By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Marc DeWerth gave people the courage to come out of the closet on Saturday – and admit that Bigfoot might really be out there.
DeWerth, a Bigfoot investigator for three decades, was a skeptic for many of those years. But then it happened. He was out looking for a badger den when he heard what he thought was a cougar tracking him. He soon realized the creature following him was walking on two feet.
To this day, DeWerth remembers everything about the encounter on April 20, 1997, at 4:06 p.m., near Wills Creek in the Coshocton area. He remembers the towering black hairy figure that he had been hoping to find for years. But when he was standing there and made eye contact with the Bigfoot, all DeWerth could do was hope that the creature would leave.
On Saturday, DeWerth talked about sightings all over the nation of Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti – whatever the regional name is for the elusive creature. A guest of the Bowling Green Parks and Recreation Department, he spoke at the Simpson Park Building to a packed room of believers, skeptics and people everywhere in between.
“Most people will give you the stink eye,” when he starts talking about Bigfoot, DeWerth said. “Skepticism is healthy.”
“I was a skeptic. There was never a shred of evidence,” he said of his early investigation efforts. “I’m thinking these people are lunatics.”
But after interviewing 335 people who have claimed sightings, many of them very credible, DeWerth is a true believer.
“Bigfoot is alive and well,” he said.
But don’t expect to see one in your backyard – unless you live in the hills and hollers of places like southeastern Ohio.
Books brought by DeWerth for his presentation.
Throughout history, many totem poles carved by Native Americans included ape-like creatures, though no such animal is documented in North America.
The adult Bigfoot range from 6 to 10 feet tall, and weigh between 350 and 1,200 pounds.
“The big ones are huge,” DeWerth said.
They are nomadic and move with food sources – whether that is deer, livestock or family dogs. Piles of deer and calves carcasses have been discovered in woods, thought to be left by Bigfoots, he said.
Massive footprints and hunks of hair have been found, but for those looking for hard evidence – such as the carcass of a dead Bigfoot – that just isn’t going to happen, DeWerth surmised. But that doesn’t mean that Sasquatch isn’t real, he said.
“How often do you find a dead bear,” he asked. “You don’t. Do bears exist?”
“Have an open mind,” he said. “The chance of seeing Bigfoot is slim to none,” with the chance of winning a massive lottery payout much more likely.
But that doesn’t mean the search shouldn’t been attempted.
“Let’s go ‘squatchin’,” DeWerth said to his audience.
A standard “squatch pack” should include a 12-inch ruler so footprint photos have a standard measurement, walkie-talkie, 10-foot tape measurer, water, snakebite kit, extra socks, camera, extra batteries, hat, rain parka, and protein bars. No dogs, since they can easily become a snack for a Bigfoot, he said.
Before the internet, DeWerth would use newspaper ads to try to contact people who had encountered Bigfoot. Though many were less than credible, others were very believable, he said.
DeWerth shared stories from a U.S. Forest Service worker in Harrison State Forest, who was tapping trees to see if they were healthy, and marking dead trees to be removed, when she heard something tapping back on trees.
After several loud tree taps, she saw the source – a Bigfoot, DeWerth said. The forest worker ran out of the woods, with the creature chasing her all the way.
When she reported the sighting to her employer, she was informed, “You did not see a Bigfoot. You saw a bear,” since a Bigfoot sighting could create panic and cut down on park attendance.
Then there was the family in the hills of Belmont County, who threw out leftovers every Sunday evening for critters in the holler. There was the farmer whose chickens disappeared every night, despite a tall fence surrounding the pen.
And one of the more credible sources, a sheriff’s deputy who reported seeing a Bigfoot knock over a stop sign in the middle of nowhere. The creature towered over the 10-foot tall sign, he said.
“There are too many people seeing them for them to not exist,” DeWerth said. Even if 90 percent of the tens of thousands of reports are “flushed down the toilet,” there are 10 percent left that have believable details, he said.
DeWerth shared books on Bigfoot, plaster casts of Sasquatch foot prints, and played a recording that a family taped outside their rural Ohio home, of an eerie howling noise, unlike any known creature.
“They’re everywhere folks,” he said.
Marc DeWerth
The creatures don’t appear to want to hurt humans. Those who have reported being chased by a Bigfoot say they pursue from a distance.
“They want to escort you out of the area,” DeWerth said. “Bigfoot doesn’t seem to want to harm us.”
The creatures are smart, the speaker said.
“Bigfoot are really intelligent. If they find a food source, they are going to bleed it out,” he said, which could explain an orchard being mysteriously wiped out of apples. “They’re so sneaky.”
Being a believer is no longer considered loony. It used to be that talking about a Bigfoot encounter was a “taboo subject.” But now those people who claim to have witnessed a Sasquatch are now given almost celebrity status, DeWerth said.
Bowling Green resident and president of the parks and recreation board, Jeff Crawford, attended Saturday’s talk out of curiosity.
“I’ve always been interested,” he said. “There’s just enough evidence to pique your interest.”
Crawford plans to attend the Ohio Bigfoot Conference this spring at Salt Fork State Park, though he will be in the overflow crowd since the VIP tickets sold out in less than two minutes, he said.
BG parks naturalist Chris Gajewicz is also willing to give Bigfoot a chance.
“Everybody loves a good mystery,” he said.
Gajewicz blamed his dad for taking him at age 5 to a movie about Bigfoot, UFOs and Loch Ness.
DeWerth immediately recognized the movie – “The Scariest Monsters.”
“That changed my life,” Gajewicz said.
Gajewicz said he attended the first Ohio Bigfoot Conference. “I found my people,” he said.
However, it’s not something he boasts about on his professional vitae.
“I’m a closet Bigfooter,” Gajewicz said. “I would not be here today if I had put that on my resume.”
DeWerth blamed his grandfather for the start of his Bigfoot search by watching the TV show, “In Search” starring Leonard Nimoy. The episode on Sasquatch had him hooked.
But even at a young age, DeWerth sensed that being a Bigfoot believer was not a topic to be shared in all audiences. At the library, he remembered instead asking for books on Indian legends and folklore, in hopes of finding what he really hungered to read about.
He found “the bible of Bigfoot books” and a Sasquatch book on “the apes among us.”
“This was the first book I read from cover to cover,” he said.
DeWerth handed out several prizes at the end of his talk, including Bigfoot patrol patches, T-shirts, books, and the grand prize – a plaster cast of a Bigfoot’s foot.
