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Bigfoot: A space alien, or just another beer-guzzling ape?
Tuesday, July 18, 2000
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
YAKIMA -- Sasquatch might be from outer space.
At least that's the theory being put forth by Erik Beckjord of the San Francisco-based Sasquatch Research Project.
He contends the proof can be found in a metal cylinder, roughly the same size and shape as a 16-ounce can of beer, on Bigfoot's right arm in the famous Patterson film.
"An ape doesn't have a cylinder on its arm, unless it's an experimental creature," Beckjord said. But that's hardly enough evidence for people who believe Bigfoot is the Yakima Valley's biggest home-grown hoax.
"That's a new one to me," said Zillah lawyer Barry Woodard, representing a man who last year claimed to have worn a monkey suit in the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film.
The grainy 16 mm footage of what some believe is a female Sasquatch running out of a stream bed in the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California was taken by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin during a horseback search for Bigfoot.
Patterson died in 1972. Gimlin refuses to be interviewed.
Last year, longtime Bigfoot tracker Cliff Crook of Bothell dismissed the film as a hoax, saying four computer-enhanced frames showed what appeared to be a bell-shaped fastener at the creature's waist.
Several months later, a 58-year-old Yakima man, who has not been publicly identified, came forward through Woodard claiming to have been the hoaxer who wore the fur. The man still wants to sell his story, Woodard said.
It's been a Sasquatch summer in the Northwest this year.
Two researchers are looking into reports of the possible presence of Bigfoot on the Hoh Indian Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula along the Pacific Coast.
A psychologist recently claimed to have seen and smelled Sasquatch while hiking at the Oregon Caves National Monument.
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