Book Review: Bigfoot by Alan Berry and B. Ann Slate

Really unusual but thought-provoking.

This short novel-sized book came out in 1976, and does take some unusual twists and turns. Slate and Berry focus 3 chapters to the Sierra Sounds (both Berry and Ron Morehead, Warren, Lewis and Larry Johnson), telling basically the full story of the strange vocalization recordings, as well as some strange lights seen. The Bigfoot/UFO connection is also explored, and it seems that Berry and Slate are giving an open-minded dissertation on it, while not necessarily endorsing it. Same goes for telepathy regarding Bigfoot and its possibility to use that medium of communication. An interesting discovery is also discussed, something called the Minaret Skull, which was kicked up from a bog by a donkey recovered by a physician, Robert Denton, and sent to a Dr. Gerald K. Ridge, a pathologist at of the Ventura County General Hospital. The skull was sent to UCLA's Department of Archaeology, where two Professors examined it and thought initially it might have been a large Indian's skull, but Ridge was not so sure. Eventually, the skull was misplaced and lost to the ravages of time. That event occurred in 1965. (There is a full appendix on the skull at the end of the book). The second Appendix deals with the Sierra Sounds and the circumstances surrounding that, and the analysis done President of Syntonic Research of New York City I.E. Teibel, who could not determine anything about the recordings other than they were not re-recorded or artificially created (Teibel had been on television discussing the Watergate tapes and the relative ease in altering tapes and the relative difficulty in detecting such alterations. Teibel had suggested on the television talk show that his firm could expose tapes that were hoaxes, so this is what inspired Berry to seek Teibel's expertise on possibly determining the authenticity (or lack thereof) of the recordings he picked up while at the remote camp with the Johnson brothers). All in all, this book does seem to delve into strange territory, but I do recommend it pretty highly, if for nothing else for the true story of the extraordinary series of recordings which is making the news in the Bigfoot world once again. I would give this book about a 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.