(Historic) Western Bigfoot Society meeting report of February 4th, 2012
Western Bigfoot Society meeting notes for February 4th, 2012
Our guest speaker at Patty’s Home Plate Cafe was Cliff Barackman, well known from TV’s “Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot” programs where he is featured as an expert on Bigfoot. He has had extensive experience with night vision and thermal imaging viewers, digital sound recorders, and remote camera devices.
Cliff has also been on the History Channel and on “Monster Quest.” He was invited by investigator Kathy Moskowitz-Strain to join the BFRO which he stays in close contact with and still consults Kathy who started her own non-profit organization. He is also well known in the Portland area as a Jazz Guitarist.
Cliff, joined the Western Bigfoot Society in October 1997, his interest in Bigfoot dating back to his college days when he became obsessed with Bigfoot, and even before when as a boy he was interested in monsters. With over 20 years experience, he had to interrupt his elementary school teaching job to appear on the TV show.
To begin the program Cliff had a quiz. The prize for answering a trivia question was a plaster copy of one of several Bigfoot tracks from his extensive collection (which see an inventory of at: http://XXXXXXXXXXX.com/). Some of the difficult quiz questions were for instance: What was Peter Byrne’s birth country? A: Ireland. What was Don Keating’s hobby? A: meteorology. Where was Cliff born? A: Long Beach, California (He moved to Oregon to be close to prime Bigfoot habitat). Or what was Roger Patterson’s middle name? Ooops, I forgot already. I did refuse acceptance of one of the Bob Titmus tracks with the understanding we could do some swapping for tracks. The intent is to build a small “museum” of tracks to be retained at the Home Plate Cafe to help attract local interest in Bigfooting. I already gave him a Paris, Texas, track and have offered another Blue Mountain one.
One of the tracks Cliff recently acquired from Western Washington, had sat in the witness’s basement for 30 years, and proved to be an important acquisition due to the rarity of the site and the dermal ridges on the cast.
Cliff was quick to answer questions, such as, “Have your ever seen a Bigfoot?” To which he responded, “Possibly.” He went on to tell then of a “Finding Bigfoot” program shot in North Carolina where Matt Moneymaker was heard to say, “Who’s on the hill?” At which point a bipedal figure was seen at a distance.
The main feature of the program was to be a recently acquired photo of a Bigfoot figure from the Mount Hood National Forest, Oregon. Unfortunately his TV monitor was damaged in transit and he was unable to show images until much later when another monitor was found. The file was of a Bigfoot moving rapidly in the witness’s (trail-cam) view.
At this point my transportation arrived and I had to leave before the end of his delayed presentation.
There was a good turnout for the program with a standing room only crowd. As there was a brief hiatus, Cliff invited comments from two other visitors. First was Toby Johnson (XXXXXXXXXXXX@gmail.com), of the Bigfoot Lunch Club that wanted to plug the 2012 program in Gresham this year of the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium, tickets available at $25.00. This year’s speaker slate has Bob Gimlin and Bill Munns discussing the P/G film and some new evidence. Julie Scott, author of “Visits from the Forest People?” will discuss some of her evidence from coastal Washington. Also speaking will be Thom Powell, author of “The Locals” and “Shady Neighbors.” Visitors might recall the 2011 program June 17-19th at Leaburg, Oregon, in the Oregon Cascades.
Toby has also recruited me to be a speaker at the Lunch Club meeting at the Sasquatch Brewery in Hillisdale (south of Portland) on February 21st, a Tuesday.
Second was Rhettman Mullis, Jr. who wanted to comment on some of the recent infighting between the paranormal groups and the science oriented people. He wanted mainly to stress that his organization, Bigfootology.com wasn’t involved one way or the other in becoming involved in the politics or taking sides with one group or the other, stressing he has good friends and members involved on both sides from around the world; Russia, Canada, and England, for instance. His message, “Stop fighting, respect each other’s viewpoints and get along.”
There were many old visitors I saw besides quite a few new faces. I was able to meet some interesting people also, some that I recruited to be future speakers. It was nice to see Woody Woodworth again, an investigator that I hadn’t seen in eight years.
Another was Oliver Kirk and his wife Denise. Oliver gave a presentation in 2003 at the Hillsboro Bigfoot Daze Symposium concerning Bigfoot sightings on the Warm Springs Reservation, where he was a policeman at the time. Kirk has agreed to come to the June 15-17th Bigfoot Daze at Cascadia State Park for the talk at the fireside gathering.
It was nice to meet author Thom Cantrall from Tri-Cities, WA. He wrote “Ghosts of Ruby Ridge,” about a Bigfoot kidnapping. He is planning a Symposium also.
Diane Stocking, Florida investigator transplanted to Oregon, was on hand also. I’ve recruited her to be the speaker at another unspecified time. She has previously done interviews concerning women in Bigfooting and a study of the hyoid bone in speech.
Beth Heikkinen, Independent Bigfoot field researcher from Tacoma has also agreed to come down to speak about her experiences with Bigfoot. Her first daytime Bigfoot sighting was in the Olympic Mountains. She has also found an excellent track near Quinault, WA, that is pictured on the Olympic Project site at http://www.XXXXXXXXXXX.com/.
– Ray Crowe
