{"id":268,"date":"2010-11-09T06:40:48","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T06:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.woodape.org\/index.php\/2010\/11\/09\/hiddenneighbor\/"},"modified":"2010-11-09T06:40:48","modified_gmt":"2010-11-09T06:40:48","slug":"hiddenneighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woodape.org\/index.php\/hiddenneighbor\/","title":{"rendered":"Take to the woods and you might find a hidden neighbor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The wildlife biologist was used to being alone in the woods.<\/p>\n

His studies required him to spend weeks high up in the mountain solitude. So when a large upright figure collapsed his tent one night in the early 1970s, John Mionczynski knew it wasn\u2019t another human.<\/p>\n

He was studying bighorn sheep in the Wind River Mountains. From inside his tent, Mionczynski could see a distinct open hand with an opposable thumb, about twice the size of a human hand.<\/p>\n

Mionczynski crawled outside and built a campfire. He could hear the creature breathing but couldn\u2019t see it in the darkness. For 45 minutes it threw pine cones at him.<\/p>\n

The biologist reported his experience to his boss. At least 25 stories of encounters with a large primate had come into the office that year.<\/p>\n

Mionczynski\u2019s boss asked: Do you believe in bigfoot?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I do, he replied.<\/p>\n

Mionczynski didn\u2019t know what he encountered. It wasn\u2019t a bear and it accurately threw pine cones, as a human would do. Mionczynski\u2019s boss suggested he interview people who had made reports and start a file.<\/p>\n

He would do so for the next 30 years, now spending eight to nine months of the year in the field studying the potential existence of a large North American ape. And Mionczynski isn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n

To those who study the existence of bigfoot, or sasquatch, their dedication isn\u2019t about belief. It\u2019s a matter of science, evidence and objective research.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo ignore data that\u2019s coming in saying something is here, to ignore it is unscientific,\u201d Mionczynski said.<\/p>\n

The researchers<\/b><\/p>\n

Before Mionczynski and Dr. Jeff Meldrum of Idaho State University even met, their research crossed paths. They had visited some of the same people, a mountain man and a U.S. Forest Service patrolman in Washington who had encountered a sasquatch and found footprints in the woods. The researchers had the same approach to their studies; they worked in facts, not emotions, Meldrum said.<\/p>\n

Mionczynski has worked as a government wildlife technician and as a consultant and instructor. Habitat studies are his expertise, and he has extensively researched both grizzlies and bighorn sheep. He has worked with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team and developed the concept of goat packing to transport scientific equipment into remote research areas.<\/p>\n

Meldrum is an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University. He is an expert on primate evolutionary biology, the evolution of human locomotor adaption and bipedalism, the way in which we walk on two feet. He co-edited the book \u201cFrom Biped to Strider: the Emergence of Modern Human Walking, Running, and Resource Transport.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1996, Meldrum was visiting family in Boise, Idaho, when he decided to make a trip up to Washington with his brother to visit Dr. Grover Krantz, an anthropologist and leading sasquatch researcher. Meldrum examined Krantz\u2019s collection of alleged sasquatch footprint casts, which Krantz would eventually give to Meldrum for his research years later.<\/p>\n

On the way home, Meldrum made a surprise visit to Paul Freeman, once a Forest Service patrolman, who claimed to have encountered a sasquatch and made footprint casts.<\/p>\n

Freeman said he had just found fresh tracks, too. Would Meldrum like to see them?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coincidence of it was disconcerting at first,\u201d Meldrum said. Did Freeman somehow find out they were coming?<\/p>\n

But Meldrum was astounded by what he saw. The tracks were fresh and clear. They were either the real deal or a clear hoax, he thought.<\/p>\n

Meldrum and his brother got supplies to make casts. They remain some of the strongest prints in Meldrum\u2019s collection of 200 casts and some of the most compelling evidence, Meldrum said. What he had captured was skin ridge detail. Just as we all have individually unique fingerprints, we have distinct footprints.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a few other mammals that have texture to their pads, but typically that\u2019s a primate characteristic,\u201d Meldrum said.<\/p>\n

What he captured was a real print, he believes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Meldrum\u2019s students was familiar with Mionczynski\u2019s research and suggested they meet. The two spoke on the phone and met in Meldrum\u2019s office. Meldrum knew footprints; Mionczynski knew habitat. They\u2019ve been working together for the past ten years.<\/p>\n

Sasquatch, a profile<\/b><\/p>\n

Meldrum and Mionczynski\u2019s research, often under the title of the North American Ape Project, has taken them from Canada down to Texas, including the Pacific Northwest, northern California and even Wyoming. Meldrum has also travelled to China, where he compared casts there to those taken in North America. The dermal ridges followed the same pattern, suggesting the existence of sasquatch in the mountains of western China.<\/p>\n

The researchers have interviewed countless numbers of people who have reported sightings, but they don\u2019t rely on that testimony alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cVisual sighting of brown and black fur isn\u2019t a credible sighting,\u201d Meldrum said.<\/p>\n

Based on field research, Meldrum\u2019s footprint expertise and Mionczynski\u2019s studies of animal habitat and behavior, they\u2019ve developed hypotheses about the North American ape:<\/p>\n