On March 18, 1987, there was a seven-man crew working outdoors in the cold and frozen wilderness near Fellers Heights, British Columbia. Four of the men called attention to something they saw on the outskirts of their worksite. They described a creature that was 7 ft tall, maybe 400 lbs. A monster.

Myles Jack, one of the workers, said: "But it was a real mover. It was really fluid in the way it moved." The creature was crouched down for part of the time, seeming to watch the men as they worked. When it circled the work site, it would peer at them through the trees, still watching them work. "It was like we were on his territory and he was checking us out."

While it was not research, the Russian army and this officer had an extraordinary encounter with a creature called Almasty. There seem to be several versions of what happened in 1925 and I will tell them all.

Major General Mikhail Stephanovitch Topilski was the commander of a cavalry regiment in the Red Army during the Civil War after the Communist Revolution of 1917. In 1925, he and his men were given the task of hunting down anti-Communist forces in the Pamir Mountains southwest of the Tien Shan. They encountered more than just fighting men.

Many independent researchers made their way into the remote areas of Russia; some with the intention of studying the strange man-like, hairy creatures, and others who ran across them while traveling or while conducting their other research.

K.A. Satunin was a leading student of vertebrates in the Caucasus. He had an accidental encounter in the Talyish Mountains. He discovered a female "Biaban-Guli", which was the name used by the southern Caucasus people. When he reached a nearby settlement, he tried to obtain more information on these hairy, man-like animals who appeared unable to speak.

In the summer of 1973, Illinois became the center of bigfoot activity. For two weeks the Murphysboro Mud Monster, also called  Big Muddy Monster, struck fear into the residents' hearts.

It began around midnight on June 25, 1973. A young couple, Randy Needham and Judy Johnson had parked near the boat ramp on the Big Muddy River near the city of Murphysboro. As they sat there, they heard a strange, roaring cry that came from the nearby woods. They looked towards the trees and saw a huge shape coming toward them, continuing to make the cry. When it got within 20 feet of their car, they realized that this was a 7-foot-tall creature with matted, whitish hair or fur streaked with mud from the river. Knowing that this was "something not human", they fled to the police station.

When men first began to encounter strange "creatures" in the forests and grasslands, they called them "Wild Men". Experiences with these "Wildmen" occur throughout history. Even talked of in classical and preclassical times.

There was almost a romance to the "wildness" of these men. A wildness that called to the hearts of all men, a freedom of the soul, that releases something inside us even today. In the tales, we are warned of this wildness, as it would overtake us. Consume us. Take us away from civilization.

John Green made many contacts who shared the stories they heard in their areas with him. Two of them for the Vancouver area were Bruce McKelvie and Charles Cates.

Bruce Mckelvie was a journalist and historian, who spent time listening to the stories told by the people in the area. He was known to keep silent if asked to and never told of the secret encounters. Charles Cates, Mayor of North Vancouver, also collected stories of these creatures. Both of these men recorded these tales long before anyone thought to keep any sort of systematic records. Unfortunately, most of what they knew was lost when they died in the late 1950s.

There are so many reasons people will give for Britain not being home to any Bigfoot-type creature.

NO FOSSIL BASED EVIDENCE. NO BONES. NO LIVE OR DEAD SPECIMENS. HABITAT.

Hmmm. Those all sound familiar. Let's see, we (well, most of us) will agree that there appears to be a large, hairy man-beast living in North America  and we can list:

Wisconsin is not just pasture land and cows and Milwaukee. There are rivers and lakes and forested land. And there are sasquatch.

In 1964, a man driving down State Highway 89, reported seeing a sasquatch run across the highway in front of him. This happened shortly after midnight and was near the Illinois border. When the sasquatch crossed in front of him, it jumped the fences on either side of the highway.

    

"I heard this ungodly sound coming from the woods". In 1979, a family in Kinderhook, NY, began having strange encounters with unknown creatures. The Hallenbecks stated that over three years, there were several instances where they have been visited, virtually terrorized, by a creature they claim to be Bigfoot. Three generations had terrifying run-ins with a large, hairy beast in the woods around their home. "It just seemed like whatever this was, just kind of showed up here," stated Bruce Hallenbeck. Mysterious occurrences that all point to one outrageous explanation. "I didn't really expect that a Bigfoot-type creature would show up literally in my backyard," said Hallenbeck.

"A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth." - Wikipedia

"A humorous or malicious deception." - Bing hh

"Something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage; the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)." - Free Dictionary.

"A label freely thrown around the Bigfoot Community to discredit those who post theories, 'evidence', discoveries, suggestions, etc. that do not correspond with the 'Inner circle' views or that come from any 'Outsider'." - Nancy Marietta

In 1980, a Mongolian government employee came across a dead body while working in Bulgan.

At first, he thought it was a human body. But when he got a closer look, he knew differently.

"I approached and saw the hairy corpse of a robust humanlike creature dried and half-buried by sand. I had never seen such a humanlike being before covered by camel-color brownish-yellow short hairs and I recoiled, although, in my native land in Sinkiang, I had seen many dead men killed in battle . . .  The dead thing was not a bear or ape and at the same time, it was not a man like Mongol or Kazakh or Chinese and Russian. The hairs on its head were longer than on its body. The skin was darkened and shriveled like the hide of a dead camel".

Sightings of the Almas have remained much the same through the years. Consistent. And much more accepted than the concept of bigfoot in North America.

There is not much said of hearing these creatures speak. They tend to keep to themselves in remote areas, glimpsed as they go about their lives by people while they are moving their cattle from pasture to pasture area. The time of day encountered is generally dawn or dusk. They are said to be similar in height to modern humans. They are considered shy. And are "able to use tools". (1)

Another trip outside North America. We venture to Mongolia, the land of the almas, or almasti (Almasty).

Armchair is the best vehicle for our trip as the inaccessibility of a great deal of the country makes it difficult. There are not many roads, locals are suspicious of foreigners, there is mistrust of those searching for the Almas, and although the government likes tourism, they are not necessarily fond of those who want to hunt the 'Wildman'.

In 1973, there were several sightings of a mysterious creature in a gravel pit near Puyallup, Washington. This elusive being became known as the Puyallup Screamer due to its spine-chilling vocalizations.

 

Marlin Ayers, a witness to these events, recorded the Sasquatch sounds emanating from the woods. Amidst the eerie howls, you can also hear birdsong and a distant train whistle in the background. The Puyallup Screamer's vocalizations left the neighborhood residents both fascinated and terrified.

The recording has been heavily scrutinized over the years.

Interesting thoughts and theories can be formed when getting together with fellow researchers.

For example, in a recent get-together, someone ventured the comment about seeing a "new" face in their research area. It took a few seconds, then I noticed several others silently nod.

It seems that for some reason there appear to be more sasquatch in the research areas than before. Among the newcomers are females who appear to be pregnant and really young ones, even possibly newborns.