Experts and fans of Sasquatch to trade tales this weekend

02:59 PM CDT on Sunday, October 24, 2004

By SILLA BRUSH / The Dallas Morning News

JEFFERSON, Texas – Craig Woolheater knows your skepticism, but he is certain there is a Bigfoot. And it might be in Texas, no less.

He knows it's out there because he saw it.

It was on Memorial Day 1994. The North Dallas resident and his wife were driving home from New Orleans. They were on a two-lane road near Alexandria, La. The apelike being, maybe 7 feet tall, was hunched over in a swamp 20 feet to the side of the road.

Mr. Woolheater remembers flashing his headlights and seeing the Bigfoot's back covered with gray hair: "My wife and I looked at each other and said, 'Did you see what I saw?' "

The Pacific Northwest is generally thought to have the best claim on Bigfoot, a.k.a. Sasquatch. That's flat wrong, says Mr. Woolheater, who is holding his fourth annual Texas Bigfoot Conference in the Piney Woods this weekend.

John Kirk, a cryptozoologist from Vancouver, British Columbia, who is speaking at the meeting, said in the Texas-Louisiana-Arkanas-Oklahoma area, "you have rampant Bigfoot activity."

Mr. Woolheater said there are more than 100 sightings per year in Texas, mostly in East Texas, and he considers 75 "legitimate."

"We're skeptical," he said. "We get a lot who are obviously joking."

Bigfoot's history in Texas goes back to the days of the Alamo. According to Mr. Woolheater, published accounts from the 1920s recall "the strange case of the Wild Woman of the Navidad."

According to folklore, a creature described as covered with short, brown hair and fast on its feet menaced Texas settlements in 1837. The story goes that the creature eluded capture because horses were so afraid that they couldn't be urged within range of a lasso.

Mr. Woolheater chronicles sightings on his Web site (www.texasbigfoot.com) They include a 1995 incident north of Houston. A man surveying land walked up on a creature that rose up on two legs and ran toward him. It caught him under the chin with a forearm, flipping him over and knocking two teeth loose.

Last year's Bigfoot conference was standing-room-only – about 300 people. The meeting was moved to Jefferson High School this year for extra space. Residents from around the "Bed and Breakfast Capital of Texas" pitch in to help, with students serving food and crafting Sasquatch-themed art to be judged by several experts speaking at the conference.

There are believed to be about 10,000 Bigfoot enthusiasts around the United States and Canada. They know they are seen as oddballs who have almost no support in the scientific community. That would include David Sierra, wildlife biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife in Tyler.

"You don't see any hair samples, carcasses, no one has ever photographed," Mr. Sierra said. "In 200 years someone must have some solid concrete evidence. But there is nothing."

Nonetheless, Bigfoot-seekers venture into the woods on their own or in small expeditions in hope of finding the ultimate physical proof – or even a close encounter with the legendary beast.

Jimmy Chilcutt, a fingerprint examiner for the Conroe Police Department, uses his work experience to investigate alleged Bigfoot prints.

"I distinguish between human primates and nonhuman primates," he said.

The ridges on fingers and feet occur only on primates, he says. He pulls out a magnifying loupe to look at a footprint cast he first examined in 1999. The print's ridges are double the width of a human foot, and they run the length of a cast. These are unique, he says.

He tried to compare the casting to a database of footprints from orangutans, chimpanzees and other primates in a database of footprints. No matches.

"When I first saw it, I knew we had something but I didn't know what," Mr. Chilcutt said.

Mr. Woolheater is a solid man, tall, and with a trim beard and mustache. He develops software and Web sites for a living in Dallas. His memories of mysterious creatures go way back.

In 1969, there was "The Lake Worth Monster." Mr. Woolheater was 9 when he went out on Lake Worth on his grandparents' boat and dreamed about the creature coming aboard in the night. He remembers being scared when he saw The Legend of Boggy Creek at a drive-in in Plano in 1973.

The names of other famous Texas creatures rolled off his tongue. There was the Night Screamer, Night Ape, Woolly Booger, Big Cypress Swamp Monster and the Caddo Critter.

He said the conference is a good time to swap tales and tips.

"It's for people who have an interest in the subject to try and get some answers," he said.

E-mail sbrush@dallasnews.com