Saturday, January 28, 2012

Big-By Lloyd Pye

Lloyd Pye has written a new ebook titled BIG, which is available on Smashwords.com.
'The story unfolds in the mountains of Washington State, where bigfoot sightings occur regularly.

It begins with a hunter encountering and then wounding a bigfoot with a shotgun blast to its upper back. Shot, bleeding, but not quite dead, the bigfoot passes out beside a stream deep in the woods. It is discovered by Marcy Dillon, a high school senior who intends to go to medical school. She has gone to the stream to gather herbs for an important school project.

As Marcy approaches the bigfoot, it revives and is rightfully terrified of her, but it is too weak to harm her. Given the reprieve, she manages to convince it that she wants to help it, not harm it any further.

Marcy is a small-town girl with big-town, world-class abilities, and she assumes responsibility for helping the bigfoot recover enough strength and stamina to return to wherever it came from.

What Marcy does not realize is that the hunter who shot the bigfoot returned to their isolated hometown, and the bigfoot tracked him down to exact revenge. Now everyone in the town knows a seriously wounded bigfoot is somewhere up in the forested mountains surrounding them.

If the bigfoot can be successfully recovered, dead or alive, it will be worth a fortune in earned income and publicity for their isolated area. A large posse of local men is gathered to begin the hunt in earnest. That posse includes Marcy’s father and boyfriend, both of whom she tries to dissuade from going, but both refuse.

It will be a life-and-death race for the bigfoot, but soon after their journey begins, it becomes life-and-death for Marcy, too. Now, however, she has no choice but to continue onward to meet whatever fate has in store for both of them.

This ebook sounds entertaining and action packed and is available for only $6.95.
I will be reading it today at the salon!

Here are some reviews of the book so far:
Review by: Alex Freed on Jan. 24, 2012 : (no rating)
I absolutely love this book, I couldn't put it down, Bigfoots are my favorite creatures!! This is the most fascinating subject and I highly recommend anything that Lloyd Pye has written on the subject whether fiction or non fiction, I have all his books!! Will read it to my son next, he is 8 and will love it!! Keep up the excellent work Mr Pye, we love you!! Ps. any chance of a sequel, can Marcy go and stay with Big and his family???

Review by: Crystal Jiles on Jan. 18, 2012 : star star star star star
Not only does this book, give possible insight into the mind of a Bigfoot, it also provides such a riveting story line that will appeal to a broad spectrum of people. It certainly isn't your typical "bigfoot story" where you are aware throughout the story that it was strictly written for fantasy. This book however, will soften even the hardest skeptic to the idea that this could very well happen. Mr. Pye has a definite gift of story telling that will captivate and well as educate. Can't wait for the next books Mr. Pye has to offer in the future.
Lloyd Pye
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Big’s original incarnation was a screenplay I wrote in 1984, when I lived in Los Angeles and worked as a screenwriter. In 1985, it was optioned by a small independent production company, but their size didn’t stop them from arranging funding for it, and soon it was in full pre-production. They secured time commitments from a handful of B-list actors and a well-regarded British director, and our bigfoot’s costume and makeup and special effects were contracted to a master of that field in Hollywood.

Everything was solidly on track for our low-budget movie to be a rousing success. Unfortunately, in Hollywood the best-laid schemes gang aft agley. When executives at Universal Studios—then as now, one of the largest production companies in the world—heard about our pending production and recognized its earnings potential, they inquired about buying into it. Our young producers—who, when they optioned the screenplay from me, were then temporarily its owners—politely declined, explaining that they had the production details well in hand and did not need additional participation.

In hindsight, that was an offer they should not have refused. Soon afterward, our independent, low-budget production found itself in a game of Hollywood hardball, confronted with a new bigfoot movie coming from the production company of Steven Spielberg, arguably the best writer-director-producer in Hollywood at that time, and whose offices happened to be based at—surprise!—Universal Studios.

The new Universal movie was a silly comedy called Harry and the Hendersons, with a budget announced at $15 million. Our production was a dramatic, action-filled, coming-of-age story, and our budget was not in the ballpark of Spielberg’s. Also—and this was key—because theirs was a comedy and ours was a drama, we had no way to suggest, much less prove, that they got the idea to produce a bigfoot movie at the particular time they chose to do it as a direct result of our production. Legally, we were outflanked.

Although our producers were already picking shooting sites, they could not maintain their momentum against the Spielberg/Universal juggernaut. They soon found themselves without their promised funding, they could gain no traction with other potential investors, and ultimately the Big project was a near-miss, and today it is a never-was…as a movie.

Fortunately, I turned the script into a novel, so now you can experience its drama as the eBook you are about to read. The story is the same as it was then, and everyone who read it then felt it had the potential to become a terrific movie. So who knows? Maybe Steven Spielberg will decide it’s time to put things right regarding this matter.

I’m not holding my breath…but crazier things have happened in Hollywood.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Salt Fork Squatching

In honor of this week's episode of Finding Bigfoot that was taped at Salt Fork State Park, I am going to be posting stories from witnesses who had some type of Bigfoot activity.

I do believe there is a Squatch in these woods!

Our first story comes to us from Nancy and Bernie. Nancy and Bernie were high school sweethearts and are still married. They share a passion for Bigfoot and they spend almost every weekend camping at Salt Fork.

"February 9, 2009, my husband and I were driving around at Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. It was a warm day for February, maybe in the high 40 's or 50's, It was sunny and clear. About 4:00 or 4:30 pm.

It had been about 20 years since we had gone there. We were heading up the main road of the park wanting to see Hosack's Cave. The turnoff to the cave was not marked and we missed the road to turn on.

Just ahead on the right side of the road, there was a very large massive sasquatch standing on the hillside heading up. I had a very clear view. I kept asking my husband what is that, what is that. He didn't see it. There was no way on earth I would have ever told him what I saw. Just up the road a few feet by the pines was a turn around in a private driveway. I just kept asking what was that. My husband hurried and turned the car around in the drive and hurried back. It was only about 150 feet maybe back to the spot. As we approached I know he saw it then. He was stirring at the top of the hill and ran the car left of center and off the road onto the berm.

By this time the animal was at the top of the road about 60 feet up and it had it's back to us and had it's arms wrapped around the tree like is was hugging it, or trying to hide. We could see the solid dark brown hair not short not long It had longer hair that flowed form its head and hair off it's shoulders like a mane. It was buff like a muscular body builder. The view I had at first I could tell the arms were longer than a human. There was no visible neckline. The hair seemed groomed and not matted. It stood perfectly straight and did not hunch over in any way. We did not see the face. My husband sat there with his head down shaking his head in disbelief. At this point all I could do was laugh. I didn't want to be the first one the say what it was. I asked him what did you see. After a minute or two he said 'It looked like a giant hairy man'.

When we looked up it was gone again and we went home. We didn't talk about for a couple of days.

Then on February 13, we packed up our stuff and headed back to the lake to see if we could see it again. We hiked all through the woods and looked that day.

Thanks Nancy for sharing your story!

Bart Cutino Addresses Robert Lindsay's "Journalism"

Last night while taking a break driving southbound from some winter northern California research areas with my partner Rgr Leiterman, I happened to see both Lindsay's “interview” with Justin Smeja and the ridiculous accusations & exchange posted with Dr. Meldrum. Having been an invited participant during the body recovery effort in July 2011 & having become the closest confidant and liason (if you will) from the bigfoot community to those involved in the shooting incident, I thought I’d clarify some of the rampant speculation and sensationalized comments.

Regarding the body search effort orchestrated by my good friend Derek Randles-

-Bobo and myself had been invited by Derek to attend the recovery effort a week prior as Bo and I were returning from the NorCal woods together and I can tell you from my participation in the search & my observations over the course of those three days that every word-phrase Meldrum took the time to highlight in red as erroneous from Lindsay’s “source” is 100% correctly “erroneous.”

-First off, Matt Moneymaker, who everyone knows is one of my closest friends in and out of the field for many years, was absolutely not at the recovery effort and was only told there was an outing by me (with very little information) a few days after my return home.

-As addressed, the dog handler visited the site on the third morning and was a very pleasant and professional woman. The dog handler was not looking for credit in discovery as she even declined to to be filmed or photographed with respect to the subject matter. The dog is trained strictly to detect human decomposition (a substantial & lengthy training process) and cannot be manipulated into successfully matching scents from a foreign, unfamiliar tissue sample as it could potentially ruin the dog's career.

-I haven't had a chance to talk with Jeff since last July at the site but I will tell you that the suggestion that any respected Associate Professor of Anatomy would make such a bold & presumptuous statement (regardless of his association of subject) without having an opportunity to perform appropriate scientific diligence is ridiculous. He made no such claim and I retrieved the sample for both Meldrum and Mioczynski to initially examine, in which they did using limited magnification that was available. Meldrum admittedly did have some preliminary reservations regarding hair morphology characteristics seen that he shared with all of us and I discussed personally with him at the site over the three days. I’m unaware if he was provided a sliver sample and or he’s personally done any further examinations.

Regarding Lindsay’s interview with Justin, you know immediately when you see a written interview of someone you know fairly well and it's obviously sensationalized, biased and paraphrased. That's usually when you can't see the written responses coming from the interviewee's mouth any longer and it only took about two questions of Lindsay's "interview" with Justin to see that from my perspective. Without even having an opportunity to talk to Justin until this morning, I can tell you there are countless mistruths, false facts and exaggerations to mention, but the DFG story is worthy of some clarification.

Regarding the DFG's visit to Justin's house a couple of weeks prior to Christmas, Justin had contacted me extremely unnerved a few days before I was planning to head up to pick him up to place Reconyx cams in the northern Sierra foothills (nowhere near "kills" site). The unannounced visit by two officer's from the DFG was understandably "spooky" considering it was mid-day, they were persistent and very nonchalant in regards to how they verbally approached the subject matter.

Although impersonating an officer was an unlikely scenario as it's a serious offense in CA, and conspiracy theorists could scream “feds” all day, the real world scenario in my opinion was that it was in fact DFG and they were finally following up on several calls (likely made by internet bigfooters) about the incident and also were concerned more about a potential bear poaching relationship with this incident then animals they've likely determined do not exist.

The first thing we wanted to do was confirm it was in fact DFG and then we collectively decided it would be appropriate and in Justin's & everyone else’s best interests to grant a formal & truthful interview "in office" potentially with an attorney present & officially get the events of that day on record. To Justin's credit, he was absolutely ready & willing to go on record and although there's not much to fear since there’s no precedent where someone was retroactively charged with killing a species that isn't currently "recognized" by science, nor federal or state hunting laws, it’s not always easy by nature for lifelong fisherman & hunters to comply & cooperate with F&G when you’ve perceived them as authoritative eyes on your preferred recreational activities your whole life.

On our way up the I80 towards Reno I coached Justin on what to say when we contacted the DFG by cell phone and my advice consisted of him being 100% truthful, cooperative & professional in manner and language and not get caught in lengthy discussion of incident particulars over the phone (in person only). He left a message with the warden from my vehicle and was not contacted back for almost 36 hrs. By that time I had dropped Justin back off and I was already back home in Monterey (we only went into the field for one quick night). Justin was essentially told that his case wasn’t a priority and that they would contact him should they need to revisit it.

Over time, I've gotten to know both Justin and the driver personally & casually, as well as their immediate families. Although I wasn’t with them on that day, I'm fairly confident that they are being truthful to the best of their recollection of the incident and feel that anybody in my shoes would come to the same conclusion if they’ve spent the time I have around them.

However, as I’ve stated previously, it doesn’t matter what I or anyone else thinks, at the end of the day, we’re measured by results (in this case evidence). The boys understand that should the promised DNA results not be what they’re purported to be, then their incident is nothing more then an intriguing but anecdotal account. From the beginning, both have claimed that the sample they found was circumstantial in nature and with some significant time lapsed and I can tell you that both just want the sample verified one way or another and don’t fear the results. They’ve understandably believed by color appearance (with adult) location & circumstance there’s a good chance it’s from the specimen initially shot, but admittedly have never been 100% certain. (sorry- I assure you, no hidden bodies being kept or suppressed by my good friend Wally Hersom).

For what it’s worth, personally, I've never been as confident in the sample due to the circumstantial nature and timing in which it was recovered coupled with the concerns Meldrum initially shared from his admittedly “limited observation” of present hair morphology characteristics. I'd be lying if I said that I was optimistic about what results will show in the heavily anticipated "study." I don't mean that as a personal knock on Melba, nor let me make clear am I privy to or have any secret insight into potential results to be pessimistic about. I just personally live by "I'll believe it when I see it" & "it's nothing, until it's something" philosophies, particularly in this field and all I've seen thus far are speculative leaks, bold claims & conjecture. I would love nothing more to be pleasantly surprised for all parties involved (whom I have the utmost respect for & know just want the truth) as well as the field as a whole.

I've also received some emails from people wondering how if I believe the "Sierra Kills" story is true I could be involved in protecting those directly responsible for the shooting & endorse the killing of two sasquatches. I have a similar response as my friend Derek Randles (I consider one of the best natural woodsman and researchers in the game) that as a researcher & personal witness, the thought of two of these graceful animals being slaughtered sickens me to no end and I would never endorse the harming of these animals under any circumstance.... though wasting this opportunity and the enormity of what it could mean from a historical zoological discovery perspective (I cannot go back in time to change if I wanted to).... would make me even sicker.

In getting to know Justin personally I’ve also come to understand that it’s easy for us that are emotionally invested in this subject matter to sit here, judge and arrogantly proclaim what we’d do or not do in the same situation. A matter of fact, I’ve never told him this but one of the only reasons I refrained from possibly taking a shot at him (other then an unneeded assault charge) when I first saw him was that I didn’t believe him..... “yet.”

I’ve come to realize that maybe I would’ve done something stupid or regretful had I been confronted with a completely unexpected & immediate, frightening physical reality they both found themselves in. In addition, from an accepted biological perspective, what “they” are exactly remains to be seen and we could all argue about it all we want as it means nothing in the interim.

At the end of the day, I believe Justin should be judged by his actions that day not on how you and I as researcher/ enthusiasts (emotionally invested and interested parties & even some of us, witnesess) see & perceive sasquatches, but in how they appeared from “his” perspective initially, appearing suddenly, fully hirsute, somewhat frightening in appearance and potentially unpredictable.... “animals.”

Bart Cutino
CA-BFRO/AIBR

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

She Won't Accept My Friend Request :(

This statement was just posted on Dr. Melba Ketchum's Facebook page. She won't accept my friend request so I will rely on Shawn at Bigfoot Evidence to provide me with her daily posts.

From Melba Ketchum via Facebook, Posted 7:42 PST

To address the recent hype and misstatements concerning my paper, please be advised that the information pulled off the US Copyright website for a 2010 preregistration for a proposed media project is not an accurate summary of our scientific testing and data and does not reflect the current conclusions of our scientific paper. The contemplated media project was never produced and no update was ever made to the short description on the preregistration statement. Instead of working on proposed media projects, we have been focusing our time and energy on our ongoing scientific testing and data which will be accurately summarized in the final version of our scientific paper. The final paper presenting our data, analysis and updated conclusions will be published in a peer reviewed scientific journal but we do not have a publication date at this time.

- Dr. Melba Ketchum


The Media Project she's referring to was submitted to the US Copyright website in 2010. You can view it here.

Database Name: Copyright Catalog (1978 to present)
: Simple Search = Ketchum Melba
:
Previous
Detailed Record

Sasquatch: The Tribe Revealed
Type of Work: Entry Not Found
Type of Work Preregistered: Motion Picture
Literary Work in Book Form
Advertising or Marketing Photograph
Preregistration Number / Date: PRE000003852 / 2010-09-16
Application Title: Sasquatch: The Tribe Revealed
Title: Sasquatch: The Tribe Revealed
Copyright Claimant: Melba Stinnett Ketchum. Address: P O Box 455, Timpson, TX, 75975, United States.
Creation of Work Began: 2008-04-07 (Approximate)
Date of Anticipated Completion: 2011-06-22 (Approximate)
Projected Date of Publication: 2012-02-15 (Approximate)
Authorship on Application: Melba Stinnett Ketchum.
Description of Work: A film and/or documentary, narration or audio book, supporting photos and literary paper/document/book that will follow the The Sasquatch Project, the scientist and the scientific testing and proof for the existence of Sasquatch/ Bigfoot. Information will include discussion of results including A New Tribe of Living Humans, the complete Sasquatch mitochondrial genome sequence and nuclear DNA variations and text will show complete mitochondrial (mt) genome sequences were identified from DNA, analysis of the assembled sequence unequivocally establishes that the Sasquatch mtDNA falls inside the range of modern human mtDNAs and discussions of the origins thereof. The proof that the Sasquatch is not only the closest living human relative but is actually a contemporary living human. Also discussed is nuclear DNA testing performed on the same samples and the variations found in various genes including MC1R gene RUNX2 and FOXP2 as well as other targets genes involved in the perception of sound, transmission of nerve signals, the production of sperm and the lactase gene. Also discussed is how testing has ruled out ape cross and any ancient contributor and that Sasquatch is indeed a modern human with some genetic mutations accounting for their physical appearance. Also included are discussion of the history of samples and circumstances surrounding the acquisition, their testing, the circumstances surrounding the entire Sasquatch DNA Project. Documentary stars Melba Ketchum, et al
Copyright Note: C.O. correspondence.

Names: Ketchum, Melba Stinnett

Now What?

I am starting to think that maybe we should pay more attention to Robert Lindsay. I just don't know anymore. My gut instinct, which is usually never wrong, tells me that the DNA evidence was all just another event that would leave us still wondering if Sasquatch are flesh and blood creatures AND more so, if they truly exist.

I had been leery from the beginning due to Biscardi's involvement, Ketchum's track record for not producing favorable outcomes for her customers, and The Smeja story, the Erickson Project...it all just seemed so convenient how they all went hand-in-hand.

I feel like maybe I am out of touch? Then I see this story today from Robert Lindsay and I am thinking to myself, are people really seeing a Bigfoot in this blurry trail cam photo?


Have I become so cynical and jaded that I can't see the Squatch through the trees?

I would love to hear feedback from you all on this because I think maybe I am failing to grasp the inevitable truth that maybe Ketchum is legit. Maybe Smeja did kill a Bigfoot. Maybe the government doesn't really care if we prove Bigfoot exists.

Talk to me.

Maybe this photo IS of a Sasquatch picking up apples in Vermont?


Monday, January 23, 2012

Ohio Conference Rumors

Well no one has officially confirmed this but I have heard through several sources that Don Keating has turned over the annual Ohio Bigfoot Conference to Marc DeWerth. The proposed date of the conference is May 18th - 20th.

Marc is trying to get Dr. John Bindernagel to be a guest speaker. Dr. Bindernagel is a professional biologist who studies the biological aspects of Bigfoot life.

I'm not sure why Don waited so long to make the announcement or why he didn't hand the conference over to someone with more experience but it is what it is.

Not to fret though because you still have the option of attending the First Annual Chautauqua Bigfoot Conference being held May 4-6 2012.

Guests who will be staying at the We Wan Chu Cottages for the weekend will be treated to their own Bigfoot Show as well as up to 50 people will be chosen from We Wan Chu Cottages' guests this weekend to do a Bigfoot Expedition Saturday Night somewhere in the WNY or PA area. If interested, please mention when making your Cottage Reservation.
1st Annual
Chautauqua Lake Bigfoot Expo:

When: May 6th, 2012: - 12:00 P.M. - 6:00 P.M.

Where: The Chautauqua Suites, Mayville NY. Special "Bigfoot Weekend Rate" = $ 75 + tax per room per night includes Free Breakfast.

Adults $ 12.00 - Children 15 years and under $ 6.00. Pre-Sale Tickets

Speakers are Larry Batson, Billy Willard, Steve Kulls and Melissa Hovey.