California Sasquatch License Plate Poster

The dark silhouette of Sasquatch (Bigfoot) on a blank California license plate. Add your own text. License plates for additional states and other entities (Canadian provinces, foreign countries) upon request. Some people date modern interest to 1958 when large footprints were found in Del Norte County, California by a bulldozer operator . Sets of large tracks appeared multiple times around a road-construction site. Plaster casts of the prints were made and the story was published in a local newspaper with the discover holding one of the casts. Locals dubbed the unseen track-maker Bigfoot. Bigfoot gained international attention when the story was picked up by the Associated Press. The Patterson-Gimlin film , often cited as some of the best evidence for esistence of an unknown, large primate in North America, is a short motion picture of an unidentified subject the film makers purported to Bigfoot, that was supposedly filmed on October 20, 1967, by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin on the Klamath River near Orleans, California. The film has been subjected to many attempts both to debunk and authenticate it. Skeptics have judged the film a hoax with a man in an ape suit, and theorists contend the film depicts a cryptid, a creature unknown to science. Sasquatch/Bigfoot sightings have been reported throughout North America. In addition to the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes region and the Southeastern United States have had many reports of Bigfoot sightings. “Sasquatch” is an anglicized derivative of the word “Sésquac” which means “wild man” in a Salish Native American language. Sasquatch is reported to be a large, hairy ape-like creature, ranging between 6–10 feet tall, weighing in excess of 500 pounds, and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. Alleged witnesses describe large eyes, a pronounced brow ridge, and a large, low-set forehead; the top of the head has been described as rounded and crested, similar to the sagittal crest of the male gorilla. Sasquatch is commonly reported to have a strong, unpleasant smell. Enormous footprints for which it is named are as large as 24 inches long and 8 inches wide. Tufts of hair of an unidentified primate species are often found. Most scientists say Sasquatch, aka Bigfoot, is nothing but folkloret and attribute sightings or footprints to misidentification or hoaxes. However, some scientists such as Jane Goodall believe it may exist. One theory suggests Sasquatch are a relic population of ancient hominids which reached North America from Eurasia via the Bering Land Bridge during a period of glaciation. Stories about Sasquatch-like creatures are found among the indigenous population of the Pacific Northwest. The legends existed prior to a single name for the creature. They differed in their details both regionally and between families in the same community. Similar stories are found on every continent except Antarctica to include the Yeti of the Himalayas and the Australian Yowie. Members of the Lummi tell tales about Ts’emekwes, the local version of Bigfoot. The stories are similar to each other in terms of the general descriptions of Ts’emekwes, but details about the creature’s diet and activities differed between the stories of different families. Some regional versions contained more nefarious creatures. The stiyaha or kwi-kwiyai were a nocturnal race that children were told not to say the names of lest the monsters hear and come to carry off a person—sometimes to be killed. In 1847, Paul Kane reported stories by the native people about skoocooms: a race of cannibalistic wild men living on the peak of Mount St. Helens. The skoocooms appear to have been regarded as supernatural, rather than natural. Less menacing versions such as the one recorded by Reverend Elkanah Walker exist. In 1840, Walker, a Protestant missionary, recorded stories of giants among the Native Americans living in Spokane, Washington. The Indians claimed that these giants lived on and around the peaks of nearby mountains and stole salmon from the fishermen’s nets. The local legends were combined together by J. W. Burns in a series of Canadian newspaper articles in the 1920s. Each language had its own name for the local version. Many names meant something along the lines of “wild man” or “hairy man” although other names described common actions it was said to perform (e.g. eating clams). Burns coined the term Sasquatch, which is from the Halkomelem sásq’ets (IPA: [ˈsæsqʼəts]), and used it in his articles to describe a hypothetical single type of creature reflected in these various stories. Burns’s articles popularized both the legend and its new name, making it well known in western Canada before it gained popularity in the United States. BFRO provides a free database to individuals and other organizations. Their internet website includes reports from across North America that have been investigated by researchers to determine credibility.