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Midtarsal Break, Photo Credit: Lyle Laverty, 1967.

You’ve seen the photograph. It is one of the more famous single Bigfoot tracks, a print with a distinctive midtarsal break, as Jeff Meldrum terms it. A simple “photo by Lyle Laverty” is usually placed casually underneath it, acknowledging the credit line of this semi-public official who snapped the picture. Now, Laverty is in the news again, as an up-and-coming Bush political appointee to the Department of Interior.

First some background on Laverty’s Bigfoot connections:

In October 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin claimed to have captured on film a female Bigfoot retreating across a loamy sandbar on Bluff Creek, in northern California. The film provides a view of the plantar surface of the subject’s foot, as well as several unobstructed views of step cycles. In addition to a prominent elongated heel, a midtarsal break is apparent during midstance and considerable flexion of the midtarsus can be seen during the swing phase. The subject left a long series of deeply impressed footprints. Patterson cast single examples of a right and a left footprint. The next day the site was visited by Robert Laverty [sic: obviously Lyle Laverty], a timber management assistant and his sales crew. He took several photographs including one of a footprint exhibiting a pronounced pressure ridge in the midtarsal region. This same footprint, along with nine others in a series, was cast two weeks later by Bob Titmus, a Canadian taxidermist.Jeff Meldrum, “Evaluation of Alleged Sasquatch Footprints and Their Inferred Functional Morphology.”

Lyle Laverty

Today, Laverty finds his past in other dealings catching up with him due to the confirmation process he is just beginning via the United States Senate:

As Colorado parks director, Lyle Laverty revamped and upgraded state parks, built luxury cabins and boosted attendance despite budget cuts. He also used public funds to buy a riding horse, and he traveled to Lebanon and Tanzania. Laverty’s record during six years at the helm of the parks division shows his flair for managing the cash- strapped parks and his penchant for personal perks, say current and former state officials. Now Laverty, 64, who announced Monday that he would step down May 1, is awaiting Senate confirmation to become assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks in the Department of Interior. President Bush nominated him for the post in March. Jeremy Meyer, April 10, 2007, The Denver Post, “Park Nominee Not Above Debate.”

Back in 2001, Laverty’s Bigfoot history was examined in some depth by The Denver Post’s Theo Stein:

Lyle Laverty, until recently the top Forest Service official in the Rocky Mountain region, started his career as a timber manager in northern California during the late 1950s and 1960s. He investigated the Patterson-Gimlin sighting the day after the film was shot and photographed several footprints left by the animal. Laverty says the film site was so close to a logging road that he still worries the film might somehow have been faked.

But Laverty refused to rule out the possibility that Bigfoot exists. Starting in 1958, his logging crews reported finding hundreds of gigantic footprints around their new logging sites. Whatever left the prints was powerful enough to tumble logging equipment and toss 450-pound drums of gasoline, he says.

“You never want to count it out,” said Laverty, who was recently tapped to head the Forest Service’s national fire plan, with its $1.2 billion annual budget. “Some of these crews really felt something was up there. And anything that can pick up a 55-gallon drum of fuel is a big dude.” Theo Stein, January 14, 2001, The Denver Post, “Legend of Bigfoot Put to Test.”

Was Laverty, at 15, really at Bluff Creek, as Cryptomundo reader Jason has pointed out? It appears that bad editing in the 2001 Denver Post column is finally being revealed. Obviously, Laverty was speaking about the 1958 incidents and the “his” in the article was referring to Ray Wallace. Stein once told me his article had been brutally chopped up and edited. I bet Stein had written a paragraph referencing that the early Bluff Creek camp was run by Ray Wallace, and it was deleted. But then, apparently, Laverty’s comment on the situation in 1958 was combined with Laverty’s involvement at Bluff Creek in 1967. The years became merged in some editor’s mind. Laverty, no doubt, had nothing to do with Bluff Creek in 1958!

Bringing all the pieces together, how will any Bigfoot fallout impact Laverty?

As a timber manager in Northern California in the 1950s and ’60s, Laverty has had more than one run-in with a possible Sasquatch. In 1958, Laverty investigated vandalism of logging equipment. 450-pound drums of fuel were found in disarray as if they had been tossed like children’s toys. Enormous footprints were found throughout logging sites. Laverty declined to say conclusively that the vandalism was the work of Bigfoot, but he refuses to completely dismiss the possibility. Mysterious Universe, April 10, 2007

Well, at least, Laverty was there at Bluff Creek in 1967. How interesting and very curious.

What is significant about this affair is the fact that being so deeply involved in the most infamous Bigfoot encounter of all has not in any way diminished Laverty’s professional success. He is at the height of his career having been nominated to a very high federal post. Bigfoot witnesses and researchers need not fear public ridicule or professional backlash for their claims, as long as they are rational and open-minded about the subject. Mysterious Universe, April 10, 2007

It really does depend on what kind of context in which you place things, doesn’t it? “The most infamous Bigfoot encounter of all”? Since when has the Patterson-Gimlin film become the “most infamous Bigfoot” incident of all time? Sorry, that one just caught me off-guard.

As to whether Laverty will make it through the U.S. Senate confirmation process, that remains to be seen. I doubt Bigfoot will even come into the mix. It may have more to do with his membership in the secret fraternity, Roundup Riders of the Rockies, and the fact that Laverty used $5,000 in state money to buy a horse for his agency, which he later sold to his son-in-law. Bigfoot, Sasquatch? The Senate confirmation process won’t even care about his involvement 40 years ago in those Bluff Creek matters.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 12:14 am and is filed under Artifacts, Bigfoot, Breaking News, Conspiracies, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Forensic Science, Media Appearances, Pop Culture, Sasquatch. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.