these adds up to a false positive. It would be easier to accept that all wolverine reports are just well-fed fishers.
If I were a scientist, I’d just want to look, and see how lies and hallucinations could be behaving like scientific data. (Or how apparently mentally healthy people could be having hallucinations like this.) But then, if I were a scientist, chances are I’d be pretty much ignorant on this topic. And it certainly is, as Steenburg says, human nature to laugh at things you are ignorant about.
DWA- Oh I wouldn’t say all scientists are ignorant on the topic, or even completely disinterested in it. I would be willing to bet that there are quite a few more scientists than you think that are curious about this field. The thing is, it sure doesn’t pay the bills or pull in grant money though. Peers who ARE ignorant can also make it tough to make any serious attempt to pursue these creatures, as famously the case with Meldrum way back when. I commend these amateurs out there who go out with money from their own pocket and try to find what ultimately will be needed to turn things around- CONCRETE EVIDENCE. As long as they follow proper scientific protocols, they are doing a great service for the growing field of cryptozoology by not only finding this evidence, but also raising awareness and showing that this sort of research can be legitimate.
By the way, the sasquatch in that top picture is neither the one on the right OR the left. If you blow up the picture 200X, you’ll see an obscure shadow back there in the trees. That’s it. 🙂
mystery_man:
Remember, I said “chances are.” As in, a scientist selected at random is probably going to be. Or else: either well-funded expeditions would be looking, or scientists better get together and find out they all agree on this so we can look! 😀
There are a LOT of shadows back there. I think the one you’re talking about is a juvenile; I’m talking about the one that appears to be holding a weapon, possibly a crude bow. Or maybe it’s some kind of hair thingie, like you might use to fix up a ponytail or something. But I’m just speculating. 🙂
Mystery_Man:
Good post.
Any signs of photoshopping??? “Smile.”
DWA- That’s the one! 🙂 Can’t you make out the sagittal crest and the fingers as well? Cryptidsrus, I don’t think it was photoshopped. No way. 🙂
Well, I’d certainly have to agree that if you put it that way, and randomly chose a scientist, then they probably aren’t very well versed in cryptozoology or don’t take it particularly seriously. My point was mainly that there ARE those of us in scientific fields like myself who treat this subject with respect and consideration, and I think there are more like this than some people may think. But yeah, it hasn’t caught on in the mainstream yet, and a lot of these scientists follow cryptozoology from the sidelines, unfortunately. Hopefully this will change.
For now, independent researchers like Bill Miller are the ones really doing the heavy lifting in cryptozoological field work and I support their operations wholeheartedly. A lot of organizations and researchers like this are adopting more and more legitimate scientific practices and this gives hope. The more results they end up producing, the more mainstream science is going to stand up and take notice, and the more all of those scientists who are closet cryptozoologists are going to be able to participate.
I’ve got a lot of respect for guys like Mr. Miller and Mr. Steenburg willing to pursue this on their own.
The guy’s description of Sasquatch was “too accurate to be a joke”? While this particular instance sounds reasonably legit to me, I don’t think the possibility of a joke should be ruled out just for the accurate sounding description. If one were to do things right, they would first research the basis of their joke, acquiring some knowledge of their beast of honor. As to the footprints, these could be faked as long as there are trees in the right places (preferably near the beginning and end of the trail). One could have gone about it in a similar way to some crop circle makers, who were supposed to have tied ropes to trees at either end of a field, then pulled themselves to the center, leaving no incriminating footprints. If one were to wear large stompers and tie a rope across the expanse of the alleged tracks, they could leave tracks at any distance needed. Would a bigfoot really walk “straight over a two foot high shrub”, or just crash through it? And notice how Mr. Miller states the tracks “are in a straight line, like he was walking a tight rope”… This tale sounds like an actual encounter to me, though the tracks could have been faked with the rope tactic (not that anyone would actually do it – then again, some of those “crop circles” were surprisingly complex). Perhaps the greatest reason I feel this story has something to it is of course the lack of motive; unless the witness has some grudge on scientists or something, I don’t see why he would do all this elaborate hoaxing. I suppose he technically could have actually just seen a big hairy boxer, but then again we don’t really know what bigfoot is, do we?
DWA and mystery_man, I hate to disappoint you, but what you’re actually seeing is the reflection in an iridescent fog of some drunk boxing hobo in a monkey suit walking his pet mangy otter.