While waiting along with everyone else to see whether Dr. Melba Ketchum’s DNA study and/or the allegedly captured Bigfoot code-named Daisy hold any water worth wading into, I have been looking back at some of the better ‘Squatch reports I’ve received and collected from SE Wisconsin over the years. One of my favorites is the so-called “Bad Hair Day Bigfoot” observed by Matt Wakely in September 2005 SE of Lake Geneva, near the WI-IL border.
The incident is described in full in my book Hunting the American Werewolf, and Wakely passed a polygraph exam of his story on the Monsterquest “American Werewolf ” episode. (The show didn’t mention he saw a Bigfoot rather than a dog man). This was a daylight sighting where the witness had a good long look at the creature. He called his mother and told her he had just seen a caveman, naked and covered with fur. The creature seemed totally unafraid of Matt, and its most unusual feature may have been its rather wild hairdo. My best guess is that it was perhaps an adolescent that had just risen from a midday nap in the cemetery, where it stood with 1 foot on a head stone.
It also had less facial hair, according to Matt’s description, than any other Bigfoot ever reported to me. This also suggests an adolescent age group, but more importantly, it gave Matt an unusually clear look at facial features.
Matt drew his own sketches ( below) and then worked with me to achieve what he agreed looked a pretty fair facsimile of what he saw. At that time, I privately thought the face seemed a bit too human, but my job is to draw and report what the witness saw without projecting my own biases.
Over the past year, as I had my own encounter and gathered more local evidence, it’s occurred to me that if Ketchum’s study proves valid and Sasquatch is indeed genetically part human , then this drawing may be a closer stab at a real portrait than I previously believed. And Matt’s tag of “caveman” may have been very accurate!
When my son was about 5 yrs old we went up to Ruidoso, NM to Inn of the Mountain Gods. This is surrounded by the Lincoln National Forest. During the afternoon, we walked out to the lake they have and my son pointed to something across the lake in the trees, but I couldn’t see anything. Last year, we saw the BFRO show on Animal Planet. My son has just turned 10 and now he says that this is what he was trying to tell me when he was little. That he had seen this tall dark creature with ‘wild hair’ around its head looking at us beyond the lake among the trees. Then he said it kept walking. He said he didn’t think anything about it because he thought it was a man. Uncanny!
Do you mean my drawing of the Wakely creature is what your son says he saw?
The Bigfoot mystery continues with interest as to the close up characteristics of this being. Love to hear reports of of facial features, expressions and similarities to our own kind.
I think I went to high school with that guy in the ’70s Linda!!
They say some tribes have the shaman. Go and live in the Forrest for ten years.that could be what that Guy saw.
Linda , Im so glad to be part of your email blog list now ! Ive followed you
ever since the ” Bray Road ” Events happened . And then the contract laborer who had a dear stolen out of his truck. That was an exciting time and ive been hooked on your reports ever since. Keep up the good work and if you ever need someone to look at something in the East Tennessee-Great Smokey mountains area , keep me in mind . Id be glad to help . Thanks again Linda , your fantastic . William
Wow, I appreciate that and will let you know if I need help in the Smokies!
The Salish, Tillamooks, and others in the Pacific NW were always telling writer J.W. Burns stories about the “Sasquatch Men” or “Sasquatch People”. The fact that they always used that moniker “Sasquatch MEN”—-and claimed them as a “degenerate TRIBE”—-has, to me, always worked against the idea of a very apelike (Gigantopithecus blacki/Paranthropus) face. In sasquatch artwork (quite a few images shared by Bill Green & others) I have always “passed” on the renditions that show definite gorilla-like inset nostrils rather than real NOSES. Humanlike NOSES have always been characteristic of what I have long considered really GOOD BF representations. Dr. Ketcham’s findings seem to indicate validations for these noses I prefer (heh heh), which gives me a big smiley face
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Hi Bill, I think the nose was one thing that really set Matt’s description apart from others because he said it HAD a real nose although it was wide. Human noses vary widely in length, protrusion and width so I would say the nose is a nose is a nose, even when it’s on the face of Bigfoot.
Has Dr. Melba’s peer review in fact been rejected as I have read elsewhere? I have heard her interviewed and she said her resaearch has been attacked over and over again and false rumors are flying around.
Too many people have seen this homonid for it to be a myth. It must have the wild canniness of animal and the brains of the human to remain hidden for so long.
I have no inside information on the status of Dr. Ketchum’s research paper but I agree with you about the great numbers of people who have had encounters with the creature. And there’s no doubt that it must be very intelligent to have eluded capture for so long.
Harvey Pratt, renowned and well-credential police forensic artist, and also affiliated with the Hoopa Project and the North American Bigfoot Search, tells a story about when he was in a conference in Texas. (Mr. Pratt is regarded as a top forensic artist able to comprehend and determine details given by crime witnesses.)
He said that a 12-year-old boy, examining Mr. Pratt’s renditions of bigfoot as described by bigfoot witnesses, called across the room, “Hey, Mom! [Mr. Pratt] has it right.” Meaning that Mr. Pratt’s drawings consistently show bigfoot as having more human, than ape-like, faces.
So it seems to me that the ape-like faces provided by other artists is more interpretation rather than forensic. In other words, it seems me that the great majority of bigfoot drawings showing an ape-like face are simply WRONG.
I tend to agree, and I think that it’s perhaps due to the fact that so many of the Bigfoot that are observed have a lot of hair on their face and it’s very hard to discern their true features. But I’m also convinced by the facts that so many witnesses referred to them as human-like and that many Native Americans have terms for them that include the word ‘people.”