Penn State’s Searchers of Sasquatch
Posted by: Nick Redfern on May 10th, 2012
image Eric Weiss
Here’s an interesting development in the saga of Sasquatch: Mark Kasting, a Penn State junior enrolled in the Eberly College of Science, has established a research group called the Penn State Searchers of Sasquatch. And although Penn has yet to officially recognize the group, such a process has begun. Indeed, on Facebook alone, prospective membership is now well into three-figures.
Kasting, who is planning to do in-the-field research activity, says: “Bigfoot is hitting a cultural crescendo right now.”
For a profile on Kasting and the Penn State Searchers of Sasquatch, click on this link.
And, for a lengthy post on Bigfoot, more about Kasting’s group, his thoughts on the nature of the beast, his plans for the future, and much more, follow this link.
About Nick Redfern
Punk music fan, Tennents Super and Carlsberg Special Brew beer fan, horror film fan, chocolate fan, like to wear black clothes, like to stay up late. Work as a writer.
“In 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin announced the first report of a Sasquatch sighting in the U.S. The pair claimed they captured video of a Bigfoot on film. While many sightings have been proven false, this sighting still stands as the sole evidence of Bigfoot’s existence.”
Good thing I’m not her journalism instructor. She’d flunk on that paragraph alone.
DWA:
Yeah not only do sightings of Sasquatch go back centuries in North America (Leif Erickson reported them), the Indians encountered it far, far earlier (as evidence from their folklore and artifacts (ape-head carvings and masks, rock wall art, etc), and we have a plethora of other evidence out there (an army of footprint casts, hairs, anomalous DNA (hopefully the Ketchum report brings us more, and SOON!) some good photographs (the Jacobs pics) and possibly, just possibly, fossil evidence (the Lake Chapala Browridge of Mexico, which is believed by some to be homo Erectus, but you never know…Sasquatch: legend meets science by Jeff Meldrum, page 96).
Having said that, the student in question may have a Professor that is not knowledgeable of the evidence, and therefore might get an A despite the major failings of her report.
For people looking for the quote that DWA notes, it is on the pass through link of Nick’s. And it is just awful.
Luckily and hopefully, you won’t see those kind of paragraphs in blog postings actually at Cryptomundo.
Let us all wish that the student writer Grace Rambo continues to learn, and becomes a bit more educated about Bigfoot history.
By the way, such things as this college club appear to be a direct result of the rising popularity of “Bigfoot searching” caused by the BFRO’s Finding Bigfoot program.
Nick: you may want to dig a little deeper. I call Shenanigans. See this (scroll to bottom) and note that their Facebook page has a whole 5 “likes”.
Penn State is never referred to as Penn. Penn is the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State is The Pennsylvania State University. So even if Penn does recognize the group the folks in University Park won’t give a hoot! 😉
The area around the town of State College, where Penn State is located, would be an ideal place to start their search. There were many tales of both Sasquatch and panthers in the area back in the late ’80s.
The paragraph actually reads quite well if you imagine it being delivered by Captain Spaulding at Margret Dumont’s Long Island house party.
Now there would be a bigfoot hunt, the Marx brothers in pith helmets, safari jackets and packing the serious heat of rusted blunderbusts and seltzer bottles.
Along that same line, I love Jimmy Durante’s “Hollywood Party”, possibly one of the funniest movies ever made. The scene where he unveils “Ping Pong! son of King Kong!” (“wadda ya know! a chimPANSY!!!”) still cracks me up every time.
Abbott and Costello’s nod to King Kong in Africa Screams was fun the first time around, but doesn’t hold up to repeated viewing. Of course Joe Besser steals the show with his putting-out-the-fire gag in that one.
Cheers.
Sharon,
Their facebook page indeed only has 5 likes, one of which is myself.
However, their facebook group does have 146 members.
Craig
Ah, my mistake. But as with the page, the group is open to anyone around the world, not people who are local to participate. So, I don’t think it reflects how many people are involved directly.
I still hold that this is more of a lark than serious.