Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

SFGATE writes “California may soon have an official mythical creature — and naturally, it’s Bigfoot. Assemblymember Chris Rogers, who represents a stretch of the North Coast that has long been considered Sasquatch territory, introduced Assembly Bill 666 on Feb. 14, 2025. The bill aims to designate Bigfoot as the state’s official cryptid, a term for creatures that some people believe to exist despite a lack of proof. Rogers’ district spans Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma and Trinity counties, a region known as the epicenter of Bigfoot lore.

Matt Moneymaker, a longtime Bigfoot researcher and former star of the Animal Planet series “Finding Bigfoot,” has spent decades studying the elusive creature. As president of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, he’s been fascinated by the legend since the 1980s.

When Moneymaker first heard about Assembly Bill 666, he told SFGATE he was skeptical. “I first thought it was a joke,” he said. “It sounded like it was a parody of states having official all sorts of things. So I thought it was supposed to be a spoof on that.”

But once he realized the bill was serious, his perspective shifted. “Apparently, a state can have an official cryptid. So why not?” he said. “And obviously, Bigfoot’s the biggest one of all among cryptids, and California is where the term Bigfoot was popularized, so it makes sense.”

Moneymaker’s research suggests that Bigfoot isn’t just a lone, mythical creature but a widespread species. “It’s a population of animals,” he claimed, adding that they inhabit “many parts of California.” Sightings, he said, are most common from Mendocino County north along the coast and through the mountain ranges surrounding the northern Central Valley, extending down the Sierra Nevada and even into Southern California’s Transverse Ranges.

After nearly 40 years of research, Moneymaker says he’s had several close encounters with multiple Sasquatches. “I’ve gotten close to them several times,” he said. One encounter left no doubt in his mind. “I had a face-to-face encounter one time, after which I was absolutely sure they existed because I had one about 20 feet in front of me, growling at me.”

Eric Nelson, 58, volunteers at the China Flat Museum & Bigfoot Collection in the Humboldt County community of Willow Creek — the heart of Northern California’s Bigfoot Country. In this town, he told SFGATE, Bigfoot isn’t just a cryptid. “A lot of people believe it exists.”

Willow Creek fully embraces its legendary resident. “There’s a Bigfoot restaurant, a Bigfoot burger. A Bigfoot golf course. You get the picture,” Nelson said. “It’s been in the zeitgeist, or in the community, since basically 1958.”

When he heard about Assembly Bill 666, which would recognize Bigfoot as California’s official cryptid, he saw an opportunity. “In terms of bringing notoriety and tourism, it’d be great for us in Willow Creek.”

Nelson recounted how California’s most famous legend got its name — one that would go on to capture imaginations worldwide.

“In 1958, there was a road crew from Willow Creek,” Nelson said. The crew had been sent deep into the Bluff Creek region, a dense Douglas fir forest, to carve out new logging roads. But as they worked, they kept stumbling upon something strange — massive, humanlike footprints unlike anything they had ever seen.

Jerry Crew, the road supervisor, was baffled. “He was telling people, but they didn’t believe him,” Nelson explained. Determined to prove he wasn’t imagining things, Crew turned to taxidermist Bob Titmus for advice. Titmus suggested using plaster of Paris to capture the mysterious tracks.

“That’s what Jerry Crew did on Oct. 5, 1958,” Nelson said. Armed with a plaster cast, Crew drove straight to the Humboldt Times and met with editor Andrew Genzoli.

In that moment, a legend was born. “They named it Bigfoot,” Nelson said. “Up until then, there were regional names for a hairy beast — Native American names — but they named it Bigfoot.”

The story took off. “It went out on the AP wire and became a worldwide sensation,” Nelson said. “It went around the world.”

After Ray Wallace, a logger who helped popularize the Bigfoot story, died, his family went public and told a Los Angeles Times reporter that their father was “up in heaven laughing” after faking the entire Bigfoot Bluff Creek saga.

Legends of a hair-covered, bipedal creature have circulated for centuries, predating the Bigfoot moniker. A 2012 research paper highlighted a roughly 1,000-year-old petroglyph on Central California’s Tule River Indian Reservation that bears a striking resemblance to modern Bigfoot depictions.

Assemblyman Rogers’ Assembly Bill 666 is still in its early stages. According to the California Legislative Information website, the bill’s title has been read aloud in the state Assembly and is now being printed and distributed to committee members for review. If it clears committee, it must then pass the Assembly and Senate before reaching the governor’s desk to be signed into law.

Moneymaker, considered by some the leading Bigfoot researcher of the modern era, is eager to witness history. “If there’s going to be a date, an occasion when they’re voting on whether or not to make it the official cryptid, I would love to be up there in Sacramento,” he said. “I would gladly pay my way to be there when that happens.”

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