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U.S. Forest Service patrollers Paul Freeman and Bill Epoch found the new sets of alleged “paw prints” in the Mill Creek Municipal Watershed. Freeman claims to have actually seen a Bigfoot creature while patrolling Tiger Canyon Road near the watershed area about 10days ago.But for the new tracks, the Forest Servicecalled in Joel Hardin, a U.S. Border Patrol employee from Bellingham, to investigate.Hardin said Saturday that in his expert opinion, the tracks he studied — those found Wednesday — were not made by an animal. “I have had occasion to study sign that was known to be a hoax,” Hardin explained, “and this compared favorably with that.”Hardin added that several features of the tracks indicated they were fakes. He said the spacing of the tracks — the stride — was exactly the same both uphill and down, the tracks have a definite starting and ending point, and they did not sink the entire depth of the soft mud of the area.Wayne Long, the Walla Walla District fire management officer, said he had seen both the original tracks found on June 10 by Freeman and the tracks found Wednesday by Freeman and Epoch. “The second batch looked a lot different from the first batch,” Long said. “But some of these things the tracker (Hardin) pointed out could possibly have been there with the first set and we just weren’t looking forthem.”Paul Freeman, however, disagrees both with Hardin’s “expertise” and his conclusions. “I’m just as much of a professional tracker as he is,” Freeman said Saturday. “He’s good at tracking people, but Tve been trackinganimals for 20 years.”Hardin said one indication that the tracKsmay be fakes were fine lines “similar to thelines in a fingerprint” at the ball and heel of thetrack. “This is a creature that has gonebarefoot all its life,” Hardin explained, “sothose should be wear areas — with no lines inthem.”Freeman particularly disputed this explanation. “When (Hardin) showed me that,” Freeman said, “I just took him down and showed him a bear track that had those lines in the same places. Now you have to agree that bears go barefoot, too.”Freeman still believes he saw Bigfoot and added, “I don’t think these were a hoax either. I think they just wanted to keep things quieted down and keep people the hell out of thatarea.”Long said that no permits were being issuedfor entrance into the restricted watershed area. But, after spending Saturday patrolling the area near the watershed, Freeman said, “There were probably 300 or 400 people up there (near Tiger Canyon Road) today. It was like a freeway.”
Newspaper Details
Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Walla Walla, Washington, US
Sun, Jun 20, 1982
Page 1
Full Page
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WI, USA 28 Mar 2023
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