TULSA, OK (KTUL) — No matter what you call it, stories have been handed down for decades about the mysterious creature spotted in places all over the world.
“There were so many people from so many walks of life that were having these encounters. Many were not extraordinary encounters, just quick visuals of a large hairy thing walking around where it shouldn’t have been,” said Brian Brown.
Quick sightings turned into an easy passion for Brown and the dozens of others who make up the “North American Wood Ape Conservancy. ”
“I thought it was bogus. I thought it was all a big phony story that had been made up,” said Daryl Colyer.
Colyer served in the United States Air Force and made a promise to his friends when he was out.
“There’s no way that this thing can be real -so some of my buddies and I were talking about it one time, we had some down time, I made a vow to them, my Air Force buddies that I was going to look into this for real,” said Colyer.
Colyer said he remained skeptical until he had his own sighting.
“Ahead of me- 40 50 yards I see this figure, that jumps across the trail. It’s upright, it’s jumping like a long jumper across the trail, it lands across on the opposite side of the trail. It hits the limb, makes the limb move, takes a little skip hop and disappears into the woods,” said Colyer.
Alton Higgins was a wildlife biologist for more than 40 years. Collecting scat and researching animal species was his professional job for the state of Arizona.
“I can at least say that there’s a biological basis behind the phenomenon. It’s not hundreds of years and thousands of people that are having the same hallucination. There’s something biological about the thing,” said Higgins. “Some point, in science when people report things, hopefully someone at some point takes the initiative to look into it.”
That’s exactly what Higgins and 62 others did.
Over the course of four years, 12,000 hours of observation, the NAWAC published the ‘Ouachita Project Monograph.’
Source: http://wtov9.com/news/offbeat/report-lays-out-the-science-behind-bigfoot-search
michael n
The Ouachita project monograph is a very cool site just like this one. If you haven’t checked it out please do yourself a favor and do so. Very cool info there. Thanx for posting this wes.
Victoria A
I hope we get to hear a follow-up regarding the tracker.
Bryan G
I think it is interesting that there is an apparent shift in the way this subject is being reported by the media recently. This news story takes a more objective look at the subject. This dovetails with the current Newsweek Special edition “Bigfoot” where Newsweek recognizes the actual research that is going on instead of making it a total tabloid story. Even though I think there are quite a few holes in their articles, but to a non-believer it appears quite credible.
Even though Hanobia, made famous by “The Siege of Hanobia” (SC Ep 11 great episode by the way) does not sit in the Ouchita National Forest it sets in part of the chain of (what us Okies call Mountains; hills by Wes’s standards) the Ouchita mountains. Very active region in SE Oklahoma.
Steven B
Call me “picky”, but the newscaster’s opening statement just isn’t on the” up & up”:
“We know it is a myth or a legend, bigfoot, but now there’s new research whether the creature exists in Oklahoma…”
I’m sorry, but if there is “new research of it’s existence” then we *DON’T* know it is a myth or legend!
Melanie W
If there is a group out there that will have success in finally proving to science that there really are “wood apes”, as they choose to call them, it’s gonna be these guys. I’ve been following their work for quite a while, and I’m really impressed with their rational, methodical, logical approach to their research. What the announcer didn’t say is… NAWAC is determined to bring in a type specimen (aka bag one).