My thoughts, experiences and research of the Sasquatch Robin Nowatschka

Hi my name is Rob Nowatschka and I live in the Okanagan Valley, BC. I have been interested in Big Foot/Sasquatch reports since about 1979 when I feel that I heard one. It was about midnight and I was travelling in a car with some friends on a deserted back road, near Penticton, BC. Following us were some more friends in their car. The car behind suddenly pulled over, so we did too to see what they were up to. There was about 100 feet or so of distance between the cars. I got out and started to walk back towards them. When about half way there, I heard this loud sound. It sounded like a scream but not high pitched like a person would make. It had power in it! I was spooked so bad that I immediately turned around and ran full speed back to the first car and dove through the back window to get in. We then left the area. The scream sounded exactly like one recorded in Washington State in the 70`s. That scream can be listened to on the BFRO website (http://www.bfro.net/REF/bfmedia.htm). Since that day, I started to collect newspaper clippings on sightings and getting stories from people. I bought books and started to research the subject in more depth. It’s hard to remain a skeptic when you discover the mountain of recorded evidence supporting the existence of this creature. Before the discovery of the great apes in the African jungle, the same skeptical viewpoint existed about them. Of course now we know they exist. I believe the same will happen with the Big Foot/Sasquatch. It’s only a matter of time. The evidence is mounting. The largest body of evidence is the many hundreds of footprints found in places like Alberta, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. During my study of this subject, I have come across many people who say somebody makes the footprints with large foot shapes strapped to their feet. Sure, maybe in a few cases. But, think of this, many prints are found in very isolated areas. They are chance discoveries. It takes days to hike into some of these places. Some prints are imbedded inches into hard soil, and only something of great weight would be able to do that. One long trail of successive footprints showed changes in toe position and flexing of the entire foot. If this was a cutout strapped to a person’s foot this would not occur. Furthermore, the distance between one print and the next one has been measured at 40 inches to some over 72 inches heel to heel. This is beyond a human’s capabilities, especially the larger distances. Some tracks have maintained these distances even when going up steep inclines with fallen timber and brush. In addition to the tracks we have the many visual sightings of the creature, recordings of it’s vocal sounds, film and video footage, hair samples and a cast of a partial body print from Washington State called the "Skookum Cast". A hair sample taken from the site was determined to be non-human and not from any known animal. A team of British scientists have come to the same conclusion on hair samples obtained from a site in the country of Bhutan in Asia. There seems to be many details to research and investigate. It’s interesting to note that unrelated people from different areas who have never believed in this creature or have read anything about this subject are reporting details that are the same. These details are normally not reported by the media and only come out when a Big Foot/Sasquatch researcher digs into the case. Some of these details describe how the creature has been observed washing food. It has been seen stripping leaves from branches by running the branch through its teeth. People have seen it eating grasses, roots, berries, fish, shellfish, and small mammals. When people intrude into its area there are reports of things being thrown at them to try to get them to leave. Another interesting thing that is reported about the creature is that when it turns to look behind itself, the head and shoulders seem to turn together as if it did not have a flexible neck as humans do. These are just some of the details that show up in many different reports. Speaking of reports, I have a few that I have collected over the years. Most of them are from around the Okanagan Valley. I was talking about the Bigfoot/Sasquatch subject at work when one of my co-workers told me of a short sighting his wife had in the 80s. She was driving on a logging road near Penticton when, in the distance, she saw a large black thing that was walking on two legs. It came out of the trees on one side of the road and walked across to the trees on the other side. That was the last she saw of it. Another report from the early 90s was from a man who was driving at night near Westbank, which is between Penticton and Kelowna. As he was turning a corner the car headlights swept across a field. Walking on two legs was a dark creature he felt was a gorilla at first. There are no zoos in the area where such an animal could escape. He watched it disappear into the night. Next day he came back with his son and a dog to follow its path. At a certain point the dog would go no further, and seemed to be afraid. This next report I only heard from a third party. The actual witnesses did not wish to be interviewed. This sighting happened this year (2001). Dawn was breaking and two women were parked in their car talking at a spot near Yellow Lake, which is a few miles west of Penticton. One woman stopped talking and directed the other woman’s attention towards a fence on the other side of the highway. There was a long gate in the fence, about four feet high. Stepping over the gate was a female Sasquatch (as was clearly visible to them from its anatomy). A short distance ahead and up a bank was another Sasquatch looking back at the female climbing the fence. They disappeared into the trees. Some friends and I investigated the area and found several shallow caves, but no tracks. This next report happened a year earlier in October 2000. Two men hunting in the Apex Mountain and Nickel Plate Road area reported it to me. They were driving on a logging road looking for a place to park. They saw a log pile and some forestry machinery ahead and decided to pull over there. One man opened his door, and was about to step out when he noticed a large footprint directly bellow him. The five toes were very well defined. The soil was soft and silt-like. The print measured about 18 inches long by about 7 inches wide. There was only one. The next day the men came back with two more people to show them the print, but the wind had blown some silt into it and it was not as well defined. It is very possible that the track was made only hours before it was initially discovered. The latest report that has come in is about a sighting of four Sasquatch seen together in the Cultus Lake/Chilliwack area. The few details that I have at this time are from a man who says he was hiking with a friend up a mountain side. When they reached a flat field-like area near the top they saw 2 large Sasquatch and 2 smaller ones. They seemed to be picking the wild strawberries in the field. Their hike up the mountain took them two and a half hours but they made it down in fifteen minutes of panic. Currently, I am working on two cases which have film and video of the creatures. The first is from a man in Princeton, BC. He had a couple of sightings and encounters with the creature. At fourteen he saw one with his friends. It was on a dark road and he saw its shape by using the night sky as a backdrop. He remembers long arms swinging slowly at its side. His next sighting was on the Hope-Princeton Highway, around 1989-90, when he was watching traffic go by from a bank above the Highway. All of a sudden he felt he was being watched. He turned around and there about 100 feet away in the trees was a Sasquatch looking at him. He said that the chest was about 4 feet across. He tried to remain calm and walked back to his vehicle. Also one morning he discovered a dead calf on his property. There was damage to the stomach, and a large bite hole in the rump area. There were two long bloody finger-like marks on its body. He did not know what could have happened to it. When he came back the next day the whole body was gone. No drag marks were found. He decided to search the surrounding area and found only its hooves. The man also reported that in the late 60`s a friend of his who was working on a Highway improvement project in the Princeton-Hope area, filmed one. Apparently there was rock blasting going on and this friend wanted to film a blast going off. He set the film camera up and waited for the explosion. Just before the blast went off a white creature running on two legs came out of the trees, and ran across the road disappearing into the trees again. It was between the camera and the blast site. Efforts are under way to obtain a copy of the film. Video exists of another sighting that occurred on a mountaintop near Penticton. It was taken by a man who was filming his family relatives and friends, enjoying a warm, sunny afternoon of sight-seeing. The elevation of this mountain is over 3,000 feet and the road up is somewhat difficult. Nobody saw the creature until that evening when they were reviewing the tape. I was able to view this sequence several times. It is short, about 10 to 12 seconds. The camera starts to pan from the right to the left as it follows a man and a child walking up a dirt road. In the background you can see a dark shape standing there in the trees watching the man and child who are between it and the camera. The child makes a sudden move and the thing in the trees immediately turns to the left and takes two to three steps and disappears behind a small communication building. When the frames of it are frozen on the screen you can see shoulders with a head directly on top. There are two arms that seemed to swing as it walked. The back of the head looked higher than the front. It did not look like any animal such as a bear or the like. This sighting took place about June 1994, and I have been trying to obtain a copy since then. The owner has been a little reluctant and worried about ridicule, which is common with this subject. Nevertheless I will keep trying. Since the sighting took place close to home, my friend Don and I have hiked to the top every year looking for more clues. We measured everything in sight to try and estimate how tall it was. It works out to about 8 feet tall. Rick, another friend, directed me to a footprint that was found later on. I have a cast of it. Well, that’s basically what I have collected on the subject so far. In closing I would like to say that it will take patience, technology and some luck to get definitive proof of this creature’s existence. Those who put forth the effort will get results. For more information on this subject, read books by John Green, John Bindernagel, and Thomas Steenburg. Thank you for your time. Robin Nowatschka, 2001.

Send us your comments: Please state name and date of article

RETURN TO BIGFOOT