Tales of the mythical-or real-life-Bigfoot run rampant in the West, but the creature that could be part man and part ape has a pretty large following in the Eastern U.S., as well.
Bigfoot researchers and fans finished up their 12th Annual Bigfoot Conference and Expo this week outside of Cleveland, Ohio, and they're decidedly just as possessive of the legend as their counterparts Out West. "Nearly 200 people, including Sasquatch experts and eyewitnesses from across the country, gathered at the event, sponsored by the Tri-State Bigfoot Study Group, commented the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper."
The group covers an area that has had as many reported sightings as the Pacific Northwest of this 7-foot-tall, 900-pound, furry, ape-like creature that supposedly haunts the deep forests and remote mountains. The group's members come from Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The conference took over a local high school, where vendors were selling everything from CD-ROMs of Bigfoot calls and screeches to T-shirts, posters, footprint plaster casts, hats and videos. Several well-known researchers offered workshops on how to film and document the creature.
Don Keating, one of the conference organizers, said he had video documentation of two sightings of the creature in the woods around Newcomerstown, Ohio, the same location that local Delaware Indians are said to have offered food to the "wild ones of the woods.
The annual conference has grown from 42 attendees in its early years, and now attracts Bigfoot fans from other regions in the East, such as Virginia, Michigan and Arkansas. And one delegation from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania is planning a research expedition this summer to attempt documenting the creature.
Staff Writer Sally Suddock