It's a Wrap!

The Animal Planet Finding Bigfoot crew was overwhelmed by the turnout of Bigfoot researchers, witnesses and enthusiasts. Thanks to the Ohio chapter of the BFRO, the crowd exceeded 160 in numbers, more than any other Town Hall meeting Finding Bigfoot has held!

We had advertised for everyone to arrive by 6 pm for the 7 pm meeting. I arrived at 6:20 and was blown away by the amount of cars in the parking lot! I gathered up my gear and headed towards the entrance of the Deerassic Park auditorium. Upon entering I was instructed to fill out the paperwork that gives Animal Planet permission to use your photos and video. Ugh, I did not want my fat butt seen on t.v. so hopefully I hid well enough.

I heard my name called out and I turned to see Dr. Russ Jones and his posse standing at the doorway. I joined them and was introduced to several BFRO members including Mark Maisel. I have to tell you, I might join the BFRO just for the eye candy! We chatted for awhile as more and more people were filtering in.
Mark then asked one of the producers if it was ok for me to take pictures and I was given permission.

I scanned the room looking for familiar faces. In attendance were Don Keating and his wife Missey. Shocker! I thought Don wouldn't be in the same room with Matt given their history. I had also heard a rumor that Don told the folks at Salt Fork that if they let the Finding Bigfoot crew hold their town hall meeting at the lodge that Don would not use Salt Fork ever again for another conference. Well guess what folks, that is one big, fat lie! I talked to several key people who assured me that there was no merit to that statement. Case closed!

There were so many people that I have never met before in attendance and Russ was keeping count of every butt in every seat, not including the crew.

We were all asked to take our seats and as I was sitting in the back row, I looked over my right shoulder and saw Matt, Cliff and Ranae standing in the shadows prepared to make their grand entrance.

The trio entered and marched down the aisle to an eruption of cheers and applause! They looked tired but happy. They have been traveling non-stop for so many weeks now and will not get a break until December. The new season will air in January.

Well, as you can imagine, filming a television show is quite the production. There were several times when the audience was asked to repeat scenes and the Finding Bigfoot gang were instructed to stand here, stop, say that again, refresh the battery pack, etc.

The trio introduced themselves to the audience and then asked how many people had witnessed a Bigfoot, or heard one or had a story to tell. At least 40 hands shot up and, as we would soon find out, the crew was going to listen to every single one.

The stories were the same we hear every day and soon they had gotten through all but one. The very last hand standing was that of Phil Brocco. He stood up to introduce himself and I thought to myself "Oh no." At the first utterance of his name, the audience and crew were taken aback by his unusually high pitched voice. Matt's expression was priceless! Phil began talking about his experience and how he was "meditating in the lake" and he heard the movement of something large all around him but when he heard a loud splash in the water, he screamed, "you know, like a man". When he said that the crowd erupted in laughter and it was the perfect ending to the long and tedious production.

The producers then informed the audience that they could meet and mingle with the crew for about 10 minutes.

During the production, Matt Moneymaker gave Don Keating all of the credit for putting Ohio Bigfooting on the map. It was nice to see Don get the recognition that he deserves.

Don and Matt shook hands and took pics together during the meet and greet and the entire crew were very gracious posing for pictures and speaking to their fans.

Bobo could not be in attendance as it was his shift to camp out with the gear. He was missed.

Several witnesses remained to plot their sightings on the map and after about 45 minutes the crowd dissipated to some stragglers who wanted to talk and take pictures with the gang.

I ended up chatting with Cliff for about 15 minutes, catching up with him. He looked so extremely handsome and glowing. I am so happy for him. Before we knew it, the crew had packed up and I never did get a chance to meet Matt. His loss. ;)

All in all it was a great representation of Ohio researchers and we proved our sincerity and dedication to the quest.

Great job guys!

Matt Moneymaker Confronts Critics

Posted by Loren Coleman on Cryptomundo-
Matt Moneymaker has addressed issues and content raised in recent postings here tied to his new program, “Finding Bigfoot.”
Here they are, unedited.
First, Moneymaker responses to the story that the Georgia police dashcam video is due to a teen hoaxer in a gorilla suit (“Georgia Dash Cam Footage a Hoax?“):

The comments by Jarrard were not true, as we discovered while we were there. He wouldn’t take questions from us when we tried to nail down his story.
No one from the sheriff’s department went out to speak with any of the neighbors after the incident … We spoke with the neighbors though when we were shooting the episode. There was never any college students living in the area, and there was no photo of college kids with a gorilla costume. Jarrard story sounded unlikely from the beginning, and apparently it didn’t happen.
None of the other sheriffs had heard about this story that Jarrard told to a reporter. It seems he came up with the story to quel any fear that local people might have about a monster in the woods, and to prevent hunters from going to look for one.

and

There was no other show that aired the dashcam footage. Finding Bigfoot was the first program to air the footage. Lotsa false nonsense coming up on this site today, but anonymous people claiming things they kinda sorta recall but can’t quite put their finger on it.

Next, Moneymaker replies to the “wood knock” and “call blasting” claims of who did it first:

That’s pretty weak … a book published in 1993 about a famous indian story teller. It doesn’t count. I had already been talking about that behavior for a year or more on the Internet (and debating with all the people who were saying I was crazy to suggest that) while that book was being assembled. I had been saying that bigfoots use knocks to locate eachother prior to 92, but all you have is the claim by a famous “story teller” in a 1993 book … that he knew they did that long ago. It doesn’t count.
Bill Dranginis is notorious for not telling the truth, and he was kicked out of the BFRO almost 15 years ago for exactly that reason. If he says he recalls an article describing someone else doing call-blasting before I did it … then he needs to produce that article. I kinda doubt it exists. Dranginis would not hesitate to make up something like that. Also, there were no recordings of sasquatches available in the 1980’s that could be used for that purpose. I got the first fairly clean recording that could that be used for sound blasting, and I got it in 1993.
Let’s see Titmus’ writings saying he did wood knocks back and forth with a sasquatch in BC … not just someone’s “recollection” of him talking about that.