I received the following information in reference to the Sasquatch Summit presented this past weekend at the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino:
Went to the Sasquatch Summit last night Lon,
It was a good one, with Meldrum, Randles, Thom Powell, special guest Les Stroud and of course, Todd Standing. Those last two were the draw and I would say there were about 500 in the conference room when Standing took the stage at 6:10 in the evening. He talks fast, sounds very sincere and is clearly defensive about being called a hoaxer. The original footage and still photos he released last year got a lot of flak from internet viewers for a few reasons. They were only ‘heads’, they were so clear in definition as to suggest a staged event and in particular, one figure he filmed looked like a paper-mache mock-up of Michael Jackson, so much so that some wags actually super-imposed MJ’s face on the image for a laugh and to prove their point. After hearing him speak for about forty minutes, I am convinced of two things: He believes he has solid video evidence of bigfoot creatures at his habituation spot in the Nordegg area of Alberta, Canada and he has Dr. Meldrum and John Bindernagl on his side as supporters.
You will note that I did not admit that I believe he has new Bigfoot tape. He never showed any new footage at the conference, (just a short trailer pumping up his new documentary) and he spent the last few minutes of his segment to pitch his kickstarter campaign to solicit money for further research.
As an interested but skeptical observer, I think we have to reserve judgment as long as possible, and Meldrum (and Dr. Bindernagl to a lesser degree) did as well.
Dr. Meldrum’s statement on his Facebook page said it best:
FOR THE RECORD:
The account offered on Todd Standing's Kickstart site is accurate in so far as my involvement is concerned. Following the events that occurred last Fall in Alberta, Todd asked me not to discuss my experience extensively until he the chance to finish the production of his documentary. Therefore, I have said very little publicly and openly about it. I will let him share the details with those attending the summit or the airing of his film in Seattle the following Tuesday. I will say that I did witness and interaction, i.e. Sonya talking reassuringly to something large and heavy that was circling our camp under cover of darkness at the end of a burmed road. It reacted to her approach and eventually broke from the treeline and crossed the gravel road to the opposite treeline. I observed through night vision an upright silhouetted figure, forward-leaning, arm-swinging, moving smoothly. Was it a sasquatch? I am not certain, but under the circumstances and based on the reconstruction conducted the next day, it strikes me as a real possibility that it was.
So as you can see, he closes with ‘I am not certain’..which preserves his credibility in case Standing is lying. At the conference though, Standing showed footage of Dr. Meldrum and himself discussing a trackway at his site in Alberta where Meldrum becomes fairly giddy about an explanation regarding that trackway’s authenticity. Meldrum was sitting in the audience near the front and when Todd asked him if what he was saying about Meldrum’s involvement and level of belief was accurate, Meldrum responded positively from the way he gesticulated and the way Standing smiled from the stage, but he was not mike’d and few in the back of the room where I was could hear him. Meldrum said in an interview later, “The footprint evidence for me is overwhelmingly compelling,” he said. “That there is a species out there that is, as yet, unrecognized, unacknowledged by science, and that evidence alone would justify, in my mind, it motivates me, it has convinced me that the search for this species is absolutely justified and long overdue.”
John Bindernagl, however, got up on stage when Standing called him and he was effusive and he burbled his agreements with Standings’ findings, whatever they were. On Standing’s Kickstarter page is the Bindernagl quote, "After spending time in the field with Todd Standing... I am firmly convinced he has in fact filmed portraits of the Sasquatch face."
After pitching his 'Protection of The Species' petition, Standing soon left the stage.
Here is a link to some thermal imager that will be featured in Standing’s film, 'Bigfoot North'
The rest of the conference was fairly typical. Thom Powell, the author of ‘The Locals’ (which is touted as one of few books that allow for a paranormal aspect in BF behavior) did not disappoint with the ‘woo,woo’ stuff. He told anecdotes about ESP interactions between humans and BF and posted his Worm Hole theory to explain the instant appearance and disappearance accounts. There were the typical audio experts and Derek Randles of the Olympic project, who added nothing new, although one member of Randles crew, David Ellis, showed slides of The Grays Harbor thermal image, which is an underwhelming blot or white on a black screen that doesn’t move at all.
I will be going to the debut of Standing's documentary on Tuesday night and I'll let you know how that shakes out.
But the real star of this conference was an individual I met that I will write about on my blog at Bizarre Bigfoot. I will not reveal his name (ever) or the details yet, but you can read his BFRO report about a family of Bigfoot visiting his property regularly on the Washington Coast where I have a small cabin.
Here’s that link:
http://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_report.asp?id=29609
It’s much more interesting to me that this fellow has an ongoing relationship with Bigfoot individuals who, get this, ‘attempt to communicate with speech and physical contact, ie., offering to shake hands.’
Sure, this could be BS, but after speaking directly with this guy for well over thirty minutes, I believe him.
The full story will be on my site later today - Bizarre Bigfoot
Thanks,
SAR
NOTE: I sincerely thank SAR for the information provided...Lon
Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science
The Discovery of the Sasquatch
The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon
Bigfoot Observer's Field Manual: A practical and easy-to-follow step-by-step guide to your very own face-to-face encounter with a legend
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