Is Bigfoot Lurking in the Woods of Vicksburg?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on August 26th, 2014
VICKSBURG, MS (Mississippi News Now) –
Believe or not, some think they’ve seen Bigfoot in the woods of Vicksburg.
David Childers, co-founder of the Delta Paranormal Project, said he was in the woods of an abandoned playground near downtown Vicksburg when he saw an unusual creature.
According to Childers, he was taking pictures last November looking for ghosts or paranormal activity when he was startled by an unknown beast.
On August 12th of this year Peyton Lassiter was walking along Wisconsin Avenue when he saw a giant footprint and later made a cast of it.
Lassiter reached out to Childers about his find. This weekend the two returned to the woods to investigate.
“I just happened to turn around real quick. I saw this creature. It was about six , seven foot tall, and it’s hard to exactly get the correct height because of the distance away from me but it stood up and just jetted off and you know it happened so quick, but I know it was like a grayish brown color. I know for a fact it wasn’t a bear or a deer,” said Childers.
“It’s nine inches long and the width of what appears to be toes or claws if you will is six inches wide and that right there isn’t human,” said Peyton Lassiter.
Childers said he was unable to take a picture, because it happened so quickly.
He plans to return to the woods to gather evidence as well as place recording devices in the area where he spotted the unknown creature.
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.
Of course they’re in Vicksburg, recent research shows that they’re almost everywhere, if you know what to look for.
The size range for the track is within the range and proportions for the rear foot of a black bear, which occur in the Vicksburg area. This size and the proportions are not consistent with that of a bipedal creature of 6 feet in height, as it is too small to give any stability.
Well, when the guy says “stood up and jetted off” and describes a color I am pretty sure one won’t find in any black bear in MS, I tend to not discuss the track – which hey, could be a bear track although it seems a very big one for a MS black – and discuss the sighting.
6-7 feet standing is VERY big for a black bear in that part of the world. And again, the color. Sometimes the mundane description isn’t quite so mundane.
To add to which, of course, that available evidence seeming to indicate that the black bear and sasquatch have very similar ecological requirements… well, not much one can do but toss this on the pile as a definite maybe.
DWA: Yeah, that’s a pretty extraordinary height for a MS black bear.
Interesting, I read that he wasn’t really sure of the height of the creature due to the distance from him ( “It was about six , seven foot tall, and it’s hard to exactly get the correct height because of the distance away from me…”). Regardless, I addressed the track, which was not found in conjunction with the sighting.
Now, I just so happen to in fact live in that part of the country – Mississippi – and I happen to have a degree in wildlife biology and a fair amount of experience with Louisiana black bears (the sub-species we have in my part of the state). A 6 ft tall standing boar is not uncommon at all down here, and while different color phases are not as common as they are in say, California, they still occur here from time to time. I do not have a photo of one from here, though.
All I can go for is what he says:
“I just happened to turn around real quick. I saw this creature. It was about six , seven foot tall, and it’s hard to exactly get the correct height because of the distance away from me but it stood up and just jetted off and you know it happened so quick, but I know it was like a grayish brown color. I know for a fact it wasn’t a bear or a deer,” said Childers.
“It stood up and just jetted off” doesn’t sound like bear MO to me. Bears stagger on their hind legs. OK, a few with injured front paws have gotten pretty decent, the way people without hands get good at using their feet to manipulate things. But bears run on all fours, not hind legs.
“Grayish brown” isn’t a black bear color phase E of the Mississippi. An anomalous individual would be that: a heck of an anomaly.
If he knows “for a fact it wasn’t a bear or a deer,” I’m not simply saying he’s wrong. Deer and bear are relatively easy animals to identify; and most people aren’t confusing one for a sasquatch.
Some “mundane” answers aren’t.
Nope, standing up & running (jetting) off isn’t a bear behavior. That is why I only initially addressed the track, which is very bear-like in description (short, but with a comparatively wide toe pad or area where the toes – or claws – touch the ground). The typical sasquatch track, I believe, with a 6″ wide toe pad would be much longer than 9″. Reports would put it from 12-14″
I think that what frequently happens is that a witness who has seen something finds something nearby that they think is associated evidence, but might just be there by chance, and have come from something else. The witness sends it in or reports it as evidence when it might not be related to what they saw. A number of the samples Brian Sykes evaluated no doubt have that genesis.
Not being able to see the track, I’m left with his account of what he saw, which I don’t have a prima facie reason to discount. Dimensions are a little off for sasquatch if it’s a whole-foot track and not an anterior “half-track;” but in any event not much one can do with no better description than that and no photo.
I have to agree with you. A photo or even a nice sketch with dimensions would help rule out or associate the track with the sighting. Heck, if we even knew where Wisconsin Avenue is in relation to the sighting it might help a little. I wonder how much of this we would think about if we were out there, and how much of it we would recall an hour or so down the road after leaving, “Crap! I didn’t even think about looking at that track that kid found!! Dangit!!”
Surveyor: when I castigate mainstream scientists on this topic it’s for failing to practice science, including not bothering to either examine the evidence or refute their colleagues who make a persuasive case.
When I castigate amateurs, it’s …well, it’s harder to do, because they haven’t had a scientist’s training in things like, well, marshaling evidence.
Other than the Patterson-Gimlin film, one of the most intriguing pieces of visual evidence I have seen for sasquatch is a video taken near Peguis, Manitoba in March of 2007.
The eyewitness backstory checks out with the video, which never happens with the clear fakes. (Usually because there is no backstory.) That’s an odd time and place for someone to attempt to pull a random hoax. And if it’s a guy in a suit, it looks like a BIG guy. If that’s a hoax, it’s the best one I have seen (unless PGF is, and after 47 years…I am thinking, probably not).
The witness didn’t even think to stop at the road crossing and look for and video tracks (never mind measuring those trees – say, just putting his son near them for a short video – to give us an eyeball how big that “guy” would have to be). And he says, well, wish I had, but I didn’t, because, you know, I had the thing on video, and I just thought, who needs tracks? Well, sir, anyone familiar with PGF knows how much the tracks found on the film site – resembling many others found in subtle anatomical particulars, and even possibly being the same individual that left another trackway independently found not far away – help the case for that film as genuine.
I am in no position to state what I’d do when my world just got rocked. As someone the evidence has pretty close to convinced, I might pay more attention…or I might just say, I saw one? Who cares?…or I might not even think that, and when somebody said later, um, tracks? Hair? See anything else? I come up empty…on a find that might move a scientist or two on this question.
I just wish, yeah, that the guy had drawn – or still could based on memory – either the critter he saw, or the footprint. If he can’t…well…
The Vicksburg sighting by David Childers was not a BF. It occurred in Nov. 2013 (I knew I had seen it before). I have a friend, Brian Sons, who is also a friend of David’s and they were in the same paranormal group. Brian called David on this, and David’s response was, “Well, I didn’t say it WAS a Bigfoot…”