Behind the Scenes of Finding Bigfoot: “Bigfoot Hoedown” with Cliff Barackman

The West Virginia expedition was one that I very much looking forward to. I had heard numerous excellent accounts out of this state before, but had only had the opportunity to drive through its mountains on the way to other locations. I knew the habitat was excellent for bigfoots, and I was most anxious to give it a try for myself.

The evidence that brought us to West Virginia came in the form of a couple of photographs taken by a young man named David Stennes. Seven years ago when David was only ten years old, he was outside playing near the wood line. Some noises caught his attention a short distance inside the woods. David could see that the source of the noises was a very large man-shaped figure that appeared to be covered with hair. The creature was very slowly walking parallel to the clearing from right to left. He stared at it in disbelief for a few moments before running into his nearby house and grabbing a camera. This took only 30 seconds or so, and soon he was able to snap three quick photographs of the figure.

Photos copyright David Stennes of the WV Bigfoot Research Organization

The photos are not the best I’ve ever seen, but they certainly aren’t the worst either. In fact as far as bigfoot pictures go, they aren’t half bad especially when one considers that David was only ten at the time he snapped them. In two of the photographs, what seems to be the head and shoulders of the creature can be made out. Unfortunately, they are pretty blurry. Our recreations at the location indicated that David could have very well taken a couple of pictures of a bigfoot that day. The context was even more compelling than the photos. We saw at least fifty deer over the few hours we were there, and David lives in a small private community mostly made of astronomers and physicists who work at the National Radio Telescope Observatory near Green Bank, WV. The likelihood of a hoax is miniscule.

Our first night investigation yielded little on Ranae’s and my end. Apparently the other team might have heard something, but I don’t know much about that. Hopefully they did, but mostly because I think it would be cool for David since he was out with them. However, at one point a branch fell from above Ranae and I and nearly hit us. It smacked into the ground only a few feet behind us as we passed. I have no idea why that happened. It is true that throwing branches and whatnot is a well-documented ape behavior, and I’m aware of bigfoots doing this same thing, but I thoroughly scanned our surroundings and saw no signs of any mammals. I believe it was just a coincidence, though a strange one.

The sightings that I investigated were very convincing. Bob, a retired sheriff, chief of police, and NASA employee had a multiple-witness sighting of a bigfoot running across an open field after it came up from a creek draw and made its way down into another. Where it ran across was the shortest distance from cover back into cover. It also headed down into the area on the private land that the owners call “Bigfoot Hollow,” for all the strange noises that come out of there.