El Chupacabra by Carlos Angeli

The Bauman Encounter: The One Time Bigfoot Killed a Man

There have been very few reports of Bigfoot attacks on humans, but only once has someone reportedly been killed. The story comes from “The Wilderness Hunter” by Theodore Roosevelt which is a collection of stories from men living on the frontier. This particular story was told by an old trapper named Bauman who’s age had nearly gotten the best of him. He recounted the time he and his friend ventured into what is modern day Wisconsin or Montana to trap beaver.

Bauman was still a young man at the time, he had ventured out into the frontier with a friend to trap beaver. They didn’t manage to catch anything so they decided to head up to a pass which was said to have beaver. Stories told of wild murderous beasts up there but they paid no attention to them and headed there anyways. They made camp there and headed out to set some traps.

When they came back that night their camp had been ransacked by what they assumed was a bear, they would later discover by looking at at tracks that this was no bear. This creature walked on two feet. After rebuilding camp and getting some sleep, Bauman was awoken in the night by a beast looking at them through they’re lean-to. He grabbed his rifle and fired at the creature but missed. The creature ran off but the two trappers didn’t get any sleep the rest of the night. The following day they continued to trap and when the sun started to set they came back to their camp to find it ransacked yet again, the same culprit leaving it’s footprints in the dirt. That night they got extra wood to make a large fire and slept in shifts. The creature came back yet again but stayed on a hillside away from them and watched from a distance, seemingly afraid of the fire. It let out two loud moans during its time of observance but eventually left.

When morning came they decided to leave, but before they could they would have to collect their traps. They eventually split up as Bauman agreed to collect the rest of the traps while his friend went back to pack their bags. Bauman found the remaining three traps had each caught a beaver and spent hours collecting and preparing them. He headed back to camp as the sun fell behind the mountains, the valley felt dark and still. He came back to a smoldering fire with his friend’s lifeless body laying next to it. He had packed their bags and sat next to the fire to rest and wait for Bauman to return. At some point while he waited the creature had snuck up behind him biting and breaking his neck. Bauman took a short time to mourn his friend before leaving everything but his rifle behind and left the area as fast as he could.

Handy blog on eyeshine, important to understand when squatching at night…

Eyeshine in animals is produced by a special membrane, called the tapetum lucidum (tapestry of light), a reflective surface that is located directly behind the retina. When the small rays of light found in the night, like starlight or moonlight, enter the eye, they bounce off the membrane, giving the eye a second chance to use the light. For animals that have this membrane, it is like having a built in flashlight that lights a path from the inside out.

The tapetum lucidum, coupled with big eyes and lots of light-sensing rod cells, allow nocturnal mammals to see well in dark or dim conditions. But eyeshine isn’t limited to mammals. Once, while at the edge of a pond listening to the midnight chorus of frogs, my flashlight caught the glimmering, emerald-green eyes of a huge bullfrog. And in my obsession over eyeshine, I am eagerly looking forward to the summer, when I will be searching the forest floor for the ruby red glow of a wolf spider’s eyes. I only wish that my eyes would glow, a fierce sapphire blue in the darkest of night, but although humans have many interesting adaptations, good night vision is not one of them. Our abundance of cones and lack of rods mean we see more colors than most other animals, but we can’t see in the dark. And we don’t have a tapetum lucidum – when our eyes appear red in photographs, it’s a reflection of the camera’s flash off the red blood cells of the choroid, which is a vascular layer behind the retina.

Eyeshine color varies by species, from the amber glow of a bobcat to the red glint of a black bear. The different colors are produced by the mineral content and the structure of the tapetum lucidum, as well as varying pigments in the retina. There does seem to be some overlap of colors, like bobcat and raccoon having yellow/amber eyeshine.

So is it at all possible to identify an animal by eyeshine color alone? According to ecologist and long-time tracker Dr. Rick van de Poll, eyeshine is somewhat variable so that even within the same species the color can look a bit different. Factors that influence individual eyeshine color, according to van de Poll, include the age and individual chemistry of the animal, as well as seasonal variation and the angle and intensity of the light hitting the eye. But this doesn’t deter van de Poll from using eyeshine as a clue to identifying mammals. “It’s part of the information” he said, “but you have to also be paying attention to the animal’s behavior, the shape and placement of the eyes, and how the animal moves away from the light, or if it even moves away from the light at all.”

"Seven and a half to eight feet tall. And we just started screaming, we were banging on the truck trying to get our parents to stop because we were kids, nobody was going to believe us. And we used to run those woods all the time in between my house and her house. And after that, I said no more, I'm not going back in those woods. It could have snapped us like a twig if it wanted to," Killian said

This was sent to me from Iowa from a source that wishes to remain anonymous

Happy 1st day of October #

McARTHUR, Ohio A man who has been searching for the legendary ' Bigfoot ' in southern Ohio says he has found new evidence that several of the elusive creatures may be living in the area.

Robert Gardnier of Columbus, Ohio, said he and several other hunters went into the Wayne National Forest west of McArthur recently and found footprints measuring 17 ? inches long and 9 inches wide.

Gardiner, who described the creatures as being 'very shy,' said he and his hunting party were surrounded by the creatures at one time.

'We had been to this deserted A-frame ... and were looking in this ravine for tracks and didn't find anything,' said Gardiner. 'Later on ... we came back to the A-frame and there were big tracks. These had to be made within an hour before we got there.'

He said the hunters went into the ravine where the visibility is limited because of dense woods, brush and brambles.

'We were looking at a specific sign on a tree,' he said. 'We found something on a tree. I'm not going to divulge what it is, but we were checking it out and we heard one bark.

'They have a barking-type growl like a chimpanzee or like a gorilla,' he said. 'We listened and then we heard one behind us, and what these two things were doing was communicating back and forth. They couldn't have been over 25 or 30 yards away from us.

'One was between us and the A-frame and the other was on the other side of us,' he said.

Gaadiner said he feels the creatures are only passing through the area heading for mountains in the southern part of the United States. He said one may have been injured and that is why they are staying in the McArthur area for so long.

'I've told everybody to quit shooting at these things,' Gardiner said. 'If you come across one, he won't bother you. He's just curious.'

Many hunters have tried to find the creature, also called Sasquatch , which is about as elusive as the Himalayan Yeti _ the 'Abominable Snowman' _ and supposedly comes from the Pacific Northwest.

Throughout the summer, Sasquatch -like creatures have been sighted and reported in southern and central Ohio.

Bigfoot reportedly was first sighted in Ohio near McArthur Aug. 24. Larry E. Cottrill said he found three Sasquatch -like animals near his home, shot at them and may have wounded one in the shoulder. Cottrill has since moved away.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1980 United Press International