CRYPTOLINK: The Bigfoot experience

December 10, 2012, 05:00 AM By Bill Silverfarb Daily Journal staff

In 1967, a couple of men filmed a creature unknown to science that has become affectionately known as Bigfoot. Shot by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin along the Klamath River in the far north reaches of California, scientists mostly dismiss the film as a hoax but those who contend the creature is real say the film is the best well-known piece of evidence that shows the hairy human-like creatures are indeed real. Frame 352 of the film shows what appears to be a female Sasquatch staring directly at the camera. Coupled with footprint castings of an abnormally large creature found in Northern California nearly 17 years before the film was shot, believers contend there is plenty of proof the creatures are real since there have been Bigfoot sightings in practically every state in the country and Canada, too. Belmont resident Jerry Hein first saw the Gimlin-Patterson film in 1971 and became convinced the creature was real. Forty years later, Hein and a group of local theorists meet monthly to discuss the phenomenon and have even gone out on search expeditions together. Together, the group makes up the Bay Area Bigfoot Research Organization, which is affiliated with the Animal Planet television series “Finding Bigfoot.” Hein knows the cast of characters in the television series and they are all serious about finding Bigfoot. “The goal is to prove they are real without killing or capturing them,” Hein, 59, told the Daily Journal. And there are thousands of such creatures, he said. Although they are not known to inhabit San Mateo County, Hein said there may have been a sighting in La Honda once. They certainly have been sighted in the Santa Cruz Mountains but most have been seen in Northern California and the eastern parts of Washington and Oregon, he said. Read on...