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Mark Freeman Commentary Sighting excites Bigfoot specialists First came a musky and pungent odor, like a mix of scared skunk, wet dog and rotten fish. Then the guttural, huffing groans of a mammal on the move. And finally the view of a large, hairy creature standing behind a tree and spying on a family not 40 feet away. These smells, sounds and sights literally scared the feces out of a Grants Pass psychologist Saturday while hiking with his family along a little-used trail at the Oregon Caves National Monument. Now they have John Freitas and his fellow Bigfoot hunters excited and optimistic that this chance encounter by Dr. Matthew Johnson and his family will unveil the secret of Sasquatch. "There�s no doubt in my mind that what he saw was a Bigfoot," says Freitas, a field investigator for the Bigfoot Research Organization. "It�s a very, very, very interesting encounter he had." Freitas, 45, is a Del Norte County welfare-fraud investigator who takes his hunting for Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, very seriously. Bigfoot, to Freitas, is not just some hairy backwoods version of the Loch Ness Monster. It�s a real species, he says, probably one that simply has escaped scientific validation for centuries. It�s Gigantopithecus, an ape-like animal up to 14 feet tall and weighing 2,000 pounds. It is long thought to be extinct; but Freitas and other Bigfooters believe it crossed the land bridge from Asia to North America thousands of years ago and dispersed across the continent, continuing to survive and staying just out of the long reach of empirical science. Since the early 1960s, researchers have documented 3,500 sightings and tracked discoveries across the continent, but none of them has broken Bigfoot free of its status as myth. This time, Freitas has a credible witness in Johnson, the help of government in the National Park Service and a set of circumstances that just might graduate Bigfoot from the covers of supermarket tabloids into the lists of identified North American mammals. "It�s one of the most credible, if not the most credible, sighting we�ve come across in a long time," says Freitas, who has investigated about 50 Bigfoot sightings in the past 20 years. "It�s real hot," Freitas says. "On a scale of 1 to 10, I�d give it an 11�." Johnson was hiking the monument�s Big Tree Trail with his wife, Rochelle, and three kids Saturday when they first encountered the harsh and musky smell. A short time later, they heard the "whoa, whoa, whoa" huffs of what they believed was a large mammal nearby. Johnson says he became enveloped with a "fight or flight" fear that quickly created a need for a bathroom. He stopped his family on the trail, walked 10 yards uphill in the brush and started to do his business. That�s when he saw the huge creature standing upright, darting from tree to tree to spy on Rochelle and the kids on the trail. Johnson saw the creature for just two seconds before he pulled up his shorts, beat feet back to the trail and hustled his family away from what he believed was a potentially dangerous clash with the creature. "We were just out to have a nice, fun family hike," Johnson says. "This just happened. "It was nothing else but a Sasquatch. I swear to God." The Bigfoot Research Group certainly believes him. Comprising a nationwide network of scientists, researchers, law-enforcement officials and others intrigued by the Bigfoot story, it is the largest such Bigfoot organization in the country. Johnson sent the group an e-mail about his encounter late Saturday, then the group sent Freitas from his Crescent City, Calif., home to investigate Sunday whether Johnson saw one of the estimated 2,000-6,000 Bigfoots the group believes are alive in North America. Naturally skeptical at first, Freitas wondered whether the case was a hoax. Then Freitas spoke with Johnson by telephone. Within 18 hours of the sighting, Freitas was at the Oregon Caves canvassing the area. On Monday, Freitas joined the Johnsons in finding exactly where they crossed paths with Bigfoot, and even found where Johnson was squatting when he saw the creature. They recreated the whole encounter, and searched for evidence but found only broken tree branches and strange footprints that were not conclusively those of Bigfoot. Yet this one, Freitas says, is the Real McCoy. "There�s no doubt in my mind it�s real," Freitas says. "Everything matches up. There�s no way the doctor could have put all this together." Southern Oregon and Northern California are Bigfoot "hotbeds," with upwards of 70 cases of sightings and footprints reported in this region over the past 100 years, Freitas says. Since 1974, there even has been a large wood-and-metal trap set in the woods near Applegate Lake specifically to catch a Bigfoot. Occasionally, a dead rabbit has been used as bait. But no cases here, or elsewhere across the globe, have turned up proof of Bigfoot�s existence. People who encounter these creatures, Freitas says, are normally too freaked out to snap a photo or gather evidence when the opportunity best presents itself, he says. "The last thing you think of, when you see something like this, is documenting it," says Freitas, who believes he�s heard Bigfoot screams in the woods but has never seen one. "You�re in shock." Still, the circumstances in Johnson�s encounter all mesh with other credible Bigfoot cases � the smells, the animal�s elusive-but-quizzical nature, the enormous size and upright stature. "People in Southern Oregon," says Matt Dunlap of the Seattle-based Sasquatch Research and Protection Project, "don�t realize what a big deal this is." Freitas knows people will read this and roll their eyes. Especially when this Bigfoot surfaces again � soon � at the Oregon Caves, as Freitas fully expects it to. "This one�s curious," Freitas says. "He didn�t know he was (seen). I�m expecting another (encounter) within a week or two. I�m absolutely positive we�ll get something else out of the caves." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at: [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA