Chapter Four

Fears (an excerpt)

I, for one, feel that going out looking for bigfoot can be one of the scariest things you can ever do. There is really nothing to worry about if you do not believe in bigfoot. Or is there? There are plenty of other critters already known that can create some real fear when one goes tromping off into the forest. But if you believe in bigfoot and you do go into the forest and you do have your family with you, you are the alpha male. Thus, you will be expected to, and will need to take that role to make your family feel comfortable. My experience has taught me that daytime is the easy part of investigating. Birds are singing, the forest is friendly and bright — and it is hard for something to sneak up and scare you. As I have shared earlier, I have come across a couple of daylight experiences that gave me the creeps, but overall, daytime is easy for me. But in doing bigfoot fieldwork, nighttime can yield some of the best results.

In early bigfoot investigation history, there was a heavy emphasis on finding footprints. So consequently, most fieldwork was done in the daytime. There is no need or reason to look for prints at night; the daylight is your friend here. However, as bigfoot researching has grown and expanded, there is more emphasis on nighttime encounters than on daytime sleuthing. Many people in the field like to go out at night and call blast. Call blasting is the process of using a loudspeaker system to broadcast sounds into the forest. These sounds are sometimes purported sasquatch or bigfoot sounds. Since no one can actually prove these are bigfoot sounds, it is also speculation. Sometimes people use other animal sounds like coyote or the sounds of a wounded elk. Some people clack rocks together or pound wood logs as it is believed that bigfoot may communicate this way.

Though you can do any of these in the daytime, most people in the bigfoot world believe that the chance of an encounter is better at night. The general belief is that bigfoot is nocturnal and the best chance of encountering one is in the late night hours. So with that being said, much field work is done at night. One interesting point is that daylight encounters occur at generally the same frequency as nighttime encounters. A general browse of bigfoot web sites will bare this out. Everyone has their own comfort level and the question is how far you want to push yourself and your kids. But one thing is for sure, nighttime bigfooting is not for the faint of heart. I would be leery of doing nighttime work straight out with the little ones. However, if you are out with a group of people the fear factor will drop considerably.