Eugene Parnell

Journalist Scott Bowen is On the trail of the New York Bigfoot. He joins an expedition sponsored by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, and tells us all about it. I have always wondered about these expeditions. At the reception to my show the other night, I met a field biologist working on the Olympic Peninsula, who has met some of the core members, and what she had to say wasn’t terribly kind. Another gallery visitor mentioned that the expeditions have become so popular (despite the $300 fee for first-time joiners) that BFRO is no longer allowing new people to come along.

So when you get 400 people to go camping together and trot around in the woods with their night vision scopes and walkie-talkies and whatnot, does it become anything other than a kind of group snipe hunt? BFRO contends that their expeditions do, reliably, turn up Bigfoot-related phenomena like vocalizations and wood-knocking. But are they legitimate, or are they some kind of manufactured thrill-experience? Hard to say. My informants tell me some of the participants are quite sincere.

I guess I won’t find out; not this year, at least.