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.
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