outdoors Lookin’ for bigfoot

TRI-LAKES AREA — I didn’t recognize the number when the phone at my desk rang that day. My caller ID didn’t offer any assistance, either.

When you’re a newspaper editor, there’s always a slight hesitation before answering an unknown phone call. I’ve taken my share of tongue lashings from readers who didn’t like yesterday’s headline; how their son or daughter was (or wasn’t) positioned in a photo; and even one diatribe from a reader who couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t agree to a story on the UFO that was stealing his thoughts (he had the aluminum-foil hat and everything).

I thought I might be going down that road again when I answered the phone this time.

“Sir, I have a story that’ll stretch your credibility a little bit,” the voice on the other end said.

My reaction was one of both trepidation and curiosity. On the one hand, I hoped this wasn’t my E.T. friend calling back, but on the other hand, I imagined my own Deep Throat-type informant telling me what really happened to the two boys in Bauxite or the real explanation of the Gurdon Light.

It was almost better.

The man who called, who, for various reasons, wishes to be referred to by his pen name, Tal H. Branco, told me how he’s been tracking reports of bigfoot, the large, ape-like creatures dismissed by most as legend, for more than three decades.

And they’re here in Arkansas, he says. Not far from where I grew up in Saline County, actually.

This is the point at which you’re allowed to have a good laugh. Go ahead and get it over with. Now, let’s move on.

Tal asked if I’d be interested in publishing an article about his encounters with sasquatch in various places around Saline County. I wasn’t keen on that idea, as I didn’t know exactly what kind of story he’d send me. But the passion with which he told me about these alleged inhabitants wasn’t the crazy rambling of someone who’d spent too much time in the sun. I know what that sounds like (i.e., Mr. Aluminum Helmet). Tal was well aware that I might think he was crazy, whichmade me think all the more that he wasn’t. But still, I was skeptical.

He agreed to take me out in the Ouachita National Forest and show me exactly where he’d seen and heard bigfoot. I mentioned to my boss, KaneWebb, what I was planning, and he thought it was a great idea. So great, in fact, that he didn’t want to miss it.

So Kane and I met Tal in Paron on Aug. 28 to look for evidence of bigfoot. (That’s plural. Bigfoot is both the singular and plural term, like deer or fish.) Driving out there, we didn’t know whether to feel silly or excited.

Tal drove us back on an old logging road just northeast of Lake Winona, near Rody Mountain. We got out and assessed the terrain. Evidence of a controlled burn sometime in the past decade was obvious, but it wasn’t too recent. The shrubbery lining the forest floor was at least 4 feet tall (and higher in some places) and looked like a soft carpet among the towering trees, mostly pines.

If bigfoot do exist, this is clearly the kind of place they’d want to live. The mountainous area is completely covered by the forest, making it easy for any animal to live unexposed. Plus the lake and the various streams that flow into it provide a constant food and water source.

We hiked up to a natural spring, and as we did, Kane and I were both impressed and, admittedly, a little surprised with how well Tal knew the woods. He recounted his latest sighting, telling and showing us in great detail the direction from which the bigfoot came, how it behaved, what it looked like, etc. We hiked almost a mile in and would return to Tal’s truck before it got dark. We found a few tracks - deer, coyote, raccoon, what was probably a small bear - but nothing of the sasquatch variety.

Skeptics though we were,we couldn’t shake the question: What if they’re real? We watched Tal closely as he led the way, holding our breath and darting our eyes around the surrounding hills every time he stopped walking.

Tal told us that, according to his research of eyewitness accounts across the country, bigfoot communicate with a variety of vocalizations and have been known to mimic sounds they hear, such as bird calls or humans whistling.

“The most hair-raising sound they make is that of a woman screaming,” Tal said.

They also sometimes will smash rocks together or hit trees with fallen limbs as either a form of communication or a warning to intruders, he said. During our hike, Tal tried hitting a couple of rocks together to see if he could get a bigfoot to respond. No such luck.

It occurred to me as we finished hiking that while we hadn’t seen any bigfoot, we hadn’t seen any other animals, either. I thought that was strange given that I can’t hike the trails around Pinnacle Mountain, which are pretty well-traversed, without seeing at least some squirrels, lizards, frogs and enough birds to give Tippie Hedron a nervous tic.

In the more than seven hours we spent in the area that day, we heard a total of two birds and never saw a living creature save for a few fish in the pool at the mouth of the natural spring. Tal said that was unusual. He didn’t blame it on bigfoot, but he honestly didn’t have any explanation for it.

After our hike, we drove to a makeshift campgroundthat sat about a quarter-mile from the lake. There Tal pulled out a sound receiver that looked like a satellite dish; a pair of hunter’s ears, which amplified the sounds of the surrounding forest; and a night-vision scope (it was getting dark fast).

Kane put on the hunter’s ears, and I put on a pair of headphones attached to the sound receiver. And we heard ... crickets and cicadas. Nothing but crickets and cicadas.

Tal told us to expect to hear a chorus of coyotes compete with a jealous owl or two, so he was perplexed when all we heard were the bugs.

Tal played some recordings of bigfoot that he said had been recorded in California, trying to get the creatures to respond.

Again, just crickets and cicadas.

We listened intently for a couple of hours, but to no avail. As a last-ditch effort, I tooka thick stick that resembled an ax handle and whacked it against a tree three times. As I stepped back away from the tree, I heard a faint animal call off in the distance. Kane heard it, too, though neither of us was exactly sure what we heard. It seemed to sound like one of the recordings Tal had played for us, but then after having been there for six hours and not hearing or seeing a thing, we didn’t completely trust our own ears.

While we waited, Tal showed us a map he’d acquired by means he wouldn’t divulge.

“I’d have to kill you if I told you where I got it,” he joked. At least we thought he was joking.

The map was an official map of the U.S. Air Force’s training areas in the Pacific Northwest. On it, there were pictures of various animals that might pose a threat to trainees. Right smack-dab in the middle of it was a sketch of a large primate with the label “sasquatch.”

“The government knows these things exist,” Tal said.

We waited a while longer andthen decided to call it a night around 11. As we were loading the equipment, Tal and I heard another call similar to the one Kane and I had heard before. It was a little closer, and so a little louder, though it still sounded at least a quarter-mile away.

We were intrigued, but we were tired, too. We hadn’t brought equipment to camp, so we decided to go ahead and head back. Tal had told us his experiences with bigfoot led him to believe they were most active after midnight, but we knew we had a 45-minute drive ahead of us to get back home and didn’t want to fall asleep at the wheel.

Tal is part of the Remote Forest Primate Research Project, a national effort to document sightings and encounters with bigfoot. He’s collected bigfoot reports from people all over central Arkansas and several other Southern states.

He doesn’t care if people think he’s crazy. He knows what he’s seen and feels strongly about it.

And after having spent half a day with him, I’m convinced he’s not crazy. I firmly believe that he believes there are large, ape-like creatures out in those woods and in a lot of other places across the country.

As to what I believe? I don’t know. It occurred to me as we were hiking that when Westerners settled in North America, they tended to congregate around major river or ocean ports. Later, after the invention and proliferation of the railroad and interstates, other cities grew up around major transportation junctions.

But there are still plenty of places in the country that remain mostly untouched by humans. Who’s to say there aren’t things out there that have kept themselves out of the public’s eye - except for those peoplewe usually say have a few screws loose - for centuries?

I can’t give a definitive answer either way, but I plan to make another trip out to Lake Winona with Tal. If we find anything, I’ll let you know.