Could Bigfoot be in Big Bear?
Crestline resident Claudia Ackley isn’t sure, but she is certain she and her daughters encountered three of the hirsute bipeds while hiking on a trail in Lake Arrowhead last March.
It was dusk, between 6:30 and 7 p.m., on March 27, to be exact. Ackley and her 11- and 14-year-old daughters were hiking the winding trail when Ackley’s daughters, several yards ahead, froze in their tracks, gazing wide-eyed at a large, shadowy figure braced in a pine tree. Ackley ran to her daughters to see what they were staring at.
“I ran into a Sasquatch – a Bigfoot. We were face to face,” said Ackley, 46. “He was 30 feet up in the tree.”
She said the creature was barrel-chested, with a head three times the size of a human’s, and appeared to weigh about 800 pounds.
“He looked like a neanderthal man with hair all over him. He had solid black eyes. He had no expression on his face at all. He did not show his teeth. He just stared at the three of us,” said Ackley. She said she made a howling “whoop” sound, and the creature in the tree reacted by rocking back and forth, shaking branches. That’s when Ackley told her daughters to turn and slowly walk away. She said her youngest daughter, who shot video of the alleged encounter on her phone, later told her mother she saw two other similar creatures on the ground, running away upon their approach.
After being told by insistent forest rangers they had seen a bear, and believing she would never be taken seriously by anyone in an official capacity, Ackley, a Bigfoot enthusiast and researcher of more than 20 years, teamed up with documentary filmmaker Todd Standing, the man behind the Netflix film Discovering Bigfoot, and sued the state in San Bernardino Superior Court on Jan. 18.
Legal action
The lawsuit alleges the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the state Natural Resources Agency have been derelict in their duty by not acknowledging the existence of the Sasquatch species, despite a mountain of documented and scientific evidence. It has had a chilling effect on the study of the Sasquatch, considered illegitimate and relegated to the category of “paranormal research.” It has damaged Ackley’s “livelihood, public image and credibility,” as well as others dedicated to the study of the bipedal hominid, according to the lawsuit.
Ackley’s lawyer, Bobby Garcia, did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment.
Ackley’s biggest concern is that the government, by not acknowledging Bigfoot’s existence, could be endangering the public.
“People have to be warned about these things. They are big,” Ackley said. “We’re totally vulnerable to these things.”
Fish and Wildlife spokesman Andrew Hughan declined to comment, citing the lawsuit. He did say that Bigfoot is not a recognized species by his agency.
Lisa Lien-Mager, spokeswoman for the state Natural Resources Agency, also declined to comment due to the ongoing litigation.
The site
On a recent morning, leaves and dry brush crunched under Ackley’s feet as she descended the mountain slope near the trail where she said she and her daughters encountered the ominous beast. She approached a pine tree and pointed up to its thick, forking branches.
“This is where the creature was,” said Ackley. “He was sitting behind a big branch up there.”
She notes the lack of claw marks on the tree.
“If it was a bear, there would be claw marks on the tree,” said Ackley.
Near another tree sits a discarded tire, where Ackley leaves snacks for Sasquatch – apples, oranges, Fritos and a can of Coca-Cola – along with a voice-activated book with pictures inside, made by Ackley in an effort to communicate with Bigfoot. Ackley recorded words such as “candy” and “fur,” along with pictures or samples of each taped to the pages.
“We think they have language, as people have recorded them actually speaking,” said Ackley. “I’m trying to teach them a little bit of our language to communicate with them.”
Sasquatches are reported to make howling “whoop” sounds and successive knocking sounds on trees as a means of communicating or signaling.
Ackley points out other signs in the surrounding woods that researchers have long believed are indicators of the large, hairy creature’s presence: snapped tree branches, sticks positioned in various patterns against trees and on the ground, dissecting trails and paths. Could this be glyphing, or the use of symbols, which many Bigfoot researchers believe is a way they communicate or mark territory?
Standing said he was at first skeptical of Ackley’s story, but he is now convinced she is telling the truth after observing the area where the alleged encounter occurred and examining the video footage recorded by Ackley’s daughter. He did say he was surprised by the location of the alleged sighting, as California Sasquatches are known to inhabit mainly Northern California wilderness areas, not densely populated mountain regions like the San Bernardino Mountains.
The suspected Bigfoot population, depending on who you talk to, ranges between roughly 15,000 and 100,000, spread out across the globe. Experts believe Sasquatches made their way into North America from Asia via an ancient ice bridge, the Bering Strait, which connected Russia and Alaska.
Sasquatches are believed to have evolved from a giant, primitive ape. Their relatively small numbers, coupled with the belief they are nocturnal, highly intelligent creatures skilled at eluding humans, is believed why it has been so difficult proving the existence of Bigfoot, or obtaining living or dead specimens of the creature.
Mountain of evidence
Ackley, with Standing’s support, plans to introduce a plethora of evidence in court to prove the existence of Sasquatch. They will have wildlife biologists, wilderness experts, and police forensic officers testify on their behalf. They will present fingerprint, track, and DNA evidence from hair samples Standing said he obtained from a tree during a 2014 expedition.
“If this goes to court, we will win, easily,” Standing said in a telephone interview Friday. “It’s not a joke. The best wilderness experts in the world are coming out to testify. It’s amazing.”
Those experts include Jeff Meldrum, professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, who has written extensively on the evolution of primates and authored a book on Sasquatch. He is featured in Standing’s Discovering Bigfoot documentary in which Standing, Meldrum, and the late wildlife biologist John Bingernadel venture into the vast expanses of the Canadian wilderness in search of the Sasquatch. Video footage from various alleged Sasquatch sightings appears in the documentary, showing them standing watch during the day – behind trees and rocky outcroppings – and running up mountainsides.
Bob Gimlin, who along with Roger Patterson shot the most famous footage of a reported Bigfoot sighting in Northern California in 1967, is also on Ackley’s witness list and should be testifying, Standing said. Gimlin’s and Patterson’s grainy, minute-long 16-millimeter film, shot at Bluff Creek, shows a large, hairy creature walking along the creek, turning to face the camera before striding off into the woods. The film has come to be known in Bigfoot circles as the “Patterson-Gimlin film.”
In October, Standing, 44, filed a similar lawsuit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, where he resides, in an effort to get the Sasquatch species officially recognized by B.C. Fish and Wildlife and the B.C. Minister of Environment. But the legal system moves slower in Canada than in the U.S., said Standing, adding that his hearing date there hasn’t even been scheduled.
In San Bernardino, however, Ackley has a hearing scheduled for March 19 before Judge David Cohn.
Bigfoot legend
For more than 100 years, there have been hundreds of Bigfoot sightings in California. The creature’s nickname “Bigfoot” was coined in a 1958 article in the Humboldt Times, which was picked up and published across the globe, creating widespread interest. The species was even acknowledged by President Theodore Roosevelt in his book The Wilderness Hunter, published in 1892, according to Ackley’s lawsuit.
According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, there have been more than 5,100 Bigfoot sightings in the continental U.S., with the earliest reported in 1932 in Buchanan, Missouri. The states with the largest number of sightings are Washington, with 643 sightings, followed by California with 437, then Florida with 314, according to the BFRO, founded in 1995 and the “only scientific research organization exploring the bigfoot/sasquatch mystery,” according to its website.
The majority of sightings in California have been in the northern and central parts of the state, according to the BFRO. Many who claim to have encountered a Bigfoot describe an extremely foul smelling, apelike creature standing between 7 and 8 feet tall and weighing between 500 and 800 pounds.
Skeptics
Some Bigfoot researchers are skeptical of Standing and Ackley and their respective court cases.
“I can’t believe that the courts would acknowledge something like this,” said Bigfoot researcher and historian Daniel Perez, of Riverside. “I think the evidence is lacking.”
For the last 20 years, Perez, a union electrician by trade, has published the monthly newsletter Bigfoot Times and is considered an expert on the Patterson-Gimlin film. He will be a featured guest speaker this week at the Nebraska Bigfoot Conference in Hastings, Nebraska. He also runs the Center for Bigfoot Studies out of his home, which he says is essentially a clearinghouse on Bigfoot research.
Perez does not believe Standing’s work is authentic, that his so-called Bigfoot videos and still photo footage is faked, and that he’s in it for the publicity.
“I think he may have got a bad case of Bigfoot-itis because he wanted attention,” Perez said. “I think the whole focus of why he’s doing it is to draw attention to his Netflix movie he wants to sell.”
Perez is also skeptical of the DNA evidence Standing says he has and plans to present in court.
“I don’t see anything coming from hairs saying ‘this is an unknown primate,'” said Perez. “What institution and what individual tested it?”
He said he is 100 percent confident Bigfoot is out there, but social media and advancing technologies have created a breeding ground for Bigfoot fraudsters.
“I think these people are doing it to get attention, like snake oil salesmen trying to sell their videos,” said Perez. He acknowledges he has never seen a Sasquatch himself, though he has traveled to locations of Bigfoot sightings across the globe, from the Pacific Northwest to Australia, in hopes of seeing one himself.
Standing said he can back his words, and his film, with action.
“I never said, ‘believe my work and take my word for it,'” said Standing. “I say, ‘come out with me and I’ll show you a Sasquatch.’ I’ll take anybody out. I’ve done it many, many times, and I’ll take Daniel Perez out, too.”
First encounter
Ackley said her first encounter with a Sasquatch was in Greenwater, Washington in 2014, during an outing with fellow Bigfoot enthusiasts. She said she also believed she encountered one in Yosemite National Park on a camping trip in 1997, but she cannot be sure.
In the 1997 incident, Ackley said she and a couple of her roommates were camping when they heard a loud growl outside their tent. When Ackley peeked out, she said she saw something large, hairy and bipedal walking into the woods. From then on, she committed herself to the study of the Sasquatch, which has fueled her passion for more than 20 years.
“I don’t know if it was a Sasquatch, but that night changed everything for me,” said Ackley. “I always wondered what it was that walked into the woods.”
