Bigfoot:

Video or Shoot?

by Bobby Hamilton (Bigfoot Hunter)

I am constantly asked about my move to the Pro-Kill stance and what changed my mind or views about these creatures. Well, for me to get to that point, I need to go back a couple of years and bring you up to speed on how this dramatic change took place.

As most already know I began the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization (GCBRO) in late 1996. And, I brought the GCBRO to the World Wide Web in 1998. From the beginning, I always told everybody that I wanted to video or photograph one of these creatures in order to show my friends and some family members that I was not totally off my rocker. But on that same note, I never ceased in telling these same people that the plaster castings, hair samples, audio recordings, or even a photo or video no matter how clear they were, would not be enough to prove the existence of these creatures to main stream science or the general public.

There has been so much fabrication and hoaxing over the years, that the only way these creatures would be accepted as being real, would be through the presentation of a specimen, be it alive or dead.

Back in those days, I would also point out that even though a specimen was the only way to prove Bigfoot existed, I did not want to be the one to pull the trigger on one of these creatures. Not because I am a bleeding heart type of person or anything like that, but I just didn't want to be the person involved in such an act upon something that I thought was a fairly peaceful creature. Although in the back of my mind, I always had a little voice that kept telling me to never actually buy into the whole peaceful bit when it comes to wild creatures and especially this creature. This comes from a childhood encounter that's listed on the GCBRO database in the state of Texas, Nacogdoches County, in 1969. That event as a young child traumatized me for years, until I was able to face my fears and move forward with my life.

If you have not read of this incident, I ask that you please do so, as it will explain a lot about how the seed was planted to make me seek answers in the first place.

Now lets jump back into the whole issue of kill or no-kill when it comes to Bigfoot. First off, before you get your dander all up over the issue, it is a personal choice that a person must make for himself or herself. Nobody should be able to convince you to do anything other than what you feel you need or want to do. This country was founded by some very intelligent men, and one of the greatest rights we have been given is the freedom of choice.

With all that said, little did I know that my journey to pro-kill began back in 1969 with the encounter that happened to me in the window of my families home.

Now we move forward to 1997 and the early years of the GCBRO. From 1997 through 1998, I managed to see an additional three creatures while conducting field research. Yes, I attempted to video at least one of them. That incident is found on the database in Marshall County, Oklahoma. The other two I saw were in Texas in Hunt County crossing a highline right of way. Yet, on all of the field research that I was involved with, I always carried a firearm or two.

Deep down, I knew this was a wild animal and it could easily do me harm if it so wished. And, the seed that was planted back in 1969 kept confirming that even though the creature did not harm me back then, it did mean me some kind of harm, because it was trying to lure me away from the safety of my family.

During these outings, I was asked what I planned to do if one ran into camp on us. My statement was: "I didn't get into this to run, I got into it for answers, and I may walk out, but I won't run. If this thing pushes the issue, I will drop it in it's tracks, because I am not going to be run out of the woods"!

I was involved on some great field research outings during the period of 1997 through 1998. I got to see the three mentioned earlier in this write up, as well as a lot of vocalizations that some people just dream about. One of these vocalizations began low and worked itself up to frenzy and being so aggressive that you would think it was going to shake the leaves off the trees. Yet during all of this, not once did I reach for one of my firearms to protect myself, or harm these creatures.

In December of 1998, the major wheels of change began with an e-mail and phone conversation with Jim Lansdale (Monster Hunter). Jim told me about his area, which is now dubbed "Monster Central." He invited me to come visit it for myself.

On my first visit to "Monster Central," I believe it was December 15, 1998. I found and cast a couple of tracks, as well as took some photos of limb formations and tree breaks. I was excited to say the least as this was already showing promise as a very active area.

I asked Jim what his intentions was as far as these creatures were concerned and he said he planned to harvest one. I quickly let him know that I had no intentions of pulling the trigger on one, but was not against it, as I knew it had to be done to prove the existence of these creatures.

After spending about 12 hours with Jim at Monster Central and a couple of phone calls later, I decided it was time to make a camping trip to the area.

Jim kept asking me: "Are you sure you want to camp out down here?" I stated back: "Hell yeah, I want to camp out down here!" I remember his response to this day, which was: "Bubba, I know you have had some encounters with these creatures, but you haven't dealt with the creatures down here, and I think you are getting into more than you realize with these things."

I laughed and assured him that "I could handle it." Besides, I sure as heck wasn't going to run from them, and I needed some answers.

The plans were made, and we set it up for a weekend venture to camp out on a Friday and Saturday night in a field surrounded by woods on all sides. The field is approximately 225 yards long and 100 yards wide. And, it is more than a nice walk out of the area if something were to go wrong. Luckily, we was able to drive our vehicles down the fire lanes and such to get there, which eliminated the need to do any serious back packing of gear and what not.

I was accompanied by two friends, Luke and Todd, as well as a friend of Jims whom I had just met. We arrived a couple of hours before dark and got camp set up at the edge of the field, and about 60 foot or so from the edge of the tree line on one side. One this one side, I had parked my pick-up between the tents and the thicket that was on that side of the field. The biggest part of that thicket consisted of what is known as Hawthorne trees. For those who do not know, these trees are completely covered with some serious thorns. If you ever make the mistake of stumbling and grabbing on to catch your balance, you won't make that mistake twice.

Anyway, as dusk started to settle in between 5:45-6:15 pm, we heard the usual locating calls these creatures would do to locate each other. Then, for the next 4 hours or so, we heard all kinds of weird sounds that none of us had ever heard before. To say the sounds were really cool to hear would not be doing them justice. It was just awesome and proved to be a very exciting evening. Little did I know at that point that a few short hours later, my life would do a complete turn around.

One of my friends (Luke) and myself had setup different types of recording devices in the hopes of recording some of these sounds. We did get some of them, but not having the proper equipment at the time severely hindered the quality of the recordings. We had the recording equipment setup near the tent and we were sitting approximately 15 feet away by the fire, and on the side that was close to the woods nearby. It was a pretty chilly night, and the dew was making matter worse for all involved as well as our recording gear.

We kept getting up and going over near the tent to change tapes out and make sure that the batteries was still running the recorders.

It was on one of these trips to the tent area when we heard from across the field, the slight breaking of what sounded like limbs and brush moving. The more we listened the louder it seemed to get and it got to the point that you could clearly hear feet stomping down and limbs breaking and brush moving. We decided to just sit back down by the fire and see what transpired.

Todd was extremely sick and shouldn't have been out in the cold damp air. So, he was spending most of his time huddled near the fire in his camp chair, nodding off and on. I felt sorry for him, because the man was miserable and was doing his best to enjoy our adventure, but he was just too danged sick to enjoy much of anything, period. So Luke, Jim's friend, and myself were the ones up most of the time around the fire.

The sounds kept coming from across the field, and since we didn't show any attention to them, they kept getting louder to the point that it was downright ridiculous. I guess we had been listening to the limb breaking, feet stomping and brush moving sounds for over thirty minutes when I finally had enough. I jumped up and grabbed my cordless spotlight, and my rifle and took off in a dead run across the field and up into the woods where the sounds were coming from. Luke tailed me but at a much safer distance, as I am sure he was wondering what was this crazy joker was thinking, running off into the woods like that after something so big and something that we knew so little about.

After getting up into the woods a piece, I stopped and turned my spotlight on and listened. You could clearly hear something breaking limbs and crashing through the woods, going in the opposite direction. As silly as it sounds, I hollered out: "I don't know if you can understand me or not, but if you can, you're a chicken $#&$.” Luke got a laugh out of that one, and I guess for the initial tenseness of the moment, that was something that we needed.

We joked about it as we made our way back to camp and the warmth of the fire. After getting back to camp, we noticed that there were no more sounds. The woods had gotten quiet and, the distant howls and other sounds were all silent as well.

That should have been a sign that something was not right, but by this time it was after midnight and we were pretty much wore out. Besides, I just ran off a monster, and we were still talking about that event.

Approximately 30 minutes later, Todd was asleep in his camp chair, Jim's friend was asleep in a bedroll by the fire, and Luke was nodding off in his camp chair. I was sitting there listening for any sounds while staring into the fire, and that's when it happened.

Out of nowhere, the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and it felt as if my spine was tingling from top to bottom. Basically I could feel something burning a hole through me with it's eyes. I quickly picked up on what was going on, and became very uneasy, very quick. I spoke up and told Luke: "wake up, he's here"! He groggily said: "Huh?" I repeated myself and said: "wake up, he's here!" He said: "how do you know?" I responded with: "I can feel him watching me, that's how I know! Now get up and lets see if we can find the area he's watching me from!" The last thing I heard from Luke was: "Okay, just a second." Then, since sleep was pretty much in demand at that time, he was basically back asleep before I could say anything else.

"Fine” I said to myself, “I will find out on my own!" I got up from the fire and walked away from it going back up the direction from which we came in. On the left side of me was the Hawthorne Thicket area. I got no more than 25 feet from the fire when I got a slight whiff of this thing. I quickly did a back step and went back and bumped Luke and told him to get up. As he was coming too and wondering what was going on, Todd barely woke up and I told them both that I smelled him and I needed help finding out where he was. I managed to get Luke up this time, and Todd was so sick with the crud that he just dozed right back off.

I told Luke to follow me, and we started the walk back into the area I had just vacated, we hit the faint smell again and Luke stopped. He said: "I smell it!" I told him to come on and walked approximately 5 more feet, and that is when I hit the wall of smell that people often describe. This wasn't the faint whiff I got earlier, or the one Luke just got, this was like hitting a brick wall and getting a lung full of this stuff all at once. I experienced instant nausea, and I am not sure if I would say confusion, but more like a feeling of terror ran down my spine. This thing was pure evil and I could feel it in my bones. I have been in some intense situations with these creatures, but this one made me stand up and take notice really quick! When I hit the smell, I quickly backed up a couple of steps and told Luke to "come up here and smell this!" He refused to walk up there, and said that he "smelled it and that was enough." No amount of coaxing could get him to walk ahead and get a lung full of this thing.

We quickly determined where the smell was coming from, and it was in the Hawthorne thicket, and the breeze was pulling the smell out of there and right to where we were. From the fire, it was approximately 35 yards away or less. We quickly back stepped to the fire, and I took my video camera out of the spare camp chair I had and put it in my pick-up. I then proceeded to grab my shotgun and pulled my camp chair away from the fire and placed it facing that part of the Hawthorne thicket where this thing was, and with my back to the fire. I then put the spare camp chair next to me with my spotlight and rifle laying across it while I held my shotgun in my lap. After getting into my chair, I began to just stare into the thicket.

Luke asked me: "what's wrong?" I said: "what do you mean, what's wrong?" He replied: "Bobby, we have had some intense encounters together, but I have never seen you like this!" I quickly responded: "You didn't have this thing staring a hole through you, and you didn't walk into the wall of smell that I did. I'm telling you that this thing is not a peaceful creature. This thing is a predator, and if it comes out of that thicket, it isn't coming out to pose for pictures, it's coming out to dance, and I don't intend to be caught with my pants down!"

For the next thirty minutes or so, Luke mentioned a couple of more times that he had never seen me like this before. I guess it was a sudden change for him to see me on all our other outings with the video camera and all happy go lucky to where I was now, facing the woods holding a shotgun and as serious as a heart attack about waiting this thing out, one way or the other. After about thirty minutes or so, he dozed back off. I continued my vigil and sat guard on my post.

This creature instilled a fear in me that can only be compared to my childhood encounter. It scared me, yet it also made me very angry. Being head strong and not one to back down from anything, it made me angry enough to want to hurt this thing for doing this to me. I am not sure if this stemmed from my childhood encounter and the fear I suffered back then. Perhaps that now I was a grown man, I could do something about it. It was a definite eye-opener for sure.

I stayed on guard for about four hours and heard it move around a little bit back in the thicket. Then, everything seemed to just calm down. And during this time, I was rethinking the previous events of the evening. Just before all this happened, there was one trying to get our attention across the field. It did a dandy of a job in doing that, and I took to it and ran it off. Then, this thing came in from behind and was staring a hole through me. It then clicked. The one across the field was a decoy to give this other one the distraction it needed to move in closer to us without us detecting it. The thought made a chill run down my spine, because I was wondering what would have happened had I not taken a head on charge at the other one across the field, and this thing had more time to make it's move. Just how close would it have gotten to us?

There was about a million other scenarios that played in my mind during that time. But, everything had calmed down, and I wasn't feeling so edgy anymore. I began to think the creature had left.

After I was sure the coast was clear, I got up and went to the tent to grab some sleep. It was around 5:15am by this time, and Todd was sharing my tent with me, so he got up and came inside the tent and Luke went to his tent. Jim’s friend stayed out by the fire keeping warm in his bedroll.

We weren't in the tent but a second when I was fast asleep. Less than fifteen minutes later, Jim's friend was calling out to me to get out there. Todd and I came out of the tent, and he informed up that something extremely big had been pacing back and forth just inside the thicket. And that’s when he looked down his side at his .357 magnum which then seemed like a Mattel toy. So, he felt he needed some backup.

This thing was making enough noise to wake him up, and make him take notice. And, with what had just previously happened to me, I knew how he felt, and that is scared!

Nothing else happened and we waited it out until after daylight broke before returning to the tent to get that much needed sleep.

Some people have said and some are going to read this and say: "But you were in his home, on his turf, in his domain, etc!" And, you are right. I was in his domain. But, I had been in many other domains previous to this one, and none of these other creatures had pulled this kind of stunt on me, nor had they placed this kind of fear or anger into me.

To the naysayer's, I am telling you there's a difference when you have only one encounter in your life and it is a peaceful one where the creature is walking away, or they are trying to get you to leave their area by making noise, or screaming out, or crashing around in the brush. When you have had several encounters and your first one began as a child and it haunted you most of your life, this is different. Then, you turn around and have many other peaceful types of encounters, and then one bad one like this one will change your thoughts on things.

This quest went from wanting to video or photograph one, to wanting to be the one to pull the trigger on one in just a matter of minutes.

My change of views created quite a stir within the Bigfoot community, because I went from no-kill to pro-kill on these things from just one night at Monster Central.

Jim had a lot to hear about when he came to our camp that Saturday morning. One thing he heard for sure was that I now intended to put some serious hurt on this thing. He laughed at me and told me: "I told you, you hadn't dealt with these creatures down here before. They are just downright spooky!" He then went on to tell us of all the other men who had been down in there with him in the past, and how they would hit that smell, and how these men would have to leave and go home.

Most would not return, and the few that did would not be in there after dark. In fact, when it would get close to dusk, they would tell him: "Jim it's time to go!" I can see why, these things can easily put that fear into a man.

We spent the remainder of that day scouting as much as we could in the thicket (which wasn't very much, because after a couple of thorns, that area of investigation pretty much ceased to exist in our minds) and the other surrounding area.

Then, we got settled in for another night of camping at Monster Central. Except this time, I had a whole new attitude and didn't set out my video equipment. Instead, I set out my arsenal of weapons, in preparation for the finale to the previous nights events.

That night wasn't as eventful as the night before. But, nonetheless, I was locked and loaded just in case the visitor came back to finish what was started the night before.

Yeah, some people ask me, why I am pro-kill, and this is my story. It may not make much sense to some folks. It might not make any sense to you as you read this. But, as this story began, I let it be known that whatever a person decides to do with this is a choice, and my choice has been made. Some have applauded me for my ways, and others have cast stones at me. But, before you pass judgment on me or anybody else who has a different view than you do, just remember this much: Something made them the way they are. Something made them reach that decision in their life. And, if you could have walked a mile in their shoes, would you be the same way as they are? If you were able to switch places with me and re-live my life from 1969 through the night this significant event took place and then return to your life now, could you honestly say that you would ridicule me for my views on this? I bet you couldn't honestly answer that, because it goes back to that old saying of: "Don't judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes!" I have walked quite a few miles in my shoes, and have now been on both sides of the fence on the pro-kill issue. I remember when I used to carry my video camera with me on every field excursion, but I also have a bigger reminder of how my views changed in a matter of a few minutes. – The End