Bigfoot images

Del Norte accounts abound

A sketch from the book depicting a trucker’s account of seeing a bigfoot alongside U.S. Hwy. 199 late one night in 2005. (From Tribal Bigfoot book)

Many know it as bigfoot, but the legendary hair-covered biped has many names all over the world.

David Paulides, executive director of North America Bigfoot Search in Los Gatos, has chronicled the stories of those who claim to have seen bigfoot in his latest book, “Tribal Bigfoot.” Also included are sketches of each reported bigfoot by forensic artist Harvey Pratt.

The book includes sightings from hundreds of years ago and all over the country, but a portion of the stories come from right here in Del Norte and very close by in Humboldt, Siskiyou and Trinity counties.

One of those stories is about the most famous video footage supposedly taken of bigfoot. It was shot in October 1967 near Bluff Creek in the southeast corner of Del Norte near the border of Humboldt County.

A small wooden statue in a front yard provides evidence that Crescent City is bigfoot-conscious. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

Paulides’ previous book, “The Hoopa Project,” centered on his research into reported bigfoot encounters around the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation.

For his next book he thought “to take it one step further, out of the reservation and into the four surrounding counties and do the same thing we did in Hoopa,” he said.

He then took another step further and included stories of encounters with bigfoot all over the country.

Bigfoot sightings are not limited to Northern California. There have been reported sightings in every state except Hawaii, Paulides said.

“There have been 350 sightings in those four counties going back to the 1800s,” he said. “There have been over 2,000 sightings in the U.S. as a whole.”

He believes there are many more people out there that have seen bigfoot, but are too intimidated to say anything “on the record.” The people Paulides interviewed for “Tribal Bigfoot” signed affidavits stating that their accounts were true.

Cover of the book “Tribal Bigfoot” by David Paulides, below, the executive director of North America Bigfoot Search.

Paulides broke the book up into locations of reported bigfoot sightings, including a whole chapter on Del Norte. There have been more reported sightings per square mile here than in Humboldt, Siskiyou or Trinity counties, he said.

“They all tell a very compelling story,” Paulides said, adding the accounts contain “consistency in appearance.”

In one story, an Oregon trucker  driving U.S. Hwy. 199 late at night reported seeing a bigfoot illuminated by the lights of the big rig on the side of the road. When the trucker turned on his brights, he said the bigfoot put its arm in front of its face and long hair flowed from it’s forearm (see sketch).

“For some reason they don’t like to have lights in their eyes,” Paulides said, noting there are other stories similar to the truck driver’s, even though being alongside a major roadway seems like a strange place for a bigfoot.

No one included in the book reported being attacked by a bigfoot in Del Norte. However, the book contains a story about 18 people who went missing in 1895 near Gasquet, but only one body was ever found. According to the book, many people attributed those deaths to bigfoot.

Bigfoot sightings have been reported in the Siskiyou Wilderness, all the forks of the Smith River and the forests around Gasquet and Bluff Creek, Paulides said.

A very hairy human

There are many fascinating stories in “Tribal Bigfoot.” Paulides found newspaper reports of a “wild man” or “hairy man” in the 1800s. This is interesting, he said, because it wasn’t  referred to as an ape but as human.

What people described in the 1800s and in recent years, is a roughly 7- to 8-foot-tall upright biped covered in hair with a human-looking face.

People eventually developed names for these “hairy men,” which are typically regional, Paulides said. For example, in Canada they call it a sasquatch, in Nepal a yeti, in Russia an almasty.

“They all appear to be identical,” Paulides said about descriptions from all over the world.

Paulides believes that bigfoot is “very close to human, but a tick off” and can live in many environments.

“Something highly unusual”

Several people in “Tribal Bigfoot” said that what they saw wasn’t like what Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin captured on film near Bluff Creek in 1967 — the major difference being the amount of hair on bigfoot’s face.

In the footage, the bigfoot casually walks away from Patterson and Gimlin, who are on horseback, for about 30 seconds before disappearing into the forest and has much more hair on its face than most people have reported.

“Never has a bigfoot been caught on film for that amount of time,” Paulides said. “Never has there been a bigfoot with that much hair on its face.”

Paulides’ explanation for why, with today’s technology, a definitive bigfoot hasn’t been captured on film is that no bigfoot has stayed out in the open long enough. In the book, many people claim that after spotting the bigfoot, it seemingly disappears.

After the famous footage came out, Paulides said that executives at Disney — the premier costume makers of that time — viewed it and agreed they couldn’t make a costume that good. Looking at the film frame by frame, he said the bigfoot’s muscles are visible — even today that would be nearly impossible to create, he said.

“I think that something highly unusual happened at Bluff Creek that caused that biped to stay out in the open and leave itself in harm’s way,” Paulides said.

Many people are skeptical about bigfoot, Paulides said, because it’s easier to say it doesn’t exist than to look at  evidence that he finds compelling: hair samples that come back from the lab as “unknown primate” and foot casts with fingerprint-like dermal ridges.

Proof means different things to different people, he said. It’s entirely possible that something bigger, faster and stronger, but genetically similar to humans, could survive in the woods.

Paulides has never seen bigfoot, yet believes that it exists and states in his book that the truth is out there, and very close by.

“I have always wanted to be dropped by helicopter into the middle of the Siskiyou Wilderness with three other researchers and a month’s supply of food,” he writes. “I truly believe that the right group with the right equipment, patience, and persistence could walk out of that wilderness area with enough evidence to startle the world.”

David Paulides

“Tribal Bigfoot” can be purchased at the Hiouchi Hamlet off U.S. Hwy. 199 or online at nabigfootsearch.com