The weekend of Sept 26th - 28th, what a great weekend this was! I was at the 2008 East Coast Bigfoot Conference in Jeannette, PA on Sept 27th where I finally had a chance to meet many of the people I have been talking to online on a regular basis.
This was the first time I was able to meet my good friend and host of the Bigfoot Quest BlogTalkRadio internet radio show, Bob Coyne. Bob and I have been hosting the Tuesday night show together for almost a year now but we never had the chance to meet before this weekend. It was great to finally meet the other voice on the show in person and spend a little time together, especially at a Bigfoot conference since this is an interest we both share.
I was able to meet some of the people I see on the Bigfoot forums and in the internet radio show chat rooms I visit on a regular basis. I’ve been talking with many of these people for quite a while, a few of them over two years now, so it was great to finally be able to match a face and a voice to some of the screen names I see online. Some of these familiar screen names I was able to meet included Regina2 (Regina), Shboom2 (Sally), Creature Seeker AKA “The Stomach” (Bruce), Sasquatch Experience AKA “Forkchop” (Sean), jbaker (James), and John Cartwright.
It was also my great pleasure to meet some of the more well known field researchers in the Bigfoot community such as Don Keating, Craig Woolheater, Bill Dranginis, Diane Stocking, Donna Cohrs, and Eric Altman just to name a few. Sally Ramey and Olof Seaman were there as well and they brought the most amazing tree twist I’ve ever seen to the conference for all to see. They had cut out this tree twist from a damaged tree they had found in the forest taking it home with them. Then they mounted this awesome piece of physical evidence to a display base and brought it to the conference. The twist consisted of a tree trunk approx 8 inches in diameter that had been broken and then twisted around the remaining trunk 7 or 8 times. Slides were shown to the audience showing the twist in the forest before it was cut away from the damaged tree and there is absolutely no visible damage to any of the surrounding trees. This is not the result of storm damage because any type of storm, even a “micro-burst” event, would have damaged some of the surrounding trees as a number of them were only a few feet away from the twist. It would appear that this twist was made by simply grabbing the tree and twisting it around. There doesn’t seem to be any other viable explanation for this twist. This is what makes this twist all the more amazing.
In addition to all the new people I met for the first time I was able to see some of my friends in the PBS once again like Earl & Pat Dundore, Kelly Beverly, and Kurt Strause which was great as well. I've worked with these fine folks in the field and look forward to the opportunity to do so again in the future.
The conference, which featured guest speakers Bob Chance, Mike Frizzell, Diane Stocking with sister Donna helping out, Billy Willard, Tom Lancaster, Sally Ramey, Olof Seaman as well as organizer/MC Eric Altman, went on all day long and into Saturday night finally ending close to 9pm. The speakers all gave great presentations about specific experiences they have each had while in the field and their individual research efforts. While all the speakers were very good, Billy and Tom’s presentation about the work they are doing to document the stick structures/tree bows they find in the field was especially interesting and their information was also very well presented.
I know I just got back from the conference but I’m already looking forward to the next one, whenever that may be. I think I heard Eric mention that the conference might return for 2010. If you missed this one do yourself a favor and make plans to be at the next one, you won’t want to miss it.
Left to Right - Bob Coyne, Don Keating, Michael Killen
Left to Right - Donna Cohrs, Michael Killen, Diane Stocking
Left to Right - Bob Coyne, Craig Woolheater, Michael Killen
Left to Right - Eric Altman, Michael Killen, Sean Forker
Left to Right - Sally Ramey, Olof Seaman, Kelly Beverly, Michael Killen
