Cryptomundo’s Loren Coleman revisits the very controversial Bigfoot video, as well as the controversial man who shot it. Complete with timeline of events.
Paul Freeman (August 10, 1943 – April 2, 2003) was an American Bigfoot hunter who discovered alleged Bigfoot tracks showing dermal ridges. The plaster casts Freeman subsequently made were convincing enough to be considered critical pieces of evidence by anthropologists Grover Krantz and Jeff Meldrum, who both put considerable time and resources into studying them.
On June 10, 1982, Freeman reportedly sighted a Bigfoot near Walla Walla, Washington which he described as being nearly 8 ft (2.m) tall and covered in brown body hair.
In 1994 Freeman allegedly captured a purported Bigfoot on video near the Blue Mountains region. The footage is considered to be authentic by many Bigfoot investigators and can be viewed in the documentary “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.” It was also spoofed many times by Kokanee beer ads.
Some researchers, notably René Dahinden, believed Freeman may have been nothing more than a publicity-seeker. In any case, Freeman once said he spent approximately $50,000 into searching for the creature, sometimes three days a week at a time, and made only $2,000 once for a television commercial.
In my 2003 book, Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, I wrote, without judgement, of a special class of Bigfoot eyewitnesses. Frankly, I classified Freeman among what I call “Bigfoot contactees.” These folks have an uncanny ability to go out and almost always find evidence or see Bigfoot. Freeman was even so bold as to tell Jeff Meldrum when Meldrum came for an allegedly surprise visit: “Would you like to see some fresh tracks? I just found the first tracks of the spring earlier this morning.”
A few of Freeman’s “Bigfoot-related” discoveries were found to be faked, including manmade hair samples, and a few of his finds remain “unknowns.”
Some historical highlights include these events:
1982 – June 10 – Forest Services employee Paul Freeman says he sees an 8 ft tall Bigfoot, but he is soon driven from his watershed patroller job because he appears to have hoaxed evidence.
1982 – Grover Krantz shows Paul Freeman a copy of the handcast that Ivan Marx claims is from a Bigfoot hand. Later this year, Freeman finds and casts “knuckleprints” he says are from a Bigfoot. Freeman also finds prints with “dermal ridges” that local forest services officials feel are hoaxes. Krantz declares the Freeman dermals as a remarkable piece of the Sasquatch puzzle, and they would change Bigfoot research forever.
1986 – Paul Freeman finds a handprint he claims is from a Bigfoot, near the Mill Creek watershed, near Blue Mountains, Washington-Oregon border.
1993 – May – Freeman says he finds an imprint of a buttocks from a Bigfoot, he alleges, along Dry Creek, in the Blue Mountain area. (This is years before the Skookum buttocks cast.)
1994 – Paul Freeman says he stumbles across two Bigfoot in the Blue Mountains, near the Washington/Oregon border, and tapes them on video. Some have mentioned the taping was on the Oregon side of the border; still others have noted some confusion on the exact dating of this footage.
1995 – Again in the Blue Mountains, Washington, Wes Sumerlin, local Bigfoot hunter and friend of Paul Freeman, finds a Bigfoot handprint, as had Freeman and Ivan Marx.
2003 – April 2 – Paul Freeman, 59, dies at Airway Heights, near Spokane, Washington, from complications of diabetes.
Full artice: Cryptomundo
