March 11, 2014

Our Life with Bigfoot

I’ve just released a new book that includes only the six main habituation accounts contained in last year’s book, Sasquatch Rising 2013. The idea is to make this important material available to a wider audience in a streamlined, very affordable edition, for readers who would not be inclined to buy a 425-page book that covers many aspects of current Sasquatch research, but may wish to read 120 pages that focus solely on people’s direct experiences with this kindred visitor.

Our Life with Bigfoot: Knowing our Next of Kin at Habituation Sites

The paperback is $8.09 on Amazon, the Kindle upload is $.99, but you can read quite a few pages for free by using the “Look Inside!” feature.

Preface

This is an emergency. While most Sasquatch can take care of themselves—or else they would not have survived alongside our own species for thousands of years—others are vulnerable to great harm. As this book will make clear, these creatures occasionally engage in certain consistent routines at places where they feel safe, where they have come to trust our peaceful intentions.

But this trust can also expose them to grave danger, diminishing their age-old defenses of stealth, avoidance, and deeply entrenched fear.

Just last week, for example, self-proclaimed “master Bigfoot tracker” Rick Dyer found his way to a very active habituation site in East Texas, the last one featured here (Texas #2: pages 89-119). He did not, of course, learn of its location from me, but determined killers have their methods.

Much as I would love to tell what happened next on this property, the story is not mine to share; suffice it to say that on the first night, Sasquatch were seen and shots were fired.

I have spent many fascinating days and nights at this place, becoming friends with the person who lives there and learning the nature and behavior of the giants who sometimes visit her. To have it suddenly violated by someone with a bloodthirsty agenda and no goal other than self-aggrandizement makes me sick, as it does many others. This is why we need to organize an all-out effort to enact national protective legislation.

But let me be absolutely clear: The campaign on behalf of Sasquatch does not single out any one individual; Rick Dyer merely represents a militant, ego-driven worldview that is unfortunately quite widespread.

Whether or not you believe that this man shot and killed a Sasquatch (or two) in the woods outside of San Antonio on September 6, 2012, he has nonetheless become a high-profile figure, a lightning rod for others who would love nothing more than to share in some of his obvious fame and fortune. Many who know that Sasquatch exists, but believe that Dyer is hoaxing his specimen, are already in the forests with night-vision technology and high-powered rifles, intending to do for real what Dyer has only pretended to do. If it is revealed that the San Antonio specimen is authentic (as my sources confirmed more than a year ago), this news will only serve to add fuel to the fire, leading to a conflagration.

Here’s why: If even today there are dozens of men on this continent (and I know there are) who are convinced that their very own million-dollar trophy awaits them among the trees, this number will immediately swell to thousands once the Dyer body is verified by science or another specimen is bagged and hauled before the media. One of the two events is inevitable and not far off; if we wait until afterward to begin to mobilize against further slaughter, further slaughter will occur before it can be stopped.

And I will not be the least bit surprised when, in addition to the “solo male warior” model, we then find women and children, too, going out with Dad to hunt Sasquatch for sport, for a grand, redemptive payday, just as they would play the lottery, except that this is a game the whole family can play and is a far more primordial thrill—us against the Monster. And this beast will stand in for poverty, obscurity, a lifetime of bum luck, or generally for whatever lousy hand these folks feel they have been dealt by the world.

Nor will the array of hunters be bothered by any pesky moral considerations, thanks to the culturally dominant viewpoint ringing in their ears, the one that gives Mankind dominion over all the earth.

In the pages that follow, pay special attention to the striking commonalities among the experiences of the habituators. And keep in mind that at the time the people involved did not know each other and lived, in some cases, thousands of miles apart. In other words, they were independently encountering the same phenomena. Back in 2008, when I started to connect with habituators and to gather, with permission, their careful, extensive testimonials, only a very few Sasquatch behaviors had yet been made public through books and television shows: tree-peeking, wood knocking, howls, whoops, and the leaving of footprints. A far richer, stranger, and more compelling suite of communicative overtures revealed itself to me as I learned from these residents and began to witness for myself some of the events they have chronicled.

• Gift and food exchanges
• Window peeking
• “Borrowing” and return of household/yard items
• Object manipulation and rearrangement
• Mimicry of human voices and animal sounds
• Subtle percussions such as tapping or scratching on windows/exterior walls
• Non-subtle percussions such a slapping or banging on the side of the house or an outbuilding
• Sounds of spoken language, variously described as “chatter,” Russian, Chinese, or human speech rapidly played backward
• The appearance of stick and tree structures in the yard or nearby woods—arrangements that are obviously not randomly/naturally occurring
• The breaking of branches or whole thick tree limbs at night— can be quiet or extremely loud
• Several colors of eye-glow—not reflected light—including red, amber, yellow, green
• Throwing or tossing of pebbles, rocks, sticks, clumps of mud/dirt
• “Spying” on residents from the edge of the forsest or from behind outbuildings/ bushes/other obstructions

The vast majority of Sasquatch activity at such locations falls into the category of playful mischief or teasing. Why? Consider, first, that these visitors have brains at least twice the size of ours and, second, that they are fellow members of the genus Homo. This means that they are nothing less than another species of human, yet they do not use those massive brains to write books or symphonies, to build cities or machines or universities. Instead, they hunt for food and hang around in the woods with plenty of time on their hands and a natural primate thirst for stimulation, for engagement with their equals—with us. Thus, they feel a kindred tug, a curiosity born of ancient bonds of blood. They’ll attempt to catch our attention, to “get a rise out of us,” to see if we will wake up and join the game…or at least show them a comical terror response.

At the same time, of course, they are profoundly torn because this curiosity cannot be freely exercised; it is pitted against eons of survival instinct. This is the instinct behind a minority of Sasquatch behaviors, which fall into the category of mean-spirited or intimidating, even violent; our two species have been vying for territory, for resources, and for general supremacy over untold millennia; some of that animosity spills over into today. At times, habituators do not feel welcome even in their own yards. You will see some of this vividly reflected in the accounts to follow, especially as connected to North Carolina (page 4), to Iowa (pages 53-55), and to Texas #2.

Sasquatch, like our own race, are distinct individuals, marked by personality differences, their traits and propensities distributed across the population in a Bell curve. A few are brutal, a few are stupid, but only a few. People like Rick Dyer would much rather, for their own purposes, lump all Sasquatch together under a narrow, manageable definition, such as “Monster” or “mere animal.” This is far easier than coping with the true breadth and complexity of the subject before us.

The material contained in this book is also contained in last year’s publication, Sasquatch Rising 2013: Dead Giants Tell No Tales: How DNA Breakthroughs and Backyard Visits Reveal the Greatest Story of Our Time.

But since the earlier book is more than three times thicker—covering my own Vermont habituation project; subsequent visits to Texas #2 in 2010 and 2011; and recent developments in our field, such as cutting-edge genetic and linguistic research—I wanted to make available a more streamlined, affordable version that presents just the main habituation testimonials themselves. For it is these detailed accounts that can most effectively help mainstream culture to grasp the specific qualities of our zoological next of kin, to assemble a highly textured infrastructure of knowledge and compassion, and ultimately to erect a solid legal barrier between Sasquatch and its would-be trophy hunters.

Back cover text:

The uncanny humanness of Sasquatch has emerged at “habituation sites” throughout North America. These are places with which members of this primate species have become familiar, returning regularly, often for years or even for generations. In the peaceful, inquisitive spirit of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, certain people have interacted with these visitors, seeking to learn their nature and behavior, to gradually reduce their ancient fear of us…and ours of them.

Our Life With Bigfoot takes the reader behind the scenes to experience interactions at six such sites in Iowa, New York State, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas, revealing the subtle intelligence of our partners in this strange inter-species dance.

Yet, today the Sasquatch race stands in dire jeopardy, as men (inspired by Rick Dyer) seek to hunt and slaughter it. By paying close attention to the meaning of habituation sites–and quickly spreading the word about who these neighbors truly are–we can work to prevent a genocide, correcting the image of Sasquatch as a “monster” to be slain.

See: Habituation vs Extermination for more on this.

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Books, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Eyewitness Accounts, Pop Culture, Sasquatch