The Dark Secret Behind the Bigfoot Legend | Chasing Bigfoot The Quest for Truth | TUU

Across America and the world, in the depths of forests, is an elusive man-like creature, Bigfoot, Sasquatch. Thousands of reports, photos, and videos pour in each year of Bigfoot encounters from all 49 continental states and Canada. We're talking about a living, breathing population. There has to be a minimum of 4,000 animals roaming North America. And public interest is only increasing. It's very mainstream. It's cool to be into Bigfoot. Bigfoot fervor is at a fever pitch in this country. But what exactly are these mysterious creatures that have caught so much attention? What does science have to say about them? And why are many so sure they exist? We've set out to find the truth in Chasing Bigfoot. Join us as we travel to the deep woods of the Appalachian foothills to experience a Bigfoot adventure weekend. Located at Salt Fork State Park in eastern Ohio, Bigfoot Adventure Weekends is a yearly campout for Bigfoot enthusiasts and families that come from as far away as Canada, upstate New York, and Florida to learn more about these mysterious creatures. First, we met up with the co-founders of Bigfoot Adventure Weekends, Alan and Jesse of Fathom Frontiers, and Sharon. We started out probably with 12 to 15 the first year. And then it got to 20, 25. And then this year, we're close to 50. We have people here that have claimed to see Bigfoot. And people here have never been camping before. So we have a whole mix of people. And that's what we take pride in with this event, that it's for everyone. Our expectations every year is that people come away and they talk about it and realize it's a little bit more than just about Bigfooting. It's more about just, you know, hey, you can come out and have a good time. This doesn't have to be so serious. I mean, after all, we're going out in the woods looking for something that's eight feet tall and 500 pounds. That's little kids. Little kids, so. I think it was the third year we did it. And the group all came back from the night hike. And they were just freaking out because they had so much activity that was happening. And they all came back to the campfire. And they're all chatting. And that makes us feel good. It's like, you know, we didn't promise that anything was going to happen. We're not hoaxing anything to make something happen. We have some of the top investigators from Ohio that actually are here. And they will help kind of organize some of the activity to keep things for the people that really want to get serious about it. Bigfoot wasn't the only elusive creature around Salt Fork. The 17-year cicadas had made their appearance, along with their distinct sound. And on behalf of everybody that helps run this, I want to welcome you to BAW Bigfoot Adventure Weekends 2016. Thank you. One thing we like is kind of go around the circle here, the group, and have everybody introduce themselves. This is my grandson, James. And my seven-year-old, Bryson. He was into it. I've been pursuing, actively pursuing, the Bigfoot phenomenon for about three years. We came. This is my son over here, Hunter. And we drove from Virginia. So I keep hoping he finds Bigfoot so we don't have to come back anymore. Oh. And this is Hayden. We met Hayden here four years ago. I've just been into Bigfoot for a while now. I know they're out there. Really, it doesn't matter if Bigfoot exists. This is what's fun. In the morning, we checked in with a few people around camp. This is the first Bigfoot Adventure Weekend for the Tyler family from Michigan. Came into camp, did introductions, got to meet everybody. Robert Webb is an experienced Bigfoot researcher. And I have had two actual sightings so far in my research. 12-year-old Hunter has been coming to Bigfoot Adventure Weekends for three years. One day, I just went to my house. And I was flipping through the channels. And I saw a fighting Bigfoot. Well, see, I thought that was the dumbest thing. That can't be real. And then I started watching him watch me. And then we found out him. And he came here and all the stuff they were saying. And now I believe. Spencer, 15 years old, has been interested in Bigfoot since he was a young boy. I've always been into nature, even when I was really little. I just grew up watching all these nature shows. And Bigfoot just seems like it's very possible. This is 8-year-old James and his grandma Diane's first visit to the weekend. I believe in Bigfoot. We're getting ready for the hike. A nature walk was led by Bigfoot investigator Mark DeWerth to get everyone familiar with the terrain and prepare them for the upcoming night operations. Earlier, Robert Webb showed us photographic evidence of his Bigfoot research. OK, this is a tree twist. It's located up on Bigfoot Ridge. And if you notice the twist, it's arranged just like a dishcloth. You'd wring out a dishcloth. And there's no known animal that can do that. Now, this track, it's showing on the tape, it's about 16 inches long. But the toes aren't distinct. So if I'd had the toes in it, probably 17, 18 inches. During the nature hike, Robert decided to take us to Bigfoot Ridge, a well-known landmark in Salt Fork State Park, well known for Bigfoot sightings. Look at all the cicadas when you look up. Just looking out for, like, anything that's out of the ordinary. I'm hitting both of them. Not Bigfoot. Bigfoot's not going to hurt you. You have nothing to worry about Bigfoot. Meanwhile, we reached Bigfoot Ridge with Robert. OK, Bigfoot Ridge starts here, where we just top this hill. And it runs down maybe 300 yards. We headed down a service road to the location of Robert's first sighting. That fateful night, he was accompanied by a friend. We turned our lights out, OK? And we were just sitting in the dark. In about 10 minutes, we started hearing noise from this ridgetop right over here. My friend that was with me, she was the first one to see the eye shine. And I tried to find the eye shine, but I couldn't see it. And I was using night vision. So I brought my night vision over here. And it was one of these trees right in here. That's where I saw the half of the head and the shoulder and the left arm. And they were just hanging out from behind the tree. And as soon as I moved my night vision in his direction, he took off, came down this way maybe 10 or 15 feet, stepped across the road. That's where we heard the real heavy steps. Coming right across the road. And they came up this hill and came in behind us. We did a few wood knocks to try and get a Bigfoot's attention. And with no response, headed back. Found some Bigfoot tracks in the mud. It's been a great trip so far. With everyone back at camp, Alan and Jesse led a class on video and audio evidence. That's Bigfoot. As night began to fall, it was time for the first night ops, an event that would get everyone as close to having a Bigfoot experience as possible, deep in Salt Fork's trails. We joined Alan's team and arrived at the trailhead. I'm the only team lead here. So we're going to do this. I don't care. I know the trail and we're just going to go for it because this is Bigfoot adventure weekend. So you hear what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Copy that. Be advised, the trail is severely overgrown and it's interesting finding your way through here. Good luck. And we've broken into several different teams here to make our way down this unused trail that part of Salt Fork. And we're going to hold up here and wait for the other team to kind of move towards our position. Roger, it appears that we're also approaching weird beings with red lights on their heads. We were soon joined by Mark DeWerth's team. The reality of all of this is plain and simple. 95% of the time, nothing ever happens and it's just being persistent in your location. So when we do these night ops with multiple teams, we try to emulate what the Sasquatch would do with multiple teams. So we'll do wood knocks from an area and then the other team will listen from their position. Obviously we'll listen from ours and then we'll have them do wood knocks to kind of simulate multiple. Multiple Sasquatch out here. So we kind of emulate them and if there's one out here, maybe we can stir it up. Copy. Okay, everybody, let's kill a red headlamp. So we're going to do some calls. We're going to radio in. This is Alan. We're going to do a howl in five seconds. Clear. Is that our group? Was that our group? So after doing some howls and calls back and forth, we started hearing something moving off to our left and then we started hearing something move off to our right. So we were holding up just to see if we could figure out what's coming in around us. We started on the trail again and met up with Mark Mazel's team. All right, so we made our way down the fire trail with the group that we have and we met up with the other team led by Mark Mazel at a junction in the trail where it actually heads up to a cemetery. Cemetery bound, kids. We reach the small historic cemetery. This is Ford Cemetery. A few people know about it and even fewer have actually been here because as you could see, it wasn't that easy to get here. I don't think they can get around me. They ain't going to be able to get here. Who was that? We have a majority of all the teams together except for one. We just heard a weird whistling sound come from behind us and we're kind of discussing what's going on with that. Right down here, we're all together to give the biggest freaking Bigfoot call this place has ever heard. Are you guys ready? As long as we can. Until it feels right, you know, until it feels right. All right, on three, ready? One, two, three. I should have got one on a little mountain. All right, we can probably now start heading back. Exhausted from the hike, everyone headed back to camp to rest for the day ahead. In the morning, we checked in about the night ops. We went hiking at 10. Way in the woods. We split up into two groups. And then we stopped because we heard two wood knocks. One to the right and one to the left. And we got to see the whole graveyard. When we were out on the hike last night, some people did some Bigfoot howls, Bigfoot calls, and, you know, some people heard some movement in the woods, but nothing definitive. And, you know, out here in this park, it could be a number of things. So we're on the homestretch now. We have pretty much wrapped up all the events except for our main event tonight, which is night operations with Mark Maisel. Before the next night ops, Cynthia Koss, a naturalist at Salt Fork State Park, led a footprint casting presentation. And we checked in with Jesse about the trail cam. So we went back to retrieve the trail cam we had set up yesterday afternoon. And unfortunately, there were no pictures on it of anything other than actually setting up the trail cam and tearing it down. And then a few times, you know, some people walking up and down the trail. Once it was dark, it was time for the final night ops. All right, so welcome to the culmination of this weekend's festivities, the Saturday night night operations. And we've got a little bit different thing we planned for tonight. We are going to be staging and working from our campground right here. Mark Maisel, a lead Bigfoot investigator, orchestrated the night ops. We're gonna free flow this a little bit. Tonight, what we're gonna do is we're gonna send a couple of people out, a few passers, down the trail there. Now, if people just really wanna hike, we've got the trail here back behind us. There's a nice big field going around it. That's a flank. We're gonna take some people and walk around just the perimeter on the road a couple of times, maybe set a couple of people up by the front gate. The other thing the kids are gonna do is we've gathered glow sticks and stuff like that. You guys are just gonna hang out and have fun with glow sticks. We split up into groups and the night ops began. Mark Maisel was joined by Hayden. Hit the field and take it to the left of the tree behind the two to the right. David Taters-Wickham led a group. So right now, it's gonna give us about 25 minutes to get out and get set and work calm, be quiet. And then around 10 o'clock, we're gonna either do whoops and knocks and stuff, okay? We followed Hunter and Bea. This is Allen's team. We're towards the back of the field and we're gonna do a wood knocking five. You're listening. Everybody else is out this way. Right now, we're at the flank. We've got people in there, over there. We are the furthest eastern flank right now. What I want to do is kind of let, sit down and calm down, kind of like go, okay, what they're doing. And then let the other team come up and then have them make, you know, the noise coming up. And so now they have to make a decision. Stay with us, go see what's going on. Negative, no one in base camp house. I got who, towards where the cars are. Yeah. I don't know. Write it down. It was in line with the field, so going on that way, yeah. Meanwhile, Robert Webb took us back to Bigfoot Ridge to show us his investigation technique. We're just going to sit on either side and just sit, observe and listen for any activity that might come along, okay? Now I've had more success with my technique than with all the wood knocking and hollering and everything. This is more like just passive observation. Back at base camp, the kids tried to draw in Bigfoots. We're making some noise and howlers and stuff. When we have a group this big and everything else, it's about the team, not any one person. This is Taylor's group. We're going to do a howl here in about a minute. Over. All Taylor's group is going to do a howl in about a minute. Big hand, big chest, lots of air. Start off down low and then bring it up. What's the time? 10.01. That's working too. You're doing a very good call. You're like a high pitch. High pitch howl. That way. Yes. Could be coyotes, okay? That was a very good yell. Actually, it feels like a pretty good night. I heard some movement over here off to the right. I heard one twig break and then I heard some light movement on the ground, you know, of other debris. We have someone across the main road. Over. Negative. I heard it too in base camp. It sounded almost like a yoke. They're hearing footfalls and some grunts, growls. So they pulled Alan's team back out from the field and Maisel's team and they're headed down to get them a little bit back up. So the only team left back up in the field is Wickham's team. Everyone headed back to base camp. We had a bunch of howls and calls. Something was walking toward us but it sounded like it was on four legs. I think, you know, tonight what we were trying to do was be unpredictable. Right when we were crossing the first time with the two groups, we did hear a, like a hoo. We kind of think it could be an owl. As we continued on, we went up the hill. As we was listening, we heard a quiet high pitch return. Again, first thing we want to think about is what it could be. It could have been a coyote. With a successful night ops complete, everyone shared their experiences and went to sleep. It was the last day of the Bigfoot adventure weekend. The most memorable thing happening over the weekend is just meeting up with all my friends that I haven't seen for a year. Probably the night hikes. Those were really fun. Completely broke my stereotype of what I thought Bigfoot hunters were. Love this and we'll definitely be back next year. I'm never forgetting this. Like, this whole experience is just one huge memory that I'm just going to love for the rest of my life. This weekend was such a success. It was more than we ever imagined, more than we anticipated. Yeah, we had more people here than we've ever had before and we didn't mean to have as many people here this year but it worked out and we were able to feed everybody and get everybody out in the woods and back safely. So it was awesome. No, it was a great time. I was talking with a couple people before they left and they would like the ability that they brought their families and we were able to do things to engage their kids and keep them occupied and at the same time still provide stuff for the adults. So that's one of the best compliments we can get.