It kicked off Friday night with the dinner around 7pm. There were many in attendance and we dined at Licea's Mexican Restaurant. After dinner we headed back to conference headquarters for the table discussion.
Jim Bear Grant, Craig Woolheater, Timberghost, Laurie Phillips, and myself were on the discussion panel. Several people asked questions and we were there to answer their questions. Timberghost did very well and was quite informative of the bigfoot in his area. He covered alot about tree markers and exchange items bigfoot seem to leave behind as gifts. I didn't get asked any questions and was quite glad I didn't have to do much talking aside from introducing myself and my involvement. LOL
The conference kicked off Saturday morning at 10am with the vendors selling t-shirts, books, art and other items. I purchased a personally autographed copy of Chester Moore, Jr.'s new book, "Bigfoot South" and a Texas Conference t-shirt.
The TBRC had planned to show a video presentation of Operation Night Scan, but didn't get to because the operation was a disaster. They had complications with the equipment being damaged in shipment and the transmission went out not once but twice on the vehicle before its arrival. The vehicle did not make it to the conference needless to say. William Dranginis also didn't make it to the conference to show off the use of the high-tech equipment and the high-tech bigfoot research vehicle (which didn't make it anyway due to the transmission troubles).
The TBRC did show some photos that had been taken with one of their camtrekkers. It was blurry and blobbish, but did show a large brown figure of something that appeared to be looking toward the camera and you could just make out what might have been a face. The subject appeared to be carrying something, a coyote, dog or goat perhaps. The photos were inconclusive.
Dallas (D.L.) Tanner spoke about Thunderbirds and his new book in the making called The Track of Bigfoot or something similar. They auctioned off a set of his books and the winning bidder got to name a character in the new book.
Smokey Crabtree talked about his books (of course) and the trap he had made a while back and why he never used it. He did have pictures of it and it was quite interesting in the mechanics of how it worked. It was sophisticated at best. He was very interesting in his speech. He raffled off an autographed set of his books at the conference. I was not the lucky winner...LOL
Lee Murphy spoke about his books on cryptozoology and was fun to listen to. He has an awesome sense of humor and I don't even think he realizes it. His humor was entertaining.
Chester Moore, Jr. spoke some about his new book "Bigfoot South" and talked about his theories on the 3 and 4 toed footprints. He believes that interbreeding is responsible and I agree with him. His points were well thought out on the issue. He also talked of how this same interbreeding could be responsible for the seemingly more aggressive nature of the southern bigfoot as most inbred animals have a tendency to be more aggressive. This was also quite interesting to me. And to top it off, he was humorous in his speech, a little humor just makes the whole discussion easier on the ears and his honest approach was a warm welcome. They also auctioned off a day in the woods with Bobby Hamilton and Chester Moore, Jr. of the GCBRO which went for around $150. This means the winner gets to spend a day researching with the two of them.
Scott Herriott who is a bigfoot documentary filmmaker showed a video of an alleged bigfoot that he and a friend had taken. He took the skeptical approach to it and did not try to force it off as a bigfoot in the footage. The footage showed a white form crouching behind a tree trunk. You could see the round head moving from side to side and what appeared to be shoulders and an arm. The film was brief so not much could be seen. It was interesting though and I wish I had the footage to study at my disposal. Others there of course thought they found an extra bigfoot in the footage (my kids included) and upon playing it over and over I could see there was a dark shadow moving on the right side of the footage, but was inconclusive at best and probably a play of shadows and light.
Randy King was supposed to be there to show off his interactive bigfoot research media, but had a family emergency at the last minute and was not able to attend. This was something I had been looking forward to, but understand that family comes first. Hopefully we will hear more about this at a later date.
M.K. Davis gave a most enlightening speech on the Patterson bigfoot subject. He had his life sized Patty blow up there which revealed small details of the subject. He talked on the color contrast of film and the rgb color scheme that could identify what objects are what in film comparison. With this he discovered straight linear scars on the Patty subject on her forehead, right wrist and right arm which he believes indicates that she had at some point been shot at with buckshot while holding her arm over her face in a defensive posture. He also discovered dirt that was stuck in the toes of the subject indicating a flexible foot and not a solid one. His findings were interesting but too numerous to go into here. He has a website with his findings somewhere and I will try to locate the address of it, I looked in my favorites but cannot find it.
He talked alot on film usage and how 35mm film is better than digital and about how the newer camcorders will not film the details that Patterson's camera picked up and his personal reasons for believing the Patterson to be authentic.
Dr. John Bindernagel spoke on his book "North America's Great Ape" and the difference between bear sightings and sasquatch sightings and had several witness sketches showing the difference in details of the sketches and the details of bears. He also showed slides indicating the differences in the footprint casts of sasquatch and bear prints. Or at least I believe that was Dr. Bindernagel, seems like I remember it being him and not Loren Coleman, they both had slides that they presented and I might have them mixed up as to who showed the casts and footprints. But I believe it was John Bindernagel.
A new guy spoke as well, can't remember his name exactly...something like Tom Huill or Kuill or something similar and gave a sneak preview of a book he is currently writing about bigfoot sightings he has had in the Fouke/Texarkana area. The name of the book was something similar to "Encounters with the Fouke Monster" or something like that. Can't remember exactly. He only spoke briefly.
Robert W. Morgan] was not able to attend.
Scott T. Norman talked about the search for Cryptids in Africa. I missed most of this as my hunger got the best of me and I had to find food. I only caught the last few minutes of his speech.
Loren Coleman was the last speaker. He spoke some of the Tom Slick expeditions and his new book he is currently writing. He also spoke some on the seemingly aggessiveness of the southern bigfoot and gave a slide show of vaious subjects including the chupacabra which he believes to possibly be a mammal.
There were many items in the auction. "Sasquatch, The Apes Among Us" book by John Green was auctioned off for around $60 to $70. Didn't hear the exact figure as I was so disappointed I didn't have the money to bid on it. It was hard cover in good shape and autographed as well.
Some artwork by Bill Assmussen and Bill Rebsamen was auctioned as well. And several hard to find and out of print books. "On the Track of the Sasquatch" by John Green in paperback went for $15. I felt even better about my lucky $1 price I got it for at the local used bookstore.
There were t-shirts auctioned and some other smaller items.
There was an original sasquatch cast auctioned off and Loren Coleman won it (if memory serves correctly on this) with a bid of $150, then turned around and donated it to two small girls who were there helping with the auction by running their little butts off to gather money and pass out the items to the winning bidders as well as holding them up for us all to see during the bidding. They were just too cute. And I gained a little more respect for Loren Coleman for doing that.
That about sums up the even and Ella I hope you aren't mad at me for taking so long to get the details posted...
