Bigfoot Lives!

Living in small-town Nebraska has taught me to always take advantage of area happenings, no matter how weird.  This is how I found myself at the annual Bigfoot Conference in Grand Island, Nebraska complete with Hastings’ very own Harriet McFeely who runs the Bigfoot Museum.  Reasonably well-known bigfoot speakers filled out the conference schedule of events including Steve Berg of The Skinwalker Ranch, Jim Myers of the Sasquatch Outpost and Christian MacLeod of The American Cryptid and and Paranormal Society.  The conference was previously held in Hastings but because of its popularity, there was a need for a bigger venue.  Hence, it was moved to twenty-five miles north to Grand Island.  

Friends have asked me if I really believe in bigfoot or other crytoids and I answer that I see their existence as unlikely but I would love it if they were real!  Imagine how fun it would be to have irrefutable evidence that the Loch Ness monster exists!  Or that bigfoot really does hide in the forests of North America or even other places in the world.  In 2008, a bigfoot story on CNN showed a photo of a dead creature in a freezer and I was so optimistic that this was everything I had hoped and dreamed of!  But alas, it was a hoax.  Apparently, it was a bigfoot costume with some sort of animal guts sprinkled generously over the faux fur that fooled a few people but destroyed the hopes of so many including myself.  

Christian MacLeod made an excellent point in his presentation that the belief in large hairy man-type animals crosses cultures and have existed for generations. China has a yeren, Australia has yowie and Nepal has a yeti.  Mountaineer Eric Shipton’s photograph of a abominable snowman footprint dating 1951, was taken on Mt. Everest. The word sasquatch comes from North American Indian tribes meaning wild men. The belief that the bigfoot type creature roam the world is widespread. 

The best thing about the conference was the people.  We’re all dressed in our bigfoot t-shirts, including me, wandering around the vendors looking for the perfect bigfoot related merchandise. I bought a really cute and slightly tacky bigfoot necklace, paired with my t-shirt looked weirdly stunning. Mark was skeptical of the entire conference but warmed up to the whole experience once he started talking to people and browsing the displays. It was an entertaining and educational experience!