Byrne's Bigfoot Part 1: Peter Byrne's Great Search
by Greg Long — March 4, 1996
"You know, the walk was beautiful," said Peter Byrne, sitting straight in his hard-backed chair. 
"It was a kind of a flowing walk, a beautiful, smooth, flowing walk these things have — like this!"
And Peter Byrne, world renown Bigfoot researcher, former big game hunter, and adventurer, stands and attempts to duplicate the majestic motion of Bigfoot, the large, hair-covered "hominid" that purportedly inhabits the Pacific Northwest. Byrne has heard of this unique characteristic — the flowing walk — many times over the years. This time, the report came from an elderly man who had kept his sighting private for decades, from fear of ridicule. The witness is only one of many who have approached Byrne at the Bigfoot Research Project near Mount Hood, Oregon — or by dialing 1-800-BIGFOOT. Yes, it's a real number, and witnesses can reach Byrne or one of his staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Byrne's blue eyes light up, his normally mild Irish voice (he sounds more British than Irish) rises a notch in excitement as he paints a picture of the fascinating creature he has pursued over the span of 35 years.
"The head doesn't seem to go up and down. We think there's a reason for that, something to do with the knees. The other thing the witness said was, 'It had no neck.' The head is set right down — the neck is extremely thick and short."
Byrne, at 71, is an energetic, wiry man. With a sharp nose and weathered face, he sits with erect bearing, an ascot neatly tied around his throat. His gestures are measured, his phrasing precise, with nary a misstep, in clear, modulated tones.
The man's sighting of the Bigfoot in flowing stride made for a good case, Byrne said. This is saying something, for there aren't many sightings that can withstand Byrne's rigorous criteria. After three and a half years, only 105 sightings have made it into Byrne's computer. And of these, only 14 have been investigated since the Project's inception in 1992. The rest are from witness accounts up to 50 years ago.
The Bigfoot Research Project is funded by wealthy businessmen of the Academy of Applied Science in Boston, Massachusetts (the same organization that has funded Loch Ness monster research). With sorely needed funds — always plaguing the Bigfoot field — Byrne now has the means to finally solve, he hopes, the Bigfoot mystery.
"We want to prove that the things exist by finding one. There are various ways in which one could be found, using the word 'find' very broadly. We could find a carcass of one that has died of natural causes, which would be wonderful, which would be marvelous. It would be irrefutable proof.
"The next thing to that would be to encounter one and hold it in some way — I don't mean capture it — and get still pictures, video, and blood and tissue samples. And that's pretty much it. We are against killing one, or shooting one, or capturing one. Finding a carcass would be very, very lucky."
Why would such a fluent, obviously intelligent man such as this, in the final years of his life, continue to search for something that many in the world consider the product of highly imaginative minds? For Byrne, it started after World War II, with the gradual peeling away of his initial skepticism.
Byrne had served four years in Southeast Asia in the British Royal Air Force in Air Sea Rescue. In 1947 he came home to Ireland, but in just three short weeks was on a ship heading back to Asia to join the British Tea Company. For five years he worked on tea plantations in Bhutan located near the Himalayas. There he heard of tales of the Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman, another of the world's great mystery hominids. Curiosity got the better of him, and soon Byrne was hiking into the mountains, looking for tracks. Later, he led a small expedition on a search using sherpa guides. One time he found unexplained footprints in British Sikkim (between Bhutan and Nepal).
In 1952 Byrne began running commercial hunting safaris. In 1956, while in Sikkim, Byrne saw campfires in the distance, and approaching, he met an expedition on its way into the mountains. Among those he met was Tenzing Norgay, the famous sherpa guide of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest. Sitting around the campfire, Byrne and the men talked of "metah-kangmi," the "foul smelling man of the snows," Yeti. Tenzing told Byrne that a rich Texan named Tom Slick had visited Tenzing's house in Darjeeling looking to plan a big expedition. Tenzing urged Byrne to stop by his house and get Slick's address from Tenzing's wife. Byrne did, writing Slick and finally meeting him in January 1957.
Slick funded three Yeti expeditions for Byrne in Nepal — in 1957, 1958, and 1959. At the end of the third expedition, Slick invited Byrne to look for Bigfoot in northern California; there had been sightings near Willow Creek.
Byrne was frankly skeptical. The Yeti of Nepal was reported to be a small creature, anywhere from 5' 2" to 5' 11." "I was skeptical when I first came to America in 1960. I was skeptical that something like Bigfoot could exist. Especially when witnesses said it was seven feet tall and weighed 500 pounds. Why, this was ridiculous!"
From 1960 to 1961, Byrne investigated Bigfoot sightings near Willow Creek at Slick's expense. But a plane crash took the life of Slick, and Slick's estate decided not to further Byrne's work. In 1969 Byrne met Robert Rines of the Academy of Applied Science, and interested in Byrne's work, funded Byrne for nearly 10 years (Byrne also used his own money). From 1970 to 1979, Byrne ran the Bigfoot Information Center in The Dalles, Oregon.
"More than anything was the sincerity of the eye witnesses."
By now Byrne was convinced of the existence of Bigfoot. Over the years, he had come to believe in the eye witnesses. "I think more than anything was the sincerity of the eye witnesses — country people who were basically decent, nice people who had no motive to lie, no motive to fabricate evidence, fabricate a story, absolutely none."
In addition, it was the famous 1967 Roger Patterson film showing a huge bipedal, hairy creature in broad daylight in northern California, the many historical reports going back to the late 18th Century, and the footprints.
The Bigfoot Information Center finally folded. "Frankly, I spent too much time lecturing and writing to keep it going," Byrne admitted. Now, after years of searching, and years of performing research on a shoestring, Byrne has the financial backing to do the type of research that has always been needed.
"We don't do much field work. It's just non-productive. We used to do an awful lot of hiking in the 1960s. My God, we used to hike 20 miles a day in the back country." But nothing of any great value was discovered. "Field work is just too non-productive."
Instead, Byrne is relying on careful assessment of data cautiously collected and analyzed mostly through his 800 number. The hope is that the patterns revealed in the data will point to the likely geographic location of Bigfoot, and the likely time of its appearance. He is optimistic.
"We think that by the middle of this year [1996], maybe into the fall, the computer data may show a definitive pattern. We have some electronic surveillance gear which we're going to put out at that time."
There is an air of gentleness to Peter Byrne. The idea of a Bigfoot hunter concocts all kinds of notions: of big burly men with beards with powerful guns. One would guess that Byrne has seen enough of animal killing. By his own admission, he ran safaris for 18 years in Nepal. Today, he divides his time between searching for Bigfoot and supporting the causes of conservation. He wrote a book named Tula Hatti , The Last Great Elephant. "While on safari, I kept bumping into this elephant. I saw how big he was, so I did a measurement on him — I found he was one of the largest elephants of all time in Asia." So Byrne went to the Nepalese government and convinced them to protect it; Byrne promised he'd write a book and try to produce a short documentary. The government protected the elephant, and Byrne made a movie with PBS.
Byrne's latest work in progress is a book "about the people I used to take on safari. No one wants to read about blood and gore any more. A lot of people go on one safari and come back calling themselves Big Game Hunter. We used to called them "collectors." It's a slightly derisive term and the book is called The Collectors . It's about people reacting to big game and panicking and how they behave."
Byrne's adventures today are non-violent. "You're a maniac to go out in these woods," he gestures at the forest outside his house. "Have you seen the pickups with guns, you know in the back windows? There are people here, mostly young fellows, who say, 'If I see it out there, I'm going to shoot it. I'm going to haul it in and I'm going to sell it to the Smithsonian and make a million dollars.'" He smiles grimly, "You know, marvelous concept!"
For Byrne, the non-violent way is the right way. He would be happy if he could just see Bigfoot — he never has.
"But just to see one! ... It would be quite incredible."
"I think of the impact of actually seeing one of these things, and with a lot of my associates in the Bigfoot field, they say, 'Well, to hell with the publicity, the hell with what happens and what we can do. But just to see one!" That's what they want and I think there's a lot to that. It would be quite incredible."
A message from Peter Byrne (144K each). 
(Real Audio 3.0)
To report a Bigfoot sighting, write or call:
The Bigfoot Research Project
Box 126
Mount Hood, Oregon
800/244-3668 or 503/352-7000
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