Bigfoot Sightings Reported to Iowa Conservation Office
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on March 3rd, 2009
Reports: Large, hairy two-legged animal seen
FAIRFIELD — It’s big, it’s hairy, and it’s been sighted in Jefferson County. Just don’t call it bigfoot.
“I’m not saying that is what it is by any means. I just had somebody call this office and report that is what they’d seen,” said Shawn Morrissey, operations and natural resource manager for Jefferson County Conservation.
Morrissey has received two reports of a large biped roaming the Skunk River valley on the eastern side of the county in as many years.
The first report came during the summer of 2007, and the second during the fall of last year.
The most recent caller claimed to have waited several months to contact officials after seeing what he described as a large hairy beast walking on two legs.
“It was pretty wishy-washy,” Morrissey said. “It’s my own personal feeling they saw something that tricked their eyes and was a very explainable animal.”
Morrissey said a more probable explanation would be the person saw a horse or a hunter wearing a Ghillie Suit, a type of a camouflage that can look like it’s covered in hair.
“I’m not going to say they didn’t (see something). But I think the more likely thing is they saw something in a flash or at a strange angle,” Morrissey said.
The sightings have not been investigated by county officials. Morrissey said he did not know the names of those who made the reports.
It’s unlikely a large fur-covered biped could play hide and seek in Iowa wilderness and remain undocumented. The state simply doesn’t have enough large stretches of timber where such a creature could live, Morrissey said.
“This is a very populated state really. There aren’t any big chunks of wilderness,” he said.
And during the winter when trees are stripped of their leaves, the ground is wide open to any plane passing overhead.
“Most actual animals have some kind of physical evidence,” Morrissey added.
However, common sense hasn’t stopped Sasquatch from popping up all over the state.
The Bigfoot Field Research Organization Web site, www.b f r o.net, lists 40 bigfoot sightings in Iowa dating back to 1970, three of which come from Jefferson County, and one from Lee County.Nicholas Bergin
The Burlington (IA) Hawk Eye
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.
I would be interested in knowing the type of weather that was being experienced at the time of the sighting in all the Jefferson County sightings. Since there is not large chunks of wilderness (per Morrissey) I wonder if the type of weather would be a factor in the sighting.
For instance if Jefferson county was experiencing a warmer than usual season, allowing for better foraging now? Or was there an exceptional crop this past harvest? There was show (on Discovery channel, dealing with the hantavirus) that mentioned when there is an abundant grain harvest the ground rodent population can double. So if the rodent population experienced a growth spurt, would that attract a carnivorous biped animal?
Well, let’s not try to shake a stick at all the misconceptions in there.
Oh heck.
Um, why? What evidence does he have of that? How many times have you seen something that “tricked your eyes,” and run to a government agency yelling Bigfoot?
Really. It’s ‘probable’ that someone saw a horse (four legs, head that’s pretty much all snout) and imagined a bipedal ape (two legs, flat face). Or a guy in a Ghillie suit (pretty much instantly recognizable as a guy even if you don’t know what a Ghillie suit is). Maybe these people should be found, tranquilized and institutionalized before they cause harm. What do you think they see when they’re driving? Or going to the bank? Or changing junior’s diapers…?
Case closed. No neighboring states; no neighboring patches of wilderness; all those deer are, well, right in the open as any hunter can tell you, just get a machine gun and mow ’em down; and what does he mean about hide and seek? Who needs to hide when nobody takes the seeker seriously when he says ‘there it is’?
Uh huh. And when all that physical sasquatch evidence gets produced, people think it’s a horse or a bear or a guy in a Ghillie suit.
Sheesh. I’m proud to be a government worker.
Then I run into some of them.
Oh yeah, Iowa’s just crowded as heck, what with being the 30th most populated state and all! And 35th for density! 😉
Now we’re talking. That’s my neighborhood give or take some miles. Fairfield does seem to be a hot spot of sorts. Wonder if there is more vegetation down south? I will look into that. According to BFRO there are clusters of sightings in a few areas, and I am now wondering if they happen more in summer months when vegetation is thicker.
That would lead me to think there may be something to a nomadic pattern for BF’s, as in they may migrate or make treks in patterns throughout the course of a year.
Interesting, maybe I can do some close to home investigating even though BF is not my number one cryptid.
In all my time in the NATO forces sniper school i don`t remember being told our Ghillie suits resembled a hair covered suit .
springheeledjack – The migrating idea was mentioned on an episode of monsterquest, when there were bf sightings in the pacific northwest that were headed in a southern direction. There was a theory put forth that they were following the blueberries that were ripening later in the season than normal. So they surmised that the bf were headed south to get to the the riper berries found at a lower altitude, which would be riper than those further north.
It would be interesting to have weather conditions and seasons noted with all the sightings (not just Iowa), to see if a pattern could be found. I am eager to read what you find out!
DWA- I feel you on some of the points you made.
You know I’m critical of evidence, but I also tend to think it is rather absurd to think that a sane person could mistake a horse for a bipedal hairy ape. Even at a weird angle or poor lighting conditions, I think most people would be more inclined to try to rationalize it as a horse or anything else other than a sasquatch rather than sit on it for months convinced that what they saw was a hairy hominid.
Seriously, a horse? I can’t think of too many other sasquatch sized creatures that look less like a sasquatch. I would be much more inclined to think the eyewitness was simply making the whole thing up rather than try to explain the sighting away as a horse.
I do think that a ghillie suit could possibly be mistaken for a sasquatch, though. It is strange enough looking and creates the illusion of greater size, especially to someone not used to seeing one. But if the area has enough ghillie suit clad hunters, I’d think that most locals would be somewhat used to seeing those, or at least be familiar with the concept. I suspect many who know the appearance of a Ghillie suit would explain their sighting away as that on their own, possibly even if what they saw was NOT a Ghillie suit.
Again, depending on the eyewitness, I would be more readily believe that the report was fabricated. I’d be interested to see what the backgrounds on the eyewitnesses in Iowa were, whether they are tourists, city folk, or whatnot, who might be freaked out by seeing a large person in a Ghillie suit under the right conditions.
It makes me curious what the “something” could be that the witness saw a “flash of” that would make them think it was a sasquatch.
One interesting thing concerning the seemingly limited range of habitat in Iowa for such a large omnivore is that there is the chance that if sasquatch are really out there, they may be using wilderness corridors. What I mean is that in many areas, privately owned wilderness areas, wildlife reserves, and National parks often overlap and form sort of “wilderness highways” through otherwise well populated areas. You could think of it as many smaller wilderness areas joined into a string to form a continuous, interconnected line of habitat. In some places, traveling through these corridors have become practically the sole method that wild animals have for migrating or moving place to place, especially for highly mobile, roaming nomadic animals (which the sasquatch seems like it could be).
I’m actually not very familiar with the layout of Iowa. So perhaps someone like Springheeledjack or anyone who knows the lay of the land could tell me if there are such wilderness corridors, and if it is at least plausible that a large animal like sasquatch could be utilizing them.
I don’t wanna be too general, but I tend to believe Iowans know their livestock AND their camo when they see it. As for the question about corridors, I plotted the list of sightings in Iowa onto a map some time ago and found that they’re almost exclusively following the rivers and creeks. Maybe that’s old news to more seasoned hunters, but I’m new. I’m about an hour away from the sighting, and there have been some down here as well. We have a large Army Ammunition plant nearby that is heavily forested. One of my coworkers is a former plant employee and claims several workers (unofficially) reported a sasquatch on the grounds.
I wonder if he/she/they are following the Skunk River in this portion of Iowa. Maybe I’ll have to plan a kayak trip this fall!
M_m: all I can say about ghillie suits other than what I have is that they figure in a number of sightings I’ve read.
In each case, the person used that explanation as an attempt to rationalize something they were absolutely unfamiliar with.
It failed.
To me this strengthens
1) the assumption (that I believe I can comfortably draw from evidence presented) that the vast majority of people who see these are absolutely unprepared to see anything like it, i.e., they don’t “have sasquatch on the brain” and
2) the assumption (that I think I can comfortably make also) that someone who sees a man in a ghillie suit isn’t going to run to the authorities.
My experience with them is that when you’re wearing one, you look like a guy covered in seaweed. But a guy. If, of course, you are seen at all. For obvious reasons you probably won’t be seen; you’ll get to your cover spot and put it on.
You sure won’t run over 40 mph, gaining on a deer, in one. As a ‘man in a ghillie suit’ did in a New Jersey road-cross sighting to blow the ghillie-suit theory out of the water in that case.
BunniesLair,
The idea that BF migrates is not new by any means. I’ve personally contended this long before MQ and I picked it up from other researchers.
One thing I did not know was that Iowa was so devoid of forestland. I also thought it had a low population which is confirmed by DWA above.
Sounds like typical bureaucratic policy to me – sit back, put your feet up, sip your coffee and wax profoundly, in the hope that nobody will suggest that you actually DO something!
Google Maps / Satellite shows at least two large rivers and lakes, all with feeder streams and relatively large greenery areas bordering them, surrounding the Fairfield, IA area.
We can deduce from hundreds of Archive Reports that Sasquatch is nomadic and migratory, plus intelligent, wary, wily… and hungry.
Why can’t “officials” do that math?
Raisinsofwrath – I alluded to the idea of BF ranging, in my first comment. And I mentioned the show in my second comment, so that it would be understood it was not my idea, rather one I pondered from the show.
Personally I am more of the notion that BF ranges, more than migrates. Similar to Gorillas, they forage over a huge area, but do not migrate. I am of the belief that BF is in the family of the great apes. Therefore I think they range over vast areas much like gorillas or like other large American land animals, bears; instead of migrating like Caribou.
However, if they do migrate, it stands to reason that they would follow a water source. And by that same thought, it would feasible that sightings would be grouped together by area and date range, over the years, because there would be a migration trail of sorts, and sightings would logically follow along that trail.
Is there a database of sightings, locations, times, months, and years? If there is has that query been run?
m_m: About being critical of evidence. Me too, but I think it pays not to go too far with that.
I agree with you that thinking they’re seeing cows or horses is absurd. But that happens too often: an unreasonable explanation (“a nine-foot vagrant with a black hoodie and black pants and black boots…in July” or a bear running, bipedally, across a road or swamp gas or your mom wears glasses, right? or beer which is NOT a hallucinogen) is given by a skeptic for something that the skeptic at least sometimes professes to believe is at least conceivable. Ever notice how Ben Radford comes on here (you remember him, right? 😀 ) and says he’s been involved in the cryptid search forever and has done all this research and hopes the searchers find one someday, straitjackets and all, yet he can’t accept as a rational explanation that people who see an animal he professes to be open minded about actually did see that animal?
Which leads me to this: if one is open-minded on a cryptid, one accepts, as one of the best possible explanations, that a person who reports an encounter with that cryptid actually had one. Unless there is something compelling – and I can think of very very few things that would work with a sasquatch encounter – that tells one otherwise.
Virtually every sasquatch encounter report I have read comes down to one of three reasonable explanations: sasquatch; 911-hospitalizable-on-the-spot mental deragement; or lie. (“man in ghillie suit”: not reasonable for one of them. Nor a man in any kind of suit, even ape.)
Oh and raisinsofwrath: I’d love to take final credit for the Iowa data…but I can’t. That belongs to sneaker98, who points up how scary bad misconceptions about how populated our country is, in general, continue to contribute to a big pile of misinformation that gets in the way on topics like this.
DWA- That’s pretty much my philosophy when it comes to cryptids, open minded but keeping my brains from falling out. 🙂 I would however, add to your list and say that someone who was out and really wanted to, or expected to see a sasquatch, might go the other way and rationalize that, say, a Ghillie suited man was one even if they suspect it might not have been. I suppose expectations may play a role to distort perceptions.
Anyway, another good example of the use of “research” to debunk sightings reports is the misrepresentation of some experiments on perception. For example, you have the one where you are watching a show and don’t notice that people are changing their clothes or hair, or that man in a gorilla costume has just walked across the screen without you noticing. Then some “scoftics” will awkwardly try to shoe horn those findings into sasquatch reports and make irrelevant connections.
In the first example of people changing clothes off camera, this could be seen as an example of “change blindness,” which is a sort of “inattention blindness,” in which your brain doesn’t notice even obvious changes as long as the actual change isn’t witnessed. This is because the brain simply cannot process every little thing, so it chooses what to focus on. There have been lots of very interesting experiments on this phenomenon, and none of them really pertain to sasquatch reports. It merely shows that the brain doesn’t notice changes it does not witness, not that a person has mistaken a horse for a hairy biped, or that they didn’t really see said hairy biped. If they saw sasquatch one second and it was brown, then turned away, looked back, and didn’t notice that someone had turned it grey, THAT would be more pertinent to those experiments.
The second example of a man in gorilla suit walking through the frame unnoticed (I’ve seen this clip, very interesting but irrelevant), merely shows that people sometimes don’t notice what’s right in front of them. That’s fine if the person had a sasquatch walk in front of them and they saw nothing. But these eyewitnesses are seeing the thing, sometimes quite clearly and in detail. If anything, that particular experiment shows that maybe more people have seen sasquatch that didn’t actually realize it at the time.
I understand the aim of these examples is to show that human perception is not perfect, and I’m interested in how faulty perception may play a role in sightings reports. However, all of the experiments I just mentioned involve people NOT noticing things, which is quite different than someone insisting they saw an 8 foot tall hairy hominid. Yet some debunkers still use these experiments as an argument.
I’m not a psychologist, these are just a few cases I know of. What I’m trying to say is that it’s scientifically irresponsible to use research that does not pertain to or is irrelevant to the facts in order to explain a phenomenon. I am disappointed when skeptics (which I actually consider myself to be) use such faulty arguments.
I very much appreciate a critical approach, as long as it’s done in a meaningful way supported by pertinent facts.
Yeah, I have plenty of bones to pick with the conservation guy. I live in Iowa, and while we don’t have expansive areas of forests like Washington, Colorado or even the Pine Barrens, there’s plenty of forested areas and places to hang out and hide. I’ve been hunting and there are forests big enough to hide a BF. And on the population thing, think we have around 2 million in the state give or take and that certainly AIN’T populated to the point where we would see everything.
My brother actually had a sighting in southern Iowa a couple of years back and and after looking at the BFRO site, it seems there are areas that are distinctly more opportune for sightings than others, central Iowa areas and southern.
And I tend to agree with BunniesLair and Raisinofwrath, I think “ranging” is a much better description of BF activity than migration. I think like any other animal they are going to go where the food is, and at different times of the year, I would guess a BF would know when the food is plentiful in an area.
I will do some researching around here to see what “food sources” might be blooming at peak sighting areas and during times of the year. It could be that more people are out and about in these high sighting areas at certain times of the year, but it could be food drawing the cryptids down or something else entirely.
I’ll look into things and then report back to Loren here and the BFRO if I come up with anything. And like I said, I am close enough to go scouting later this year on my own, so we will see if I can put together a mini MQ of my own.
You have my curiosity up. 🙂
Tall, hairy biped…there’s only one explanation I will accept that is close to his camo idea. Out by my parent’s ranch there was a hobo who killed himself a bear and made a jacket out of the hide. When he wore it he looked like either big foot or a bear walking up right, either way everyone told him that was dangerous. After all it doesn’t matter to gun-crazy people what they are seeing they will shoot it. The only thing with this story is that the sitings have been going on for a while. That would either be a very old bear or a hobo. Some people just won’t accept even the possibility of such things.
Most of the land surface of Iowa is open fields as far as the eye can see. Maybe your neighbors live a mile away, but the land in between is as wide open and known to you as your back yard. Maybe more so, since back yards tend to have trees. The rivers in southern and eastern Iowa are exceptions to this.
Iowa does get the odd bear or moose wandering down from northern Minnesota every couple three years. And a cougar in north central Iowa, I’d guess a kitten from the denning mother up by Mankato. And they are seen, and everybody knows about them. A large primate is not going to evade detection, especially not if it is living in the area with a breeding population.
You have to realize that population density isn’t the only factor. How well the people living there know their surroundings is another, and the line-of-sight open distance is an additional factor. Rural Iowans not only know their surroundings out to the horizon like the back of their hands, but they are -aware- of them, too.
Now, there -are- a lot of weirdos down by Fairfield, so ya never know 😉
Living right in the middle of all those “open fields”, and yet we could easily make it sight unseen from the top of the Des Moines River all the way to Des Moines!!
Plenty of other journeys could be made through the state, too, using the river and stream passages and also the very large system of parks, preserves, etc.
If one doesn’t want to be seen, there is plenty of timber, river bottoms, and more to use for passageways and hiding/living. There have been people who have gone missing and not been found for years… sounds strange for Iowa, but it happens. A few years ago an experienced hunter actually got lost and died of exposure.
I have lived in southeastern Iowa most of my life. Only leaving for a few years while in the military and returned. I grew up hunting and still hunt religiously. I mostly hunt out west now so my experience is not limited to Iowa. Although I personally have never seen anything I could not explain, I have seen a mountian lion and a wolf in southeast Iowa. I saw the mountian lion in Davis County about 12 miles south of Ottumwa. One of my friends I hunt with saw a mountain lion less than 1/4 mile from the location where I saw mine just 2 days earlier. Both sighting in broad daylight. No question of what we saw regardless of what the DNR (Dept of Natural Resources) will admit. As for the wolf, I was also south of Ottumwa on the back road to Lake Wapello about 6 miles south of town. A friend of mine who is a science teacher, life long farmer and hunter, was in the truck with me. We both saw it from less than 30 yards. It crossed the road in front of my truck, crossed the ditch, then stopped and looked at us, looking at him. Again, no question as to what this was. My father tried to convince me that we saw either a really large coyote or a coyote, dog mix. Know as a coy-dog. Like I said earlier, I have spent way too many days and nights in the woods to make that kind of mis-identification.
With that having been said, I truely feel that for Iowa to be populated by a large upright mammal, the number of sighting would be astronomical. Iowa is very open. I realize there are areas where the woods run for miles and the food supply would be endless. But let’s be realistic. If there was a 6 foot or taller, hairy mammal walking around on 2 legs, someone I know would have seen it. I simply have too many friends who hunt, camp, drive the back roads both day and night for none of us to have seen it.
I must admit that if this creature does exist, it must be of higher intelligants than most wild animals, ie, deer, coyote, fox, etc. So that would give it an advantage as to how to stay out of sight. But to be able to roam Iowa freely without hundreds of sighting would be highly unlikely.
markj515:
Sure. Right.
Mountain lions in Iowa. No way it happens. People scream ‘panther’ at tabbies and bobcats all the time. And wolves? Travel in packs. It was alone, you saw a dog, a coydog, or a big coyote.
Period.
Iowa has 40 sightings on the BFRO database. Many of them are by people who claim your expertise in the woods. 40 listed sightings, reported by people who know how the public will treat their sightings, implies hundreds by people who didn’t report.
Curious, and anybody who knows this chime in.
How many reported mountain lion or wolf sightings in IA in the last 30 years?
My point is not to pooh-pooh your sighting. To me that is precisely what is wrong with so many “experts’ on why the sasquatch is impossible. They pooh-pooh. I have spent more than enough time in the woods to know that your sightings are plausible.
But I have also seen photos of coyotes that, when the animal was ID’d I went, I thought that was a wolf! And the other way around, too. And I pride myself on knowing the difference. (And I have seen both in the wild. And yes I do know that, for sure.)
I can, in other words, see you mistaking a big coyote (or a mix of the right dog with a coyote) as a wolf.
The IA sighting reports involve, many of them, hunters, like you, who could not, from their descriptions, have been looking either at a human or at any known animal.
And there’s as much evidence for what they saw – their word – as there is for what you did – your word. Although in some cases, we have tracks, in places someone hoaxing just wouldn’t leave them.
In other words, I have no more reason to disbelieve them than I do you.
If the sasquatch is real – and my read of hundreds of reports tells me to bet that way if I ever have to – then many people, in IA and many, most all, other states, are seeing them. and
1. Saying nothing, fearing the consequences;
2. Saying nothing, ’cause now they know and don’t care who else does;
3. Saying nothing, ’cause it COULD possibly conceivably I could win the lottery tomorrow too have been human;
4. Saying nothing, ’cause at a distance it didn’t look unusual enough over the brief course of the sighting;
5. Saying nothing because [many other reasons I could list];
6. Reporting it (40 on BFRO’s database in IA alone).
Just sayin’. No more reason to doubt them, than to doubt you.
I’m looking at Iowa on Google Earth right now, and I wanna tell ya… I see a LOT of green space. Just goes to show that people have a very small perception of the world around them. They look outside their door and assume what they see is what is everywhere. There are so many easy explanations countering the arguments against this being a Bigfoot. Oh, and the other thing I wanted to say was that I have seen animals in the woods and not once have I ever been confused by what it was. If you can see it you can tell what it is. A moose looks like a moose. A bear looks like a bear. A human looks like a human. Sure, a person should expect that OCCASIONALLY there will be cases of mistaken identity, but to try to explain away all the Bigfoot reports as mistaken identity is just plain stubbornness.
M-J-G:
Everything you said: right on.
And a guy (his word; and his report sounds plausible) in Manitoba shot a sasquatch dead, in 1941, with one shot. Thinking it was a wounded cow moose he’d been tracking.
Mistaken identity does, as you note, happen.
But the way you would expect it to go is this: guy sees something unknown. And pigeonholes it into the categories he knows. In other words: you see a sasquatch, fleetingly (or even not), and you go: bear. HAD to be. Please, HAD to be…
That’s what many sighters try to do: that CAN’T be what I think it is. It CAN’T. And they keep looking, and nothing they see tells them anything but: it IS.
People reporting sightings aren’t tentative. They are INSISTENT that they saw what they saw. And they describe it consistently with others who have seen, apparently, the same thing.
People don’t do that and be mistaken about it. People don’t do that when they’re really looking at bears, moose, or stumps. Not people in sound mental health.
Not only can’t you say they’re all innocently mistaken; you can’t say they’re all crazy, either.
And a combination of the two? Think about it. That’s even MORE implausible.
Did this guy just move to Iowa, like 5 minutes ago? We have these things called Loess Hills. It’s some pretty tough terrain. I am in Southwest Iowa, and although the wooded areas here don’t compare to places up north or near the mountains, They are still pretty good areas for hiding. If you are a sasquatch. 😉 – Iowa isn’t all farmland and small towns.
I would also like to add to the talk of mountain lions. My local newspaper recently printed a clear photo of a mountain lion. A VERY clear photo of one. It was hanging out near a College campus. (Iowa Western, Council Bluffs, IA). There are hardly any wooded areas around. it’s all farmland and subdivisions, with the exception of a creek and a small wooded area behind the campus. A few students were complaining about a mountain lion and most people thought they were just drunk. Until they got a clear picture. There’s also sightings of Mountain Lions in OMAHA, Nebraska, and surrounding areas. Papillion, etc.. Omaha is SUPER populated. (I’m sure you know that.)
My point is, It took years to produce 1 good photo of a mountain lion in this area, that offered real proof of a mountain Lion. And there weren’t even that many reports of one. AND there are not very many places for it to hide in Omaha,Ne / Council Bluffs, IA. A couple creeks, The Loess Hills, etc.
Whose to say there isn’t something else out there that we don’t know about yet?
People don’t hike in the woods in Iowa like they do up north or in mountains. So that may be why there are not as many sightings.
Hopefully this Link works. It has info containing confirmed reports of Mountain Lions in SW iowa. particularly one hit by a car in Harlan, IA.