Introduction by David Osborne

Go to any bigfoot conference, or get together, and you will see that the predominate crowd is male. However, sprinkled throughout the crowd is some of the fairer sex. Some come to support their husbands or boyfriends but others come because they want to. I have been lucky enough to meet some of these fine female researchers over time and my life is better for it. I first came across Bobbie Short through her bigfoot website. Upon my arrival to the Internet world, the first thing I put in my search engine was bigfoot. The website that popped up was bigfootencounters.com. I was thrilled and mesmerized as the only bigfoot material I had read prior to the Internet were books by John Green and a Grover Krantz book.

Bobbie’s website was like finding gold for me — lots of sighting reports, information on books, films, hoaxes and other good stuff. Being a Californian, I was immediately was drawn to the California sighting reports. I poured over each one and tried to imagine what the people felt as they experienced these strange situations. I thought the music on the website was really cool and creepy. I always wondered who did the music and why it was on the website. Well, I finally got to ask Bobbie about that music and got her straightforward answer. Boy was I surprised!

To be honest I have to credit Bobbie’s website for getting me involved in a subject that has fascinated me since boyhood. I started reading and buying every bigfoot book I could get my hands on, I joined the Western Bigfoot Society, went to several conferences and joined the bigfoot forums. I met people, started going out in the field with my son and people I met through the forums and at conventions. Now as a hard working SRI newsletter associate, I realize how far I have traveled down this fascinating, yet elusive, road. It has been a real honor to interview Bobbie Short. So please, grab water, ice tea, soda or an ice cream, find a cool spot and sit down with us, you won’t be sorry!

Dave: You had a bigfoot sighting in 1985; prior to that, did you have any crypto interests?

Bobbie: No, Dave, I never heard the word crypto and when I heard that word used some ten years later from the world’s leading cryptozoologist, Richard Greenwell, I confess I didn’t know what it meant. When Richard told me it was the study of unknown animals, we had a series of long-distance telephone discussions about whether sasquatch-like life forms were in fact animals. Interesting conversation, Rich was a persuasive charismatic orator. He passed away last fall and I think collective cryptozoology will come to miss his fine logic, his lack of illusionary cryptids and selfless leadership.

Dave: Could you explain your sighting briefly and how it changed your life?

Bobbie: I haven’t spoken publicly about the sighting for several reasons, not the least of which is that for years I was unsure what I had seen. I didn’t know what it was. There was no place to go to discuss it, so I was left puzzled for ten years, really convincing myself it must have been some kind of false impression, an illusion or something. And too, it wasn’t an event that was earth shattering. I thought back then that it was a human of some kind of bizarre proportions. Since I had no preconceived notions, it wasn’t scary; it was, for me, just an eyebrow raiser, one of those bizarre things that happen in life. I don’t remember what made things begin to click in my head.

Dave: What got you interested in debunking the theory that the Patterson-Gimlin film was hoaxed?

Bobbie: Well, …once you’ve seen a sasquatch, in my case a female up close, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize what I saw and what was in the Patterson-Gimlin film was one in the same and very real. I didn’t know then and I don’t pretend to know now what the sasquatch is, but what I saw and what was in the PGF made my jaw drop.

My focus hasn’t really been to create support for the film or to persuade non-believers, it has always been a search for truth and answers without the exaggerated guessing and speculation that goes on today.

I think I use a lot of energy up trying to move away from labels like “cryptozoology.” I don’t believe my personal search belongs in that field. Let me explain why. I don’t think of myself as a cryptozoologist; to me, the sasquatch isn’t a cryptid, it isn’t a mystery ape, not in my view. Apes are quadrupeds, knuckle walkers with a divergent toe. The sasquatch is not.

The sasquatch in the Northeast is descriptively the same as the sasquatch in the Pacific northwest. Both northeast and northwest sasquatches are descriptively the same as the southern sasquatch in Arizona, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia, that is, they walk upright, their big toe is not divergent but fully in line with the other toes, which is a human trait, not an ape trait. They are hominids not Pongids. Cryptozoology does a disservice to research by trying to mix knuckle-walking mystery apes with bipedal hominids. They can’t have it both ways. I have come to believe whatever it is, it will eventually fall somewhere in the genus Homo classification. M.K. Davis recently discovered detailed hair on the top of the fingers of “Patty” — it supports what I’ve been saying, she can’t be a remnant Gigantopithecus — they were knuckle walkers as depicted nicely in the Peabody Museum at Yale University and at Harvard. So what’s left?

Dave: What chain of events led you to start bigfootencounters.com?

Bobbie: There was only one bigfoot website, amazingly yes, only one back in those days and that website didn’t have a great deal of detailed information on it. As I started digging in the newspaper dungeons for articles, talking and writing to people, I thought a website would be a great way to share the information I found. Everything was free back then, so, with my son’s help…the first website went up. Looking back, oh my, some of the early pages were REALLY dumb!

Dave: I must admit this next question is pure selfishness on my part. I love that cool creepy music on your website. Who composed it and how did it end up being on your website?

Bobbie: Before 1995, the only connections to the Internet was sneaking on San Diego State College’s main frame, I forget now how I did that, but that was my connect from 1987 to 1995. In 1995, we got on the Internet with a new dial-up group and it was then the website took root. The music hasn’t been up for years, but back then that creepy music was a looped section captured off one of the first online games. …the early “Doom” I think, it’s hard to remember now. I took it down as I became more informed on the subject, mainly because it added a sort of “sinister drama” I felt didn’t belong and it detracted from the scientific.

Dave: It is well known that you do lots of fieldwork. Where have you been recently and what are your future plans?

Bobbie: Recently? Okay, well last year there were a number of sightings again in Northern California and we found evidence that there still exists a population of sasquatches in that area. While they used to wander around the Bluff Creek area, I don’t think they do anymore. It appears they’ve moved north a bit, just south of the Oregon border in the coastal mountain range. There may be small pockets of them elsewhere, but I know that region better than others do, so that has been my most recent focus. There aren’t many of them left anywhere.

Future plans? Not sure Dave, it should be interesting to see where the search takes me. Wherever it is, I’m ready to go on a moment’s notice. For the moment, I’ll continue uploading the website and putting out the bigfoot newsletter, after that, who knows? I have a deep interest in China and what I’ve learned about their research; hopefully the future holds something there for me again.

Dave: Following up on the fieldwork question, you mentioned that you were doing your present research in the Northern California-Oregon border area. What other areas in the U.S. and Canada have come to your attention lately as being areas that bigfoot is currently habituating?

Bobbie: I’m fairly sure there is an extended family in Del Norte/Siskiyou County California in an area north-northeast of Bluff Creek. As well, there is an active population in Northeastern U.S., specifically Maine and in Canada, Manitoba — fascinating and consistent activity there…New Hampshire, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, New Mexico, Vancouver Island and other areas of British Columbia. There are others I’m not up to date on, like Georgia.

Dave: From reading your website it appears that you do not support groups going out and looking for bigfoot, why is this?

Bobbie: The birds. Birds are the forest sentries. If something moves in the forest, the birds signal that movement with a specific chatter. Forest savvy hunters, animals and the sasquatch are in tune with those signals and those sounds. There is no way an expedition can be stealthy enough to surprise anything that lives in the forest. Hunters usually hunt alone or in pairs, often in high stands.

Expeditions are great ways to promote friendships and socialize but they produce little in the way of productive research. Paid expeditions aren’t as exciting as whale watching, the sasquatch avoids such activity and knows you’re coming a mile away and few expeditions get into the real craggy high country. Horseback may be the only answer to surprising a sasquatch, it was a successful means for Patterson and Gimlin, also proved interesting in the Blue Mountains of Washington and in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest.

Dave: Frankly, I would go out in the field by myself if I had to, so do you go out just by yourself or do you take a few people? Also, what is your idea for the ideal way to go out in the forest and look for bigfoot?

Bobbie: I wouldn’t want to go out with a few people; it produces too much forest noise. I used to go out alone, by preference, or with one other or a guide. The ideal approach, if you want my opinion, is on horseback. More territory can be covered in a day that way than can be achieved on foot or with a group of noisy, heavy-breathing people struggling through the bush; the birds and the crickets will tip off your location every time.

Dave: Lately in the bigfoot world, people have been dividing the field into two camps, flesh and blood and the other camp, the romantics, those who give supernatural-otherworldly powers to bigfoot. What do you think about this development?

Bobbie: I don’t think that is a new development. It used to be, before the Internet, that all reports of sasquatch activity were only published in UFO magazine and “the world of the bizarre” publications. Somehow the association of the UFO’s and sasquatch developed, but I see that trend dying out with all the new technology that is providing us with advanced information about the sasquatch and in the process demanding evidence.

I have listened intently to the debate between the two camps and I am NOT in the least persuaded that the sasquatch is a shape-shifter —show me the evidence— and there isn’t a shred of evidence to suggest the sasquatch is a worker-bee flown here in space ships. Most of those people who rave on about four and five hundred pound sasquatches crossing ley lines and other dimensions haven’t seen the creature in person. It makes a good tale, but it isn’t convincing reality.

Dave: Could you name a few people who currently are doing cutting-edge research in the area of bigfoot and why you think their work is important to the field?

Bobbie: I guess the operative words in your question are “currently and cutting-edge.” Okay….

Forensic primate print expert, Jimmy Chilcutt with the Conroe, Texas Police Department. His work with dermal ridge comparisons and other characteristics unique to the sasquatch is impressive and convincing. Chilcutt is deserving of an award for his work! Certainly, it launched a new effort to make better castings of footprints. I remember the first footprint I saw cast years back; the bottom of that track had been rubbed clean of scars and ridging patterns; the only good detail it showed was size. Since then it appears a concerted effort is being made by field people to preserve all the original elements in track finds. I would like to see more photographs of trail-lines of tracks — I’m puzzled by the way the sasquatch apparently walks leaving a straight line trail of footprints rather than an off-set trail of tracks, left—right, left—right as we do… it’s curious, isn’t it?

I admire Rick Noll’s work, M.K. Davis and Jeff Meldrum — those names I would add to the list of “cutting edge” research in North America. I would be remiss if I neglected to mention the work Diane Stocking does in Florida— she’s no nonsense and field savvy. Dr. Henner Fahrenbach has done some interesting work with hair…and there is a trio of field researchers up in British Columbia whose fieldwork up there has been interesting to follow, Gerry Matthews, Ken Kristian and Thomas Steenburg. There are many others I take notice of, but I’m not sure they’re doing fieldwork anymore, namely Brian Smith, Sheryl Jenkins and a host of others like Will Duncan and David Mann.

In other countries, I tend to watch the work done by Mitsuko Choden, Dr. Joe Watanabi, Dr.’s Yuan Zhenxin and Zhou Guoxing, Dr. Helmut Loofs-Wissowa, Dr. Colin Groves, Dmitri Bayanov, Igor Bourtsev, Vadim Markarov, Mikhail Trachtengerts, Achmed Yanuar and Debbie Martyr. They all have left their imprint on research, it’s all good.

Dave: Getting back to the Internet, what good and bad has resulted from bigfoot enthusiasts having such rapid access to website databases, message boards and discussion forums?

Bobbie: I think easy access to information is usually a good thing, that is of course, if the information is accurate. What I don’t like is the emphasis on obtaining record numbers of sightings; it puts research in an arena for dubious reporting and inept “ambulance-chasing” type investigations.

The bloggers seemingly produce too much misinformation and useless speculation. I don’t understand what makes that attractive, certainly it doesn’t produce anything productive except a place for people to hang with too much time on their hands. As for the websites that focus on sightings, I have a rough time believing there are as many sasquatches left in the wilderness as there are reports being uploaded on the internet…else we would be seeing more of these illusive beings. Sadly, we don’t, so what’s with the record numbers of sightings?

Dave: Do you hang out much on other websites besides your own? If so, which of the current websites and forums do you enjoy the most?

Bobbie: I used to hang out a lot with the older websites; their content was superb in the old days. Ray Gavel had an excellent website ten years ago as did Kyle Mizokami and Henry Franzoni. The latter two have retired from bigfoot circles but Gavel still keeps the forums in check with his usual practical sense of what’s real. Truly, somebody needs to keep things in perspective and Ray does a fine job along with a few others. Occasionally I check BFF, the West Coast, Cryptozoology.com, SRI, AIBR and James Randi’s forum…. I guess I am often drawn to bigfoot websites that have diverse content, sensibility and uniquely written articles. I don’t like self-serving websites that promote the owner.

Dave: Could you name a few of your favorite bigfoot books and tell why they are special to you?

Bobbie: Well sure, but you know it’s hard to say because I am not an advocate of the spin cryptozoologists put on sasquatch research in their publications, or the way the sasquatch is cattle herded in with the likes of the mothman, chupacabras and Spring heeled Jack. That’s just insane! The sasquatch is an upright walking hominid, it doesn’t belong in the same books or the same breath as the Loch Ness Monster and merbeings.

I liked Grover Krantz’s book, at least his approach though I don’t agree with his premise that Gigantopithecus is the forerunner of the sasquatch…we had some interesting discussions along those lines a long time ago….

I like the scientific papers the late Richard Greenwell published in the ISC Journal more than anything. Greenwell kept it real and he kept it scientific, as he should. I miss that kind of format — mercy how we do miss the ISC Journal and the charismatic wisdom of Richard Greenwell! Some of the best information on hominids can be found in those old journals, for the most part they were all written by academics and well done, although written before their time unfortunately. How I wish we had that format again. John Kirk has published some excellent articles in his BCSCC newsletter, I’ve often wished he would publish all the sasquatch related material he has in a pamphlet form, some of those articles he has are priceless and I wish I could get my hands on them. Ivan Sanderson’s Abominable book was excellent, John Green’s Sasquatch and Rene Dahinden’s book, the old standards were the best, the rest of the books are just paraphrased copies of what was previously written by the old guard, with the exception of the books that list regional sightings, those surely have a place.

Dave: Could you name a few bigfoot encounters that have been reported in the last few years that really hit you as the “real thing?”

Bobbie: I think the accounts written before the Internet, up until say…1990 were mostly believable. Truly Dave, I have a rough time reconciling the large numbers of sightings with the limited numbers of sasquatches throughout the United States. Any of those reports investigated by Green, Dahinden, Krantz, Bob Titmus, Jack Sullivan, Jim Hewkin, Bob Betts, Russ Gebhart, Roger Patterson, Bob Gimlin, Ron Olson, Ken Coon, Peter Guttilla, Greg Mastel and Ramona Clark Hibner were memorable. Today’s investigation policy held by the various organizations is to place a phone call to the witness…I hardly think that constitutes an investigation, it’s almost laughable, so I question a great deal of what is published as “real.” Show me quality not quantity when it comes to an investigation, show me the evidence or at the very least a corroborating witness of some credibility. The best “story” written outweighs most reports — that is the “Cowman of Copalis Beach.” Loved it and all of the J.W. Burns’ Native American accounts.

Dave: Do you think we will be able to prove for certain the existence of bigfoot without a body?

Bobbie: No…not to anyone’s complete satisfaction. Science requires tangible evidence, tissue and blood samples, and really that is as it should be, right?

Dave: My son and I just got back from the California/Oregon border area. We found a lot of tree breaks up there while we were searching for bigfoot. This possible indicator of bigfoot activity is said to be controversial. What is your take on tree breaks as possible signs of bigfoot activity in an area?

Bobbie: I don’t know about tree breaks, but isn’t it curious? There is one report from an academic who observed an area 12-15 feet square of forest completely devastated from the upheaval of a sasquatch by reason of the tracks he left in the dirt; downed trees, broken tree limbs, uprooted bushes, the soil disturbed. Evidently, some of that breakage was due to anger or perhaps the release of frustration by a sasquatch. I don’t have the answer, some of it may be due to aggressive behavior and some of it may be done to drop an escaping varmint that may be tasty to the sasquatch. Bird feathers, hair from squirrels, rodents and other tree dwellers have been found in scat, tree breaks could result from that kind of activity. Otherwise, I don’t really know why…it’s part of the mystery.

Dave: What do you think of call blasting as a way to lure in a bigfoot?

Bobbie: Call blasting might be appropriate if we were looking for a life form whose sounds have been studied and are understood, like deer, bears, ducks and blue jays. Unfortunately, the origins of the current collection of sounds is unknown and so is the translation of those sounds. How do you know what you are blasting out? What do those sounds mean to the sasquatch? Is it a distress call? Is it a warning that I am in the vicinity? Is it just a lonely wail?

Whatever the meaning is, it doesn’t appear to be a positive thing because it seems nothing productive has resulted from sophisticated hi-tech call blasting, not to my knowledge. You are more likely to get results from recorded crying baby tapes…at least up until the sasquatch “catches on” to what you’re doing. In the bush, we’re in their territory, their living room. The sasquatch knows what we humans are up too, they didn’t survive this long without that instinct and it appears they take every opportunity to observe us. Until weekend warriors understand that concept, I don’t see anything productive resulting from call blasting.

Dave: Speaking of controversial subjects, recently there was a topic on bigfoot forums where someone questioned the validity of Mary Green’s findings. They also went on to question the reality of bigfoot activity on Janice Coy Carter’s property in Tennessee. You appeared to take a fairly strong stand defending the reality of what is said to be going on there. Are Mary’s findings and Janice’s stories the real deal?

Bobbie: I think it’s unfair to single out names. The “who” doesn’t matter…the important issue comes by way of various lab reports and that is what I based my opinion on…. I fully understand that my opinion is not a popular one but it’s not based on a sudden impulse or careless intuition. It’s based on factual findings by legitimate laboratories over a ten year period….

In 1997, Mary Green sent a wad of hair to me, Jack Sullivan and Dr. Henner Fahrenbach. The latter studied those hairs and determined them to be consistent with the presumptive sasquatch hair already in his possession…in fact he went on to say since the hairs were found atop barbed-wire, chances are these fine hairs were crotch hairs left when stepping over the barbed-wire fence. So, ten years ago, the hairs attributed to a presumptive sasquatch were found in Tennessee and it was announced on various discussion lists. I seem to recall Dr. Fahrenbach analyzed additional hairs in 2003.

So really Dave, the Tennessee business isn’t new news. It’s been going on for years and years. Igor Bourtsev flew into Tennessee and spent a month there all the way from Moscow, Russia. I’m sure he wouldn’t have done that without some convincing basis for doing so. The most persuasive piece of information came to me by way of Will Duncan’s scat analysis. Prior to that, David Mann’s report had some compelling notations in it. So yes, I believe what was claimed is not only true, but persuasive and truly significant. Unfortunately, no one will be convinced until a body is brought in for science to study.

Dave: For someone just starting out in the bigfoot field, could you give a few pointers on how to get started in field work? How about any pitfalls to be avoided?

Bobbie: Oh gosh, I don’t know, what little I’ve achieved has been by happenstance and stumble-bum luck mixed with a lot of footwork. Good fieldwork comes with time, perseverance and a deep understanding of how forest critters live and how they survive. It helps to have strong faith in the evidence you find and a thick skin to ward off the ridicule from the skeptics.

The only pitfall I can think of would be making premature judgments based on what the malcontents have to say, even the wisest of them can be wrong. The other thing I learned the hard way was to be careful what you read — bigfoot publications are full of well-written nonsense. Because it’s published doesn’t make it fact. There is much in books that is embellished third hand rumor, propaganda for the sake of selling books. One sleeps better at night having tracked down the information first hand.

Dave: How do you think this extremely warm summer might be affecting bigfoot behavior and sightings? Anything you would like to add?

Bobbie: Intolerable heat tends to affect all living things, doesn’t it? This global warming is killing humans without air conditioning; I can’t imagine the sasquatch handling it well without the coolness of an underground shelter….