The Complete Guide To Mysterious Beings - Galaksija

The thought came to me that if I shot it I would possibly have a specimen of great interest to
scientists the world over... I leveled my rifle. The creature was still walking rapidly away,
again turning its head in my direction. I lowered the rifle. Although I have called the
creature 'it,' I felt now that it was a human being, and I knew I would never forgive myself if
I killed it.
Just as it came to the other patch of brush it threw its head back and made a peculiar noise
that seemed to be half laugh and half language, and which I could only describe as a kind of
whinny. Then it walked from the small brush into a stand of lodge-pole pines.
In several similar stories armed hunters have declared that they could not bring themselves to fire
their weapons. The creatures seem too human to kill. ”It would be like shooting a man in cold
blood,” many have said.
In an article for the San Francisco Chronicle (December 7, 1965), George Draper discussed a hairraising
story which added to the evidence that the ABSM may sometimes hunt human beings. Mr.
O. R. Edwards, owner of a lock and safe company in Fresno, California, testified that he had
encountered a man-animal in the southern Siskiyou Mountains during World War II:
”I saw a large man-like creature covered with brown hair,” Edwards stated. ”It was about seven feet
tall and it was carrying in its arms what seemed like a man. I could only see legs and shoes. It was
heading straight downhill on the run.
”I, of course, did not believe what I had just seen. So I closed my eyes and shook my head to sort of
clear things up.
”I looked down the hill again in time to see the back and shoulders and head of a man-like thing
covered with brown hair. It was disappearing into the brush some seventy to eighty yards below.”
Edwards also claimed that the creature emitted ”the damnedest whistling-scream I ever heard.”
Draper noted that ”other observers have described the man-animal's strange cry as 'a vibrating
sound' or like the sound of a steam locomotive whistle or the sound of metal tearing.” One witness,
a geologist named R. A. E. Morley, said the animal issued ”a vibrating wail, like a person in pain.”
Did Mr. Edwards actually see an ABSM kidnap a human? There are many tales to this effect, some
told by people who purportedly had been the victims of such events and had lived to tell the story.
The most celebrated is the elaborately detailed narrative of an elderly Canadian, Mr. Albert Ostman,
who claims that he was carried off by a tribe of Sasquatches in 1924 and held prisoner for several
days. He described males, females and ”children.” It would take several pages for us to recount his
whole story properly. He has repeated it in many interviews and on radio, and Ivan Sanderson gives
the full details in his book. The story is so incredible that it raises an element of doubt. But, then,
our years of experience in this field have taught us that the more bizarre a story is, the more likely it
is to be true. Liars who want to be taken seriously don't try to ”sell” absurdities.
The California ”Big Foot” surfaced in the 1950s and created a sensation of several years' duration,
particularly in northern California close to the Oregon border. Oregon has also had its share of
ABSM sightings, as has the state of Washington, still farther north. Apparently the creatures have
been moving up and down the western mountain ranges from Canada, and when the many sightings
are laid out on a map they seem to follow a definite mountain route. In addition to the hundreds of
physical sightings there have also been hundreds of ”footprints” discoveries throughout that region.
From time to time local authorities and Type B scientists have tried to quell the ”monster mania” by
denouncing the tracks as the work of practical jokers. This would mean that some hardy soul has
gone through the trouble of constructing a special pair of giant shoes which can leave imprints so
convincing that zoologists and anthropologists could be fooled by them. Said hoaxster would then
have to trek thousands of miles through very rugged areas, scattering his tracks in places where the
chance of anyone ever finding them would be almost zero. And he would have to be very persistent,
stomping up and down the mountains year after year for almost two decades.
”Big Foot” is now an integral part of California folklore. The Humboldt State College Library at
Arcata, California, has compiled one of the world's most complete collections of Abominable