A Song for Bellingham
Notes from the Sasquatch Research Conference
in Bellingham, WA
May 27, 28 &29, 2005
by Tom Yamarone


BELLINGHAM, WA – On a beautiful Friday
afternoon, bigfoot enthusiasts began to gather at a
hotel in this scenic northern Washington city. We were
here for the 1st Annual Sasquatch Research
Conference, a two-day symposium on the subject of
bigfoot, or sasquatch. Actually, this event was inspired
by a series of Sasquatch Conferences hosted by
Stephen Harvey in Vancouver, BC during the 1990s.
The last in that series was held in Bellingham in 2001.
Jason Valenti and Paul Smith organized this
year’s event. Jason and his partner, Star Sams, along
with Paul and a small group of dedicated volunteers
(including Stephen Harvey) kept the event going.
Stephen was also the emcee of the event. As with any
conference of this type, flexibility was essential and
they handled every last minute change with calm
composure. Their energy output during the weekend
could have lit up Bellingham for months! Jason is an
independent researcher from this area and Paul is an
amazing artist from Olympia, WA. I’m sure you’ve
seen Paul’s sasquatch art before – it’s very prevalent
in our “bigfoot world.” You can check out Jason’s
research at www.sasquatchresearch.com and Paul’s art
at http://home.comcast.net/~paul.smith7/sas.htm
They were expecting attendance to be close to 200
people and the event was to begin Friday with a press
conference and a social gathering to follow. This was
one of the main attractions to me – getting to meet and
interact with other like-minded folks.
Upon entering the conference hall, I ran into
Ray Crowe of the International Bigfoot Society. It
was great to see Ray attending the conference. He’s
been a major player in the bigfoot community for over
20 years and it’s participation by people like Ray that
make the event even more memorable. Dr. Jeff
Meldrum was there looking at a pair of footprint casts
that Rene Dahinden had copied from Roger
Patterson’s original casts from the October 20, 1967
film site. He commented that they were larger than the
copies that are circulated these days. (Perhaps due to
the fact that latex molds are so precise that over
multiple copies and molds, the resulting casts get
smaller.) Chris Murphy, lead author of Meet the
Sasquatch, was there, as was Thom Powell (author 
of The Locals) and Rob Alley (author of Raincoast
Sasquatch). The atmosphere was very comfortable and
relaxed; the mood was exciting as a gathering such as
this had not taken place on the west coast since the
International Bigfoot Symposium in Willow Creek in
2003.
I spent the time greeting friends I hadn’t seen
since Willow Creek, talking with others who had made
the trip north and generally enjoying all the familiar,
friendly faces. I stepped outside and was thrilled to see
Dr. John Bindernagel standing there. He wasn’t
scheduled to speak and I had heard he had a family
conflict this weekend that would prevent him from
attending. I was glad to see him here as I consider his
book The Sasquatch: North America’s Great Ape to be
one of the best books available regarding this subject.
Also on hand – and contributing so much just
by his mere presence – was Bob Gimlin. This was no
surprise to me as I had been in contact with him, but it
was a pleasant surprise to everyone else. Getting to
meet and speak with Bob Gimlin is one of the great
joys for one interested in the topic. He’s a kind, honest
gentleman who is generous with his time with
everyone he meets. Having Bob Gimlin, John
Bindernagel, Ray Crowe and others attending was a
very special aspect of this conference, even though
they did not speak at the podium,
The conference began at 8:55 am and it started with a
song – “Bigfoot – The Living Legend” to be exact. I
know that, because I performed it. It was an honor to
share my music at this wonderful event and this was
just the crowd to understand my humorous take on the
subject. My good friend James “Bobo” Fay
accompanied me from his seat in the audience with
several bigfoot screams! It was a classic moment,
especially from my vantage point as I was lucky to
witness the crowd reaction to these surprise
“background vocals.”
First to speak was Thom Powell from Oregon. Thom
is the author of the very popular book, The Locals, and
he was here to offer his take on the current state of
bigfoot field investigations. Thom had some interesting
points to make based on his years of experience
investigating sightings and incidents in Oregon and
southern Washington. He shared with us photographs
from a wildlife study he helped with on Mt. Hood.
There were several photos of the elusive pine marten!
– and a couple that were tripped but without a subject
present. Thom shared this thought with us. “I’m really
not going to try to convince people that there are
sasquatches out there. I’m way past that. What I’m
really interested in doing – and the only reason I came
here – is to exchange findings with other people who
are field researchers.” Exactly
Autumn Williams spoke next and her topic was
“Women in Bigfooting.” She shared with us the
account of her childhood sighting at her family’s rural
home in Washington. She displayed drawings of the
sighting that she and her mother did and they were
very similar despite the fact that these drawings were
done years later and they were not together when they
sketched their memory of that day. They depict a
large, male sasquatch along with a short, juvenile
creature. Autumn has a unique perspective on this
field as she has been active since her teens and, of late,
has been prominently portrayed in the television
series, “Mysterious Encounters.” She addressed some
of the short-comings of that series due to production
priorities versus actual documentation of field work.
She encouraged field research to become more of a
passive approach – “allow the creatures to feel that
they are in control.” Sound advice. She also discussed
her up-coming expedition into the mountains of
Oregon. Along with fellow field researcher Kelly
Berdahl and some part-time support, they will embark
on a month-long excursion that is noteworthy not only
for the length of the project, but for some of the
techniques they will implement. For more information
on this expedition (and to make a contribution in
support of it) go to OregonBigfoot.com.
Photos: Top-Tom Yamarone; Center-Sketches from Autumn and
her Mom; Bottom-Autumn Williams helping a friend get home.

Kewaunee spoke about the latest findings in his
investigations. These included photos of footprints
found in Texas as well as video clips taken from a
security camera set up behind a home in the same
state. These depict a dark, upright figure walking into
and out of a corn field. At one point the figure steps
over a wire fence in the same fashion that we would –
one leg after the other while straddling the wire. The
clips were intriguing yet inconclusive without
comparison videos to accompany them. He is the
author of the book The Psychic Sasquatch and has
been a controversial figure in the bigfoot world. I will
say this – I thought his participation in the conference
was well received. It’s good to entertain all
perspectives even if we don’t embrace them. This was
another example of why this was a very special
weekend.
After lunch we had a presentation by Al Berry and
Ron Morehead, the gentlemen who recorded the
“Sierra Sounds.” These two have been involved in
this field for over 30 years and it was great to have
them there. They played samples of some of the
tracks available on their two CDs. I find these
recordings to be remarkable in their clarity and
proximity. Their contribution to the field will not be
realized until similar sounds are recorded for
comparison studies and corroboration. I will note here
that I do know of at least two groups of investigators
who have heard very similar sounds within the last
year – and they were not in the same area nor were
they near the site of these original recordings.
Hopefully someone will document these sounds so we
can fully realize the impact of Ron and Al’s groundbreaking
work.
Next a group of investigators led by John Andrews
described their recordings of alleged vocalizations
from the last few years. They have been going out
into the forests around Mt. Baker and tend to “work”
the area from 10 pm to 2 am. They “vocalize” once in
an area and hope for a return call. They have been
successful on several occasions and the sounds can be
heard at Jason’s website. (sasquatchresearch.com)
Rob Alley spoke about his current study area in
Alaska. He’s the author of the outstanding book,
Raincoast Sasquatch, and he showed us slides from 
an area near his home. He has found interesting “tree
breaks” and “twists” in this area and was exhibiting
some of the more dramatic examples. I would imagine
that we’ll be hearing more from Rob as he continues
to investigate sasquatch activity in this region. If you
haven’t read his book, I’d recommend picking up a
copy at the Bigfoot Discovery Museum. (and don’t
forget Thom Powell’s book The Locals as well!
Another fascinating read about his investigations in
Oregon.)
Loren Coleman spoke about the controversial subject
of “Sex and the Single Bigfoot.” His talk took a
sociological angle on the subject – concerned about
how little we delve into the subject of sex, gender and
reproduction with regards to bigfoot. It was an
entertaining and eye-opening presentation that
hopefully will provoke future studies to include such
anatomical details when they are able. Al Berry and Ron Morehead of Sierra Sounds. It was great to
Jack "Kewaunee" Lapseritis, author of The Psychic Sasquatch

have Loren travel so far to participate in this event. He
is the most public “spokesperson” for this subject and
has been researching it for close to 40 years. I enjoyed
his light-hearted approach to this often-avoided subject.
It was a nice bit of levity in a long day of presentations.
I performed another song during the afternoon session
entitled, “The Ballad of Albert O.” about the 1924
account of the purported abduction by a sasquatch of
Albert Ostman. It was well received and I was honored
to have Dr. Bindernagel comment on the chorus. “I
like that line about getting ‘carried away’,” he told me.
He then traded me for a copy of my CD. That was a
moment I’ll treasure.
After dinner, Lloyd Pye spoke on the subject of
hominids and the possible scenarios that led to current
state of homo sapiens as we know it. It was a
controversial theory of alien intervention that led to
our species as such and how relict lines of hominoids
are possibly the bigfoot/sasquatch creatures we know.
An intriguing, well-received presentation.
That night many of the participants went out into the
nearby forests for Operation Night Watch. Close to
75 people made the trip in carpools to remote locations
and listening for return calls after a variety of sasquatch
and other sounds were played. Most found this to be
an interesting activity. My evening found us joining a
group of friends camping a little further out in the
wilderness for a few hours of camp fire song and short
walks in the dark woods. It was an appropriate end to a
long day of sasquatch discussion. There’s nothing like
walking a forest service road after midnight in the
middle of the northern Cascades wilderness!
Sunday, May 29, 2005
This day began with my musical tribute to Roger
Patterson and Bob Gimlin. I was able to dedicate this
performance to Bob Gimlin and it was a personal
highlight to play the song for the person who inspired
it. “Roger and Bob (Rode Out That Day)” is my
simple way of retelling the events of 10/20/67 and
what took place in the time after that fateful date. It
was a wonderful moment and I’ll not soon forget it.
Matt Crowley began the day’s presentations talking
about his experiments with casting. The Seattle area
man found that he was getting lateral ridges that were
very similar in appearance to dermal ridges just from
the way the plaster cured. He was very respectful of
Jimmy Chilcutt’s work in this area but he called into
question the possibility that some of the “dermals” we
have seen might be simply the result of the plaster.
Interesting, but I still feel that Jimmy Chilcutt is
contributing the most exciting analysis of evidence in
this field in that last few years.
Thomas Steenburg shared with us his thoughts on
investigating sasquatch sightings. He has had years of
experience interviewing witnesses throughout the
provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and
throughout the northwest U.S. He thinks that most
witnesses are relieved to finally tell their account to
someone who won’t ridicule them. He also displayed
statistics for his report database. As with statistics that
John Green has compiled from his extensive collection
of reports, there is no pattern to bigfoot activity. Do
we have more sightings in the summer and fall simply
because more of us are out in the woods? Most likely.
I enjoyed hearing from Thomas and getting to spend
Saturday night out in the woods with him. He’s a
valuable source of information and experience in this
field – and has a great sense of humor, to boot!
John Kirk, the president of the British Columbia
Scientific Cryptozoology Club, spoke next. His topic
was the role that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
might play in sasquatch investigations. (He has served
this organization in a civilian capacity.) He spoke
about the importance of DNA evidence and stressed

that we could avoid the need for a “specimen” if DNA
evidence were obtained. He stressed that if you think
you have a found a hair sample, place it in a paper
envelope - not a plastic bag. John is very
knowledgeable and personable – someone who will
continue to play a key role as we strive to solve this
mystery.
Owen Caddy shared some amazing analysis he has
done on the Patterson-Gimlin film. He started his talk
with some technical information about film and digital
enhancement. He then proceeded to show us
sequences of still frames from the film that he had
enhanced to bring out some amazing details. At times
he was able to display the mouth opening and closing
very rapidly as the subject of the film glances back at
Patterson. He showed us things you don’t see when
you watch the film – even in slow motion. This was a
fascinating presentation. He thanked Rick Noll for his
assistance in this analysis. Both of them are doing
outstanding work both in the field and in the analysis
of this historic film.
We capped off the event with a presentation from Dr.
Jeff Meldrum. Entitled “More on the Mid-Tarsal
Break,” he displayed photographs of tracks and casts
that exemplified this feature of the “flexible foot.” His
work is always interesting and the details he finds in
evidence he examines are fascinating. He shared with
us some of the fine work done by M.K. Davis on the
Patterson-Gimlin film that shows the foot of “Patty”
flexing as she walks away. Truly amazing information.
We couldn’t have ended the weekend on a better note.
And there was more! An auction and raffle ensued, 
as well as a panel of eyewitnesses telling of their
encounters. James “Bobo” Fay spoke of his encounter
with a bigfoot 4 years ago up near the Klamath River.
He had a unique perspective on the subject as he was
utilizing night vision to see a large bigfoot trying to
intimidate his colleague who was sitting in his car
below him. This is the famous “Jeff Rense Show”
incident and it was interesting to hear his perspective.
Next a gentleman from the neighboring Lummi Island
Reservation shared a multitude of stories with us
involving sightings he has had there. It’s always
intriguing to hear a Native American tell of their
experiences, because they treat them in such a “matterof-
fact” manner. This man has had several encounters
along the Nooksack River which is renowned for
sasquatch activity. Stephen Harvey finally had to end
the proceedings reluctantly. It had been an amazing
weekend in Bellingham!
The presentations at this event were the core of the
weekend. The rest of the experience revolved around
the interaction with the attendees and presenters. A
conference like this is a chance to get to know the
people we read about everyday in this field. It’s an
opportunity to place a face with a name and it’s these
moments that I cherish from the two conferences I
have attended. I urge all of you with an interest in this
subject to attend a conference in the future. You will
leave there with a good feeling about who is involved
in this search and where we are headed. Indeed, we
seem to be at a very good point in our search for the
answer to this mystery – and many left there saying,
“This is going to be the year!” It’s just such optimism
that an event like this will instill in the participants.
Let’s hope we carry this optimism forward towards the
success Jeffrey Meldrum speaks on bigfoot anatomy. we all anticipate.
Thomas Steenburg and "Bobo."
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Cornell University News Service
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May 12, 2005
By Krishna Ramanujan
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Until recently, the ivory-billed
woodpecker was like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness
monster -- a famed creature that for years eyewitnesses
claimed to see but that science could 
not substantiate.
This impression runs through The Grail Bird
(Houghton Mifflin, 2005), a new book by Tim
Gallagher, an editor at the Lab of Ornithology at
CornellUniversity who played a primary role in the
rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker, once
considered extinct. For years, people claimed to have
heard the bird's distinct "kent, kent, kent" call and the
powerful loud-then-softer double rap of its bill. Some
asserted they had witnessed fly-bys of the large
crested, black-and-white, white-billed woodpecker.
But when it comes to cryptozoology -- the search for
and study of animals that are only rumored to exist --
any claim requires strong proof. And the scientific
establishment met the smattering of sightings with
skepticism.
John Dennis, an ornithologist and popular author of
bird books, took the last scientifically accepted
photographs of the elusive woodpecker in Cuba in
1948. The bird had seemingly vanished even earlier in
the United States as habitat destruction and collecting
took their toll. But last month, the Lab of Ornithology
and The Nature Conservancy announced to the world
that they had video footage of the woodpecker taken
in 2004. Gallagher's book covers the 60 years
between the last confirmed U.S. sighting in 1944 and
the aftermath of the author's own sighting of the bird
in Arkansas in early 2004 that led to the final proof.
Gallagher writes: "My goal was to find as many
people as possible who had taken part in these
searches and sightings, and if the sightings seemed
credible, to follow up on them myself." While
engaging the reader in his mission, Gallagher
immerses himself into the culture of those who have
passionately chased the ivory-bill.
He tells how in 1966, in pursuit of an ivory-bill,
Dennis plunged naked into chilly black bayou water
in east Texas to get a full view of the woodpecker.
Despite Dennis' familiarity with the bird, ornithologists
"laughed at" his report, Gallagher notes.
A similar fate awaited George Lowery, head of the
Museum of Natural Science at Louisiana State
University (LSU), when he showed two somewhat
blurry snapshots of an ivory-bill at a 1971 ornithology
meeting. "These were shot with a cheap Kodak
Instamatic camera and have some of the typical
Bigfoot/Loch Ness monster fuzziness," Gallagher
writes. In each picture, a bird sat on a different tree
but had the same stiff posture, and the bill was
hidden.
People claimed the bird was a carved decoy or a
taxidermic mount. But behind closed doors, some
believed the pictures were real.
"Woodpeckers -- bark-foraging birds in general --
have pretty much a single posture," said James Van
Remsen, curator of birds at LSU's Museum of
Natural Science, in a 2004 conversation with
Gallagher. When Gallagher found the man who took
the photos, a cigar- chomping septuagenarian named
Fielding Lewis, Gallagher thoroughly believed him.
Still, Lowery was ridiculed.
When David Kulivan, an undergraduate at LSU
sighted two ivory-bills in 1999 in a Louisiana
Wildlife Management Area, even hardened skeptics
believed his account. Still, Van Remsen warned
Kulivan, "If you go public with this, a lot of people
will put you in the same category as those who
claim to have seen UFOs and Bigfoot."
When Kulivan talked publicly of his sighting, search
teams scoured the area, including a team of bioacoustic
experts from Cornell's Lab of Ornithology,
but they never found an ivory-bill. Gallagher
phoned Kulivan in 2004 but received "an instant
chill" from the young man. Kulivan responded, "I've
decided -- and I've been advised -- not to talk about
this anymore."
On Feb. 27, 2004, Gallagher and his close friend
Bobby Harrison of Alabama's Oakwood College
paddled through a bayou in northeastern Arkansas
with Gene Sparling, a kayaker who just two weeks
earlier claimed to have witnessed the legendary bird
there. As Sparling paddled far ahead, an unmistakable
ivory-billed woodpecker flew past in front of their
canoe at close range. The experience was lifealtering,
said Gallagher, but he was immediately
concerned with how to best divulge the discovery.
"A lot of good people have been ruined because they
claimed they saw an ivory-bill," he said. In a series
of closed-door meetings, Gallagher revealed his
secret to colleagues at Cornell. In the months ahead,
teams of bird experts, including many from the lab,
took turns combing the Arkansas area by canoe.
With no woodpecker in sight, Gallagher joked to a
colleague: "I feel like I'm really hanging out alone
on a limb with the Sasquatch chasers and Elvis
sighters."
Eventually, the scouts caught a few sightings, and
University of Arkansas professor David Luneau
finally captured the mystery bird on videotape April
25, 2004.
Gallagher ends his book by commenting that
scientists should approach questions and data with
open, dispassionate minds, but "this has been anything
but the case with the ivory-billed woodpecker
for almost a century." Perhaps, finding the ivory-bill
will offer some consolation for those who are still
chasing Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.
Cryptid