Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 4A

4A TODAY, Sunday. Jimmy 28,1171 Bigfoot Leaves His Hunters Behind and Squabbling Pursuing Bigfoot, the apelike creature supposedly haunting the Northwest, Mould seem, aJargeenough task But its huniep sometimes appear equally as demoted to pursuing each other. By KAY BARTLETT SEATTLE Dr. Graver a physical anthropoid ogjstjat Washington State Umvefsity in Pullman, jjometlmes drives at night alonuonely back roads with a nffe by his side and bullets in Msockef TTjars.out of character Tor (he gaunt, bearded Krantz because he's not a huntet His conscience still bothers him because he shot a deer when he was 14 But he is armed for Bigfoot, the giant, hairy, apelike creature that is said to stalk the Pacific Northwest. (There have been reported sightings' on most continents and in every state except Hawaii and Rhode Island, as well) Enormous.

havebeen found in unlikely places; over a thousand pea pie swear they have seen the creature move through the forest, and others claim to have captured it on film In Canada, Bigfoot is called Sasquatch, an Indian word for "Big man Krantz is about the only. "ScTredited" member of the scientific community who has said categorically that the creature is out there A few "other scientists have waffled, but otherwise nearly the entire scientific community has one word for Bigfoot, and that is "bunk Dr7 Sydney Anderson, a mammologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, dismisses the one film that has most Impressed" "even" The" non aficionados of Bigfoot as "show business, not science It was a man in a monkey suit Krantz, at the opposite pole, became interested in JligfoaL in 1969 when a deputy sheriff related a sighting "It sounded very solid. I wanted it to be true, but I didn't think it was It would be nice, but He became convinced, however, when John Green, a journalist turned politician in British dragged him off to Bossburg, to see over 1,000 footprints ascribed to a crippled Bigfoot. They were photographed and plaster cast, as supposed Bigfoot prints frequently are, and Krantz reconstructed the ana'tomy of the foot, which strongly resembled a club foot. He decided the prints couldn't have been faked.

"It would have taken a brilliant anatomist with a very inventive (mind and we haven't had one of those around since Leonardo da Vinci," he says, Krantz, 46, has suffered, in academic standing and ad vancHrlerir because of his position on Bigfoot. That's one 'reason why he wants someone to bag one. He scoffe at Bigfooters who only want to photograph. Even if you photograph them down to their tonsilsjtt rW" Me.BMlBBBBBB jtJ to 33b1 y. jBJBBeaBBBBBBBBMF" 'Bbbbw1 IP' i bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbwv AaW A St tM JHBBBBBBBBBBBBBBK BTaBafaBaaP' Ev JHI bbbbf tSBlr tB rlkLikaaBBBBBBBBBBBBM fQHBkaBBMk BSSSSSSSSSSjBBBSSSSSjg, fcBBBBBBBBBmSBSflpr TODAY AP UwrMwN THIS MAY OR MAY NOT BE BIGFOOT but firm is hardest piece of evidence yet will never convince the scientific community," says Krantz "We need the body or bones That approach appalls John Beckjord of Seattle, another emphatic figure in the Bigfoot movement.

"It might be the missing link," he says "We may have a better chance of communicating with this animal than with any other." That issue has touched off wild arguments among the roughly 200 persons in the loose network of Bigfoot hunters, a network in which nobody seems to like anybody very much discord is offered by Green, the former editor and publisher of the Agassiz Harri son Advance in British Columbia Green has collected 1,800 reports of sightings and written four books on the subject, the most recent entitled, "Sasquatch, the Apes Among Us." is no second prize" in the Bigfoot sweepr stakes, he explains. "The man who actually collects one sees a pot of gold and fame out there. And If you pre select a group of individuals who are willing to fly inrthe (ace of society, you fend to get some pretty opinionated Individuals." To meet some of them: Rene Dahinden of Richmond, a leathery faced old timef in the business, who grew up in rural Switzerland, got little formal schooling and is fond of quot 'Ing from "The'Tnoughts of Chairman Mao. Dahinden has spent much time in the bush but has never laid eyes on Sasquatch. His rivals say he spends even more time in the courtroom, suing and being sued over various aspects of evi dence and rights.

Dahinden concedes his legal passion: "As Mao would say, there's a time to be in the field and a time to be in the courtroom. And the courtroom is where the excitement is now." Dahinden says he's spent some $10,000 in legal fees, and he's being sued by a film company and the widow of a Bigfoot chaser for a total of $200,000 for "malicious har assments" "through the courts. Beckjord, of Seattle, claims to have seen a Bigfoot, perhaps two, on the Lummi Island Indian reservation in northern Washington. He heads "Project Grendel," and claims to have a photograph of four Sasquatch a family taken by a photographer in the Sierras. (The photographer did not see the creature at the time, but they are now visible through computer enhancement of the film, Beckjord says He specializes in collecting photographic evidence, hair, blood samples, droppings and tape recordings.

He also has a car aerial he said was clearly chewed off by a Sasquatch. Dahinden doesn't think much of Beckjord's treasures. "I'd need a 60,000 ton truck if I collected everything he thinks is evidence." Beckjord and Dahinden are also at odds over the Ihost famous Bigfoot film; shot in 1967 by the late Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. That's the film that Dr. Anderson of the Museum of Natural History considers a fake.

Routine Sasquatchena: Dahinden demands in a letter that Beckjord stop showing the film, threatens him with the FBI, with legal action, demands a $300 pay ment Beckjord corrects a scoreor more "of spelling errors, returns the letter with ared mimis" at the top. Also, Dahinden is one of thejigfooters who want to shoot one: Beckjord tarries only cameras arid a tape recorder, and besides is well versed in Indian which says Sasquatch can't be killed. Dahinden, he says, "always carries a carbine, gives off bad vibes and besides, the tooth fairy doesn't like Dahinden" lives to a trailer at the Vancouver Gun Club and supports himself in part by scooping up spent bullets, recycling and selling them. Beckjord, 39, is a sometime cameraman, oil rigger and mortgage broker. Another Bigfoot pursuer is Peter Byme, a silver tongued Irishman who runs the Bigfoot Information Center and Exhibition in Hood, Ore.

He says he was once an Abominable Snowman hunter in Nepal. Byrne swore out a warrant against Dahinden to keep him out of Oregon, charging that Dahinden interfered with his work there andhad threatened him. Byme is the only one among the Bigfooters so far who's been able to get funding for the Investigation some money from the Academy of Applied Sciences in Boston, which has also financed hunts for the Loch Ness monster. And Byrne is getting a movie made about Bigfoot. Mostly the searchers spend their own money, without help from government.

Beckjord has applied for grants and not gotten them but he says he knows exactly what he'd do with suchrmoney. He'd head for the Sierras rather than the Lummi Indian reservations, where many sightings, including his own, have been reported. "The Lummi Sasquatch are too streetwjseJUieejt plains. "Besides, the Sierra Sasquatch are blond and gentlemen prefer blondes. I am blond Maybe they'll like me." Krantz, on the other hand, isn't trying for a grant.

He spends a few thousand dollars of his own money a year, he says, adding? "What else have I got to do with it? 1 live alone with two dogs." Dr. Marjone Hatpin, an anthropologist at the University of British Columbia at Vancouver, managed to get the warring Sasquatch tribe together last May for the first ever Bigfoot conference, sonorously entitled, "Anthropology of the Unknown, Humanoid Monsters: Sasquatch and Similar Phenomena." She rounded up scientists, Sasquatch Investigators and philosophers. Papers ranged from an analysis of droppings and hair not conclusive to "The Wild Man in Medieval Irish Gaelic Literature." Never again, says Dr. Halpin, who calls herself a "closet believer." The hunters weren't much interested in the role of the monster fig skv i WrGTV jvii ure in literature, while the English professors didn't care much for the Sasquatch war stories. Besides, Beckjord and Dahinden got into a shoving match, Byme showed Up with a film crew, Dahinden threatened to walk out with his followers if the crew stayed, and one journalist entitled his article on the conference "The Bigfoot Follies." The conference settled very little.

Dr. Halpin and Dr. Krantz do believe that, despite the turmoils, it brought scientists and Sas quatch chasers a mite closer together. The question will hardly be resolved until a Sasquatch is bagged or captured (Houston anthropologist Dr. John Gillespie has calmly offered a $50,000 prize for either feat) Most sightings have been reported by loggers, hunters and hikers not obsessed with the Sasquatch Saga.

There are even reports of people shooting a Bigfoot in the chest, only to see it turn and runoff. Tape recordings, hair samples, droppings and such have proven inconclusive. Saquatchians cite the numerous footprints, some in locations they think hoaxers would be unlikely to pick. But hoaxes there have been Even Dahinden, the expert, bit on one in May 1977. That was after a "Bigfoot" ran across the road before a busload of tourists in British Columbia.

Dahinden rushed to the scene, proclaimed the tracks authentic and two days later the perpetrators brought their monkey suit to a news conference. The film by Patterson and Gimlin is generally considered the hardest piece of evidence in support of Sasquatch. Patterson was a rodeo rider and Gimlin a truck driver. Their film, shot in Bluff Creek, is somewhat blurred and jerky, but even skeptics concede that if it's a hoax, it's a brilliant one. The creature moves in long strides, its thigh muscles visible, the swing of its ample breasts anatomically correct as It runs from the pursuing Patterson.

Dahinden took the movie to Russia In 1972 where, he says, two Soviet scientists analyzed it and concluded the creature couldn't be a man. American scientists have been more cautious. For most people the Sasquatch debate is a casual entertainment, but for those at the core of it it's become an obsession, and there's even talk of a Curse of the Sasquatch. Bob Tltmus of Harrison. Hot Springs, B.C., says he" saw one while sailing through the Wrangel straits of Alaska in 1942.

He put it out of his mind for 16 years, practicing his trade as taxidermist, then heard about Sasquatch tracks, and" went" looking. "I can't tell Xpu.hqwjong it took" me to put the two things together," he says. "The creature I was tracking was the creature" I'd seen all those years ago." Tltmus, now 60, says he eventually saw three more from distance. He also seriously Injured his spine in a boating accident In pursuit of one of the creatures. Krantz academicacademic prospects.

Dahinden's wife left him "she wanted a tax paying, church going, community oriented person," not a Sasquatch hunter, he says. lutH tooay ap iiMtratm Why do they continue? "It's my life," says DaJi still wondering; if the damned thing existag I'm not out in the bush toEJS my health No, I don't really care about the monejfej as much as I care about th5 fight. Maybe it's childish, but I want to rattle the Institutions' teeth with It." Beckjord "simply" says) committed, obsessed and feverish." And Grover Krantz would be vindicated. Sasquatch, you could make a lot of people happy. Lovablt Ptts For Salt.

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