Currently
46°
Fog

Advertisement





News

CLASSIFIEDS


Advertisement


Free Ad

Place an ad
in print and online, 24/7 for free, select the Clean Sweep option. Unable to submit Real Estate, Services, and Business Investements at this time.

Get a Subscription


Map the Valley


Subscriber/
Reader Services

Subscribe Now
Contact Customer Service



Chasing Bigfoot

David Raygoza has heard it all: The sniggers, the jokes, the "crackpot" comments.

It doesn't much faze the high school principal from Fresno as he pursues the passion that has consumed much of his free time for years: Tracking Bigfoot, a purportedly ape-like creature reputed to live in the remote mountains east of Kings County.

Raygoza is taking his findings, and the stories he's collected over the years, to a Bigfoot symposium he's holding at Fatte Albert's Pizza Company in Hanford from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday -- surely the town's first ever. The restaurant is located at 100 E. 7th St.

Raygoza said he's prepared for the skepticism.

"Usually, my response is, I go with it. There's no need to get into a confrontation," he said.



David Raygoza shows pictures taken while searching for Bigfoot. (Joe Proudman/The Sentinel)


The 49-year-old principal is more interested in finding people who can provide visual or other evidence of a creature he claims to have seen three times.

"Generally, what I say is, 'you've got to open your eyes to what's out there,'" he said.

Others have opened their eyes and seen nothing, despite the hundreds of reported sightings of the creature and moldings taken of its footprints.

Many put the Bigfoot phenomenon in the category of popular folklore, alongside stories of UFOs, alien abductions and ghosts.

"With the thousands of dollars of cameras (these people) lug around with them, why don't they have a picture? You know, we need a body, we need some DNA, we need bones," said Brian Dunning, founder of www.skeptoid.com, a Web site that critically analyzes pop culture.

National forest officials, for their part, say they have no knowledge of any kind of unidentified primate that could qualify as a Bigfoot.

"I've been working on this forest for 20 years and I've never seen or heard of a sighting of a Bigfoot ... or traces of a Bigfoot," said Denize Alonzo, spokeswoman for three ranger districts in Sequoia National Forest.

Raygoza concedes that what's needed is unambiguous proof.

"I would say to the (skeptics), you are absolutely right, that nothing's been found. But there are just too many eyewitness accounts out there," Raygoza said.

Sightings of Bigfoot-like creatures have been reported around the world for hundreds of years, first in American Indian cultures and later in the United States, particularly in the remote forested areas of northern California and the Pacific Northwest.

The accounts generally describe a creature that's taller than humans, covered in fur, walking upright, with long swinging arms and a low forehead reminiscent of African apes.

The stories have a certain scientific plausibility.

Fossil evidence shows that large, ape-like species cohabited with humans as late as 100,000 years ago.

The problem is that no such remains have been found younger than 100,000 years, and none have ever been located in North America.

Still, that's enough for a handful of academics to at least hold out the possibility that a great ape species could have lived longer, perhaps even into recent times.

"Personally, I am pursuing it from an academic standpoint. My interest is in the biology and natural history of a presumed great ape surviving into the modern era," said Jeffrey Meldrum, associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University.

Meldrum is often derided by his fellow academics as an eccentric dissenter.

But he has his defenders, Dunning among them.

Jane Goodall, the famous anthropologist who lived with chimpanzees in Africa, has been sympathetic to Meldrum's studies.

Goodall couldn't be reached for comment Friday.

"My argument is that there is a body of evidence that is strongly suggestive of the existence of such an animal," Meldrum said, stopping short of saying that he actually believes Bigfoot is out there somewhere.

"It remains a question. And there are vexing issues ... like, how has it been able to avoid scientific scrutiny for so long?," he said.

David Raygoza hopes that the Bigfoot symposium will provide a breakthrough.

"Maybe when people are camping in the mountains and hear something go bump in the night, maybe it's something that we can explain," he said.

The reporter can be reached at 582-0471, ext. 3061.

(July 28, 2007)

POST A COMMENT

 

Hanfordsentinel.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed, particularly if they are posted after normal office hours.

We reserve the right to remove comments in total that violate our code of conduct. If you want to report a violation, please e-mail editor@HanfordSentinel.com

For more information please read our Terms of use, and Rules of the Road.

 


Please log in to post comments
*Member ID:
*Password:
  Forgot Your Password?
 
If you don't have an account you can create one for free by clicking the link below.
CREATE ACCOUNT
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the views of the Hanford Sentinel




Advertisement


HOT TOPICS

> More Hot Topics


SENTINEL BLOGS

Daydream Island by Shannon Milliken

38 Things

I know, I know. It’s been a long time. But I’m back on the blogs again and thanks to my coverage of education I’ve got something to say in light of tomorrow’s holiday. (haha, I rhyme, and get ready, because this is going to be cheesy). So, in school, the teachers typically have their students write [...]

Signposts by Seth Nidever

Faith in the ruins

I interviewed an 85-year-old woman on Monday. I will surely never hear “young man” as much as I did for the hour I talked with Merry Loo. “Young man,” she said. “Go out there and find a wife.” Go out and find a wife. Procreate. Buy a house. Be civic minded. Treat people with fairness, honesty and [...]

Sentinel Online by Josh Parrish

Sentinel Photo Galleries

You might have noticed we just launched our new photo gallery section.  Not only will you get to sift through multiple new galleries every week from our excellent photographers, Apolinar Fonseca and Gary Feinstein, but you will be able to look at local readers’ photos as well. Enthusiasts, parents with a camera, or anyone else can [...]

Going All-in by Richard de Give

Fearful Football Forecast: Week 12

Are some of these leagues getting so predictable that even I can predict them right? I was just doing last week’s totals and can’t believe I again nailed just about all of them. The one miss, the Cowboys, of course. I generally haven’t fared well in these things at other papers, seriously! 13-1 again, now [...]

Signposts by Seth Nidever

The poison of ideology

Ideology is often the bane of this blog. I say this at the risk of alienating some of the most frequent commentators. But it needs to be said: Ideology is one of the great poisons of the modern age, remnants of which survive into the postmodern world we now live in. For evidence, just read some of the [...]

> More Blogs


MORE LOCAL NEWS

Lemoore:

Selma:

Kingsburg:



EMAIL UPDATES

Sign up today to get all your local headlines delivered to your home or work e-mail address, so you don't miss the latest in breaking and local news.
E-Mail:
Daily News Updates
Breaking News Alerts