A listener writes “In Episode 1180 The Caveman on the Property / Chronicles of Dean ya’ll discussed what it means when they show their teeth. The consensus appears to be that it must mean a sign of aggression.
What it may mean is a sign of non-aggression. I have primarily studied macaque monkeys but I had the privilege of spending a year at the Yerkes Primate Center Field Station in Lawrenceville, Georgia where they have the greatest collection of great apes in the world. My ambition was to become a primatologist. That plan did not come to fruition but I did finally end up in here in Oregon and I am still looking for bigfoot in my retirement from work.
I spend a couple of years working in a research facility at the University of Georgia studying a troop of Rhesus macaques and a troop of “crab tail” macaques. The research was funded by the Army out of Fort Detrick if I remember correctly. They were trying to predict drug use by lower ranking soldiers. That goal was questionable in my mind. However, we collected daily social behavior from each troop. There were standardized behaviors that were coded so we could punch the observation in quickly.
There was one code for aggression and one code for submission. The behavior for aggression included staring with the eyebrows crunched close together as you would see in humans. The mouth would be wide open and there was “posturing”- much like you probably saw in your bar bouncer days. Also, there were usually “grunts” or similar vocalizations involved The behavior for submission was called a “grimace”. This looked much more like a smile and the eyelids would come up. There were other retreating behaviors depending on how much threat the animal perceived. Yes I know I am being a little anthropomorphic but you would recognize it if you saw it. In summary, aggression is more open mouth, lips not way back, teeth protruding and vocalizations.
In contrast a grimace was more closed mouth, lips way back with no teeth protruding and no vocalizations except maybe squeals and avoidance if significantly threatened. What it sounded like to me was this bigfoot was signaling non-aggression but not necessarily submission.
I have been in Oregon since 1983 and been all over these woods. The closest I have come to an encounter happened in 2016. I didn’t start listening to your show until a couple of years ago. I was in the Mt. Hood Roaring River Wilderness in Clackamas County. I went there to check it out since a guy named Robert Bissell went missing there back in 2010. There are several newspaper articles you can read about it. The main lake in that area is Shellrock Lake.
There is only one trail in and one trail out unless you make an extremely difficult trek up to the upper rock lakes. The best way to get to the upper lakes is through Frazier Turnaround that is hard to drive to but does have a campground. That is where Bissell was camped out I believe. All I did was walk in about 1.5 miles and down to Shellrock Lake, took come pictures then headed back out. There were cars at the trailhead but I did not see anyone else coming in or going out. On my way back out I started hearing a very low growl. It was like you described as having the devil sitting on your shoulder.
I stopped for about 5 minutes trying to locate the source. I turned round and round and even looked up in the trees. Nothing. To get back out of the “bowl” the lake was sitting in I had to climb up and go around a blind corner to get back on the only trail to the trailhead where I was parked. I didn’t have any weapons on me except my walking poles and a K-Bar. As I was walking toward the blind corner it sounded like something may be on the cliff above waiting to pounce on top of me. When I finally rounded the corner without any encounter and headed back down the trail the growling noise went away and I started thinking I may have imagined the growling.
However, after not going very far I heard an extremely loud noise that sounded like a tree coming down like you would here in a tree falling operation. There was no ongoing logging operations in that area. I walked back really fast to look around the corner but still did not see anything and did not hear any more growling. I did read that some people fishing got chased out of there by rocks being thrown at them about a week before Bissell showed up.
My main purpose was to inform you and your audience that showing of teeth may not always mean aggression. However, I am not encouraging or recommending that people interpret this to be a sign of friendship or submission and think it was okay to approach.”