October 28, 2013

Daniel Perez on William Roe

William Roe in his mid 30s. Photograph courtesy and copyright © of The Roe Family, 2013.

By Daniel Perez

Take a good hard look at the picture above of the late William Roe. Never once did his picture appear in a book or newsletter alongside his now classic story of having seen a female Sasquatch in October 1955 on Mica Mountain, British Columbia.

So this is really the first time ever the Bigfoot community has laid eyes on a life-long outdoorsman and hunter, married over 50 years to the same woman and father to nine children.

Let’s back up a minute. First, without the help of Loren Coleman, Todd Prescott and Craig Woolheater, I never would have found family members, and they were hiding in plain site, not far from where the incident happened so many years ago. I was told that Todd Prescott and others looked high and low for the family with no success.

It is true that on April 23, 1957 the Vancouver, British Columbia, Province did write about the matter, with staffer Don Lory covering the story:

“Girl Sasquatch Sighted – Hunter Can’t Fire,” which included a picture of William Roe holding the rifle he had on the day in question. It is the only time a picture ever accompanied a write up on the matter to my knowledge. However, that was so long ago the Bigfoot community is largely unaware of that newspaper coverage.

In that article, Mr. Roe told the reporter, “whatever it was, and I’m not claiming it was a Sasquatch, it was about 6 feet tall…”

There were, in fact, a few early newspaper articles on the matter and the late great Warren Thompson spent time and financial resources tracking them down.

When William Roe had his sighting in 1955 he had with him the only gun he ever hunted with, a .25 Remington rifle (still owned by the family), which he aimed at the subject but could not bring himself to pull the trigger – “It looked almost human.”

He had an opportunity to resolve one of the world’s great mysterious but because of the humanity of the subject declined to shoot.

In 1997 near Spuzzum, British Columbia hunter Mike McDonald had the cross-hairs of his rifle scope on the backside of a Sasquatch – but again – declined to pull the trigger.

In 1941 the late Paul Shabaga thought he had shot and killed a moose in Manitoba, until he saw the animal up close, at which time he thought to himself, “holy buckets,” and walked away from the kill, keeping quite for many years. The body was never recovered. He later thought it must have been what we now call Sasquatch.

William Roe’s daughter-in-law told me that William “spent all his life in the bush,” and he “wouldn’t have mistaken a bear for what he saw.” “Dad,” as she called him, “never would have told the family a lie.”

Revisiting this poorly researched book, Abominable Science, Daniel Loxton writes on page 39, “It began to dawn on me: no cryptozoologist had ever met Roe.” And some more: “In fact, we do not even know what William Roe looked like.” Not so fast, Daniel! What should have dawned on him was to track down family members. Instead, Loxton basically assassinated Roe in this book, just coming up short of calling him liar (“If Roe’s report is a hoax…”).

When I spoke with William Roe’s son by telephone just recently, he told me that Roe went to see René Dahinden about his sighting, but he doesn’t remember when.

More than likely that would have been around 1957, around the time of the so called Centennial Sasquatch Hunt, when René enjoyed tremendous newspaper publicity and likely the way William Roe found out about Mr. Dahinden.

So when I look back to my 1980 meeting with René, when he talked non-stop, he offhandedly said something like, “ever see a picture of William Roe,” and he gave me a piece of mica from Mica Mountain.

In Don Hunter and René’s book, Sasquatch, Roe’s sworn affidavit is reprinted but René doesn’t say much else, except, “Roe’s story rings true.”

Myrtle Walton, Roe’s deceased daughter, was responsible for the profile drawing of what was seen on Mica Mountain. Other family members tried but were rejected, “No, that’s not good enough,” William Roe said.

From the Bigfoot Times newsletter October 2013. Used by permission of the editor and publisher of the newsletter.

Bigfoot Times

For more than a decade, Bigfoot Times has provided its readers with up-to-date accurate information on Bigfoot. Published monthly by veteran researcher Daniel Perez, Bigfoot Times is a subscription only newsletter.

Subscription Information

Bigfoot Times is issued 12 times per year at a cost of only $16/year in the USA. Funds payable to Daniel Perez, 10926 Milano Avenue, Norwalk, California 90650-1638. Telephone: (951) 509-2951 Email: Bigfoot Times

USA = $17
Canada = $21
Rest of World = $21

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Eyewitness Accounts, Photos, Sasquatch