Bigfoot Motel Shaken

A moderate earthquake hit a mountainous region of Northern California on Tuesday night, April 28, 2008. There are no immediate reports or injury or damage.

The magnitude-5.2 temblor struck at 8:03 p.m. Pacific time, centered about 11 miles southeast of the town of Willow Creek in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Willow Creek is about 320 miles north of San Francisco.

The last significant earthquake in the region was on April 25, 1992, when a magnitude 7.2 temblor struck on the Humboldt County coast near Petrolia, triggering a minor tsunami, according to the USGS.

The 2008 quake originated about 11 miles below the surface on an unmapped fault, said David Oppenheimer, a USGS seismologist based in Menlo Park.

Because of its depth, few aftershocks were felt, scientists said. About three were recorded, with the largest measuring a magnitude 2.4, the USGS reported.

The quake was widely felt within about an 80-mile radius, as far north as the Oregon state line and as far south as Mendocino County, according to citizen reports posted on the USGS Web site.

Mary Daher, owner of the Bigfoot Motel in Willow Creek, said the quake lasted 10 seconds or less.

“It was pretty quick and it was pretty strong,” Daher said. “It wasn’t like one of those rolling earthquakes. It was just a jolt.”

She said she and her guests headed outside quickly but she was not aware of any damage. One guest said the quake sent his soda sliding across a table.

The town of 1,800 sits on Highway 299, the main conduit between Redding and Arcata, home of Humboldt State University. It has long been a draw for college students escaping the coastal fog to sunbathe along the nearby Trinity River.

The quirky hamlet, surrounded by thick forests, also markets itself as California’s “Bigfoot capital” and displays numerous wood carvings of the mythical creature, reported the Associated Press.

One wonders what the local reaction of the Bluff Creek-Willow Creek Bigfoot population might be.

Perhaps this local establishment, the Bigfoot Motel, will have a new slogan soon: “Bigfoot check in — but they don’t check out!”

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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