If anyone were likely to stumble upon Bigfoot back in the Seventies, it would surely have been me. At the time I was working as a freelance journalist, travelling the American West on my own dime and time. In other words, sleeping in the woods and foraging for wild nuts and berries.
Late one night at a campground outside Livingston, Montana, I was awakened by something chuffing and shuffling just outside my Volkswagen minivan. It was a big something—big enough to rock my van as it bumbled back and forth while bussing the dirty dishes I’d foolishly neglected to wash and put away. I’m pretty sure it was a bear, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it just might have been Bigfoot. That’s because in the journalistic marketplace, Bigfoot sells. The trick is to suspend disbelief for however long it takes to write and market the story.
My second close encounter with Bigfoot happened on a cattle ranch near Lander, Wyoming, where a hairy humanoid had been spotted lurking behind a haystack. There, I was shown footprints that may or may not have been hoof prints, but who can say for sure? My expert witness in that case was a resident of the Wind River Indian Reservation, whose account savored of tribal legend—but who cares? My story sold, and was later anthologized as one of hundreds of “documented” Bigfoot sightings that have occurred across the United States.
One day, as I sat in the doorway of my van pondering where my next paycheck was coming from, it occurred to me that an actual photograph of the elusive beast might be more marketable than mere hearsay. From what I’ve seen in pulp magazines, ordinary cameras are ill suited for the job, so I rigged up a primitive pinhole camera, using duct tape and a Quaker Oats box. A self-timer allowed me to run into the frame; a slow shutter speed ensured that the image would be sufficiently blurred. As I ran, I tossed my hat into the air, which later became identified as an unidentified flying object. The resulting photo was published in The Salt Flat News and subsequently reviewed during a national radio broadcast hosted by ABC’s Harry Reasoner. Reasoner expressed some doubts as to whether the running figure might actually be Bigfoot and the hat a flying saucer. Nonetheless, he suspended disbelief for however long it took him to file his report—same as I did, for however long it took for the check to clear the bank.
