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The Northern New Mexico Report
On
the left, Larry C. (CO) photographs Dr.
Steve C. (CO) measuring
a faint track impression during the Northern New Mexico
Expedition in September 2004.
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This is the BFRO Overview Report for the September 2004 Expedition
in Northern New Mexico.
The report is drawn from statements and photos taken by the participants.
It was assembled by Mike Si. (AL) and edited by Kathy Moskowitz
(CA) and Alton Higgins (OK) and Matt Moneymaker (CA).
The report is an *overview* of the incidents and finds reported by
the expedition participants. The overview is not designed to
disseminate evidence details or data. It is the story of what happened
on the expedition, according to the participants.
Mike Si. (Clergyman AL) and Aaron Si. (IT Analyst, AL) peek
over a finger canyon rim into a pristine box
canyon where sasquatch tracks and scats were found.
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One goal of the expedition was to identify the best areas for long-term
studies. Progressing to that point required a lot of preliminary work,
including face-to-face meetings with local witnesses, ground searches
where incidents have occurred in the past, and gathering local knowledge
about the plants, animals, people, seasons, road conditions and access,
and so forth.
As the ground searches yielded more and more evidence the searches
became more focused. By the final day there was no doubt among the
expedition participants on two important determinations: There was
little or no activity or evidence easily observable in most
locations; but there were a few, fairly pristine locations where
tracks, scats, sounds, etc., were much more abundant.
On the left, Mike Se. (cartographer from Albuquerque) listens
to John Ca. (airline pilot from Seattle) describing sounds
heard moments before in lower "Canyon C."
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This public version of the expedition overview describes
characteristics of the locations, but not the place names
of the specific sites. In that sense a public report is "abridged,"
by necessity.
The specific sites were all on protected, private land. We have
been asked by the authorities who patrol the area to not mention
any place-names on the Internet.
The area selected for this expedition has a history of activity
(sightings, howls and track finds) in late summer and early fall.
The sighting information from this area is not posted on the publicly
accessible part of the BFRO sightings database, at the request of
the local residents who have been providing that information.
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The site selected for the base camp was the ranch where some of
the incidents had occurred. The ranch owner was the host for the
expedition group.
Base
camp: A mountain ranch in Northerm New Mexico.
Elevation ~ 7,500 feet
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Detective Work: Scouting the Area & Talking to the Local Witnesses
On Wednesday, September 1, the host took a BFRO advance team around
the area to show the topography, roads and other points of interest.
On Thursday, September 2, most of the expedition participants arrived.
The host arranged for several witnesses from the area to come to
the base camp and share their stories. The host's family and friends
generously provided food.
Local
witnesses gather at the base camp to meet the expedition
members and describe what they have observed in the area.
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The first witness described a daylight sighting that had occurred
two years earlier. This male witness and a male friend had gone
to an Anasazi (ancient Indian people) ruins site in the mountains
for the afternoon, and were confronted at very close range by a sasquatch
in the vegetation, immediately adjacent to the trail.
After seeing the sasquatch, the two retreated to high ground to
wait for a safe moment to leave. After a couple of hours, they nervously
made their way back to their vehicle and left.
The host then described some incidents that took place on
his ranch, the location of the base camp. Several occurrences involved
very loud howls from the wooded canyon areas surrounding the ranch.
A male caretaker had described to the host one such occurrence while
staying at the ranch. On another occasion the host heard a similar
vocalization himself, one that could not be attributed to any known
species of wildlife or domestic livestock.
On a third occasion, while working together in the barn area, both
men heard intense loud screams emanating from the wooded area up
the canyon from the ranch. This incident was so unnerving that the
men left the ranch immediately. The caretaker refused to return
to the ranch after that incident.
The
old ranch house described in some of the sighting stories.
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The host also described a daytime sighting from the ranch house.
He observed a sasquatch about 100 yards away. It moved along the
tree line, and walked through a clearing about thirty yards wide.
He drove down to a place close to where the animal was seen, but
as he started to exit the truck to investigate, he had second thoughts
and departed.
A couple of months prior to the expedition, the third male witness
and his male friend, while at the same Anasazi site mentioned by
the first male witness, also had an encounter. Just prior to the
sighting, this witness reported hearing a loud "thump." Both were
then startled to see a reddish brown sasquatch crashing downhill
through the brush. They described smelling a very strong odor immediately
afterward.
Mike
Se. (NM) climbs a log ladder made for accessing an Anasazi
cliff ruins site -- one of many in the region.
The various ruins sites we saw were not marked on any maps.
Only the most accessible ruins site was known to the property
owners.
The expedition group spotted several other Anasazi ruins
sites while penetrating these canyons in search of sasquatch
evidence.
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A fourth male witness described a daylight sighting that occurred
while he and his dogs were herding cattle. The witness was on horseback
while his dogs were running among the cattle. Suddenly the dogs
ran under his horse. He looked up and saw a sasquatch about sixty
feet away. He described it as very tall -- taller than himself
while mounted on his horse.
The animal merely glanced at him over its shoulder and continued
to move away in a deliberate manner, as if preoccupied with something
other than the witness and his dogs.
A female witness next described a sighting she had while on her
way home from work at about 8:00 a.m. She saw a sasquatch standing
on a ridge overlooking her house. She ran inside to get everyone
to come out to see it, but when they came back outside, the animal
was gone.
A second female witness shared that when she and a female friend
were nine and seven years of age, respectively, they were with their
family on an outing.
The girls became bored and took a walk. They heard a tree being
vigorously shaken. They were afraid it might be a bear, but got
closer to see what was making the noise. They saw a very large sasquatch
staring up into an aspen tree, and shaking it hard. A smaller sasquatch
stood near the first, also staring up into the tree. Both animals
were described as grayish brown in color and having very long arms.
The girls had never heard any sasquatch-related stories before this
experience; when they tried to tell the adults, they were not taken
seriously.
A third female witness and her husband shared an experience they
had on the ranch. They had been coming out to the ranch every day
after work to tend a vegetable garden they had planted. One evening,
just at dark, they heard a series of menacing vocalizations from
the nearby ridge and wood line, the same general area where the
rancher and the caretaker had heard mysterious sounds on previous
occasions. The man and his wife were so shaken that they left immediately
and never returned to the garden again.
Thursday Night
: A Night Hike to the North of the Ranch
After hearing the stories of the local witnesses, the crowd was
shown how to use night-vision goggles. Participants and a few local
residents separated into small groups and headed to different locations
for night hikes. Some walked the wood line in the canyon near the
ranch. Others distributed fruit piles at bait sites. Others drove
to the Anasazi site identified by local witnesses.
Moonlight for this date was bright; the full moon occurring only
four days earlier. Skies were clear the first night.
The group at the Anasazi site noticed a very strong odor ("like
a cross between a skunk and an open sewer") at one point, on the
breeze coming down the canyon. The smell came and went quickly.
Two of the teams walking through a different canyon got spooked.
One group described hearing footsteps following them from inside
the tree line. The other group said small rocks were thrown at them
from the dark tree line. There were night vision goggles
among both teams, but nothing was seen through the trees and brush
inside the treeline. Both teams returned to the base camp shortly
after these incidents.
Friday Morning
: In the Finger Canyons -- Rocks Thrown, Tracks, Scats
On Friday morning, a large group was organized to spread out through
several connected "finger" canyons near where a sighting
had occurred in the recent past.
One team was sent to a high point to surveil the canyons from above,
as the other groups entered the canyons from below. The idea was to
push any large animals up and out of the canyons and into the view
of the team scoping these canyon rims from the higher mountain peak.
All the teams were continually in contact via walkie talkie, and
each team had at least one camcorder among them.
The three major canyons in the fingers area were designated A,
B and C. As the canyons were explored, a few more connecting canyons
were found and named Canyon "B Minor" and Canyons D and
E.
The tracks, scats, and sounds were noticed in "box canyons"
-- steep-walled, sandstone canyons. Box canyons have strategic
advantages for both ambushing large animals and evading intruders.
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Within a few minutes of entering the network of canyons, one participant
in Canyon A reported being hit in the back by a rock. He was bringing
up the rear of his group.
He looked around to ascertain where the rock came from. He scanned
the tree lines and searched the dense brush nearby. Nothing was found
or seen. The radios allowed him to verify the positions of the other
groups.
The group continued into Canyon A, the largest canyon (and the
one where the sighting had occurred the year before). Two members
climbed the south ridge, and two others climbed the north ridge.
The local guide hiked the canyon bottom between them.
The guide came upon a bear and radioed that it ran up the south
slope. The people on the south ridge did not see it, but the group
later found a fresh set of bear tracks in a patch of loose soil
along a ridge.
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A group climbs the north ridge of "Canyon A" on
the second day of the trip.
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No one observed a sasquatch in the finger canyons, but several
partial, or weathered tracks in the 17" to 18" range were found
and several scat piles were located which no one could identify.
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The
bottom of "Canyon B" as seen from the rim of
the canyon wall. This is one of a few box canyons with both
a history of activity and several track and scat finds during
this expedition.
The thrust of this first expedition was to find places like
this for purposes of future study.
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There were elk droppings in abundance in these canyons, and several
obvious bear scats were found, but there were also some very large
scats that were clearly different from the bear scats and elk droppings.
The bear scats contained partially chewed scrub oak acorns and
bits of twigs and leaves. The unidentified scats were dramatically
larger than the bear scats, and were composed exclusively of what appeared to be finely chewed acorns
with no bits of twigs, leaves or other material mixed in. The contents were so finely
chewed that the scats had the consistency and appearance of peanut
butter.
A
scat of finely chewed acorns, with a fresher scat on top.
The dark color of the fresher scat may indicate that it included animal protein.
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A local guide later said the strange, large scats we found at various
points in these canyons had been observed,
but were simply never identified. Many found this day were
quite fresh. A few of them had a similar size, shape, and consistency, but
contained different material. They were dark and green, possibly indicating
the presence of digested animal protein.
Scat piles were collected by at least two participants.
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During the last few hours of the canyon exploration, dark clouds
built up, followed by thunder, lightning and rain, in classic southwest
fashion. Everyone returned to base camp.
Friday Afternoon : At the Anasazi Site -- Two Class A Sightings
The rain let up a little in the afternoon. A group of participants
then drove to an area where some previous incidents had occurred.
After looking around for a while, the group decided to leave when
the rain started up again.
While returning to the vehicles, one participant, Chris B. (WA),
noticed a very strong odor. He asked his partner, Tracy H. (WA),
if she smelled it too. She did, and then she started walking in
the direction the smell seemed to be drifting from. Chris went immediately
up the dirt road to tell some of the other people about the smell.
As Tracy got about twenty feet off the road, she looked up and
saw, among the brush, a very large, dark hand and forearm. She began
calling out to the other people, at medium volume, saying that something
was in front of her in the brush. She kept her eyes on the arm,
then could see more of the large dark figure, partially standing
behind a tree.
At that point she yelled out to bring other people to her location.
That's when the animal turned and ran. Participant Kevin J. (WA)
ran over to Tracy's position, then ran past her to follow the animal.
After running several yards, fighting his way through the brush,
he stopped and heard branches snapping up the hill. He followed
the sounds up the slope.
Within a minute, he spotted movement ahead of him. He stopped
and observed a sasquatch standing behind a tree approximately thirty yards away.
Its shoulders could be seen on either side of the large trunk. The
animal reached up and snapped a branch off the tree, leaned out, and
made eye contact with Kevin, It turned, and continued
moving up the hill quickly.
Kevin ran to the base of the tree and continued in the direction
of the fleeing animal. As Kevin approached the saddle of the hill,
he saw the sasquatch standing in clear view on a rock outcrop around
100 yards away. It made eye contact again, turned, disappeared
behind the rocks, and was not seen again.
After spending a couple of minutes catching his breath and watching
for movement, Kevin went back down the hill. He immediately told
the others what happened. By that point the rain started pouring
and people were scrambling to get to their vehicles and drive out
of the area. The muddy, rutted road was quickly becoming impassable.
The group returned to base camp and told the others what had happened.
A plan was devised for the next day for a few people to return
to that area, set out a pile of apples, and leave a camcorder
running nearby.
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Saturday
: Mostly Rained Out, Sounds Heard in Finger Canyons
It rained hard throughout Friday night. The rainfall did not let
up until Saturday afternoon.
The host warned people not to drive along the muddy roads
until they had a few hours to dry out. When the roads were solid
enough to drive on again, in the late afternoon, one group of participants
returned to the finger canyons, and another group returned to the
area of the daylight sightings.
In the Finger Canyons, the tracks observed on the previous day
had washed away, but some vocalizations were heard by a handful
of people. A few people climbed up a high rock face in order to
keep watch on a spring in the canyon below. Soon lightning and rain
returned, driving them from their perch, and forcing them to return
to base camp before the roads again become impassable.
Most people think of New Mexico as a hot, dry state. Most
of the state is hot and dry most of the time, however, the
higher elevations receive rain or snow almost year round.
Warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico causes brief rain
showers in the mountain ranges nearly every day in the summer
and fall.
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The group that returned to the location of the previous daylight
sighting was not able to get there until just before dark. They
realized their bait and camcorder plan would not work in the dark,
so it was postponed until the next day.
On Saturday night the weather looked unstable so everyone stayed
around base camp and most used the opportunity to catch up on sleep.
A few stayed up late, talking around the campfire. Eventually, some
returned to their tents while others slept in their chairs near
the fire.
Sunday : Activity Closer to Base Camp
Early Sunday morning, at 4:45 a.m., several participants heard two
very loud, very long, yell/roar type vocalizations that seemed to
come from the woods near the base camp. Others were awakened by
the sounds. The vocalizations occurred about two minutes apart,
and emanated from the same general area where the host and
his caretaker had heard the vocalizations before.
Morning
at the ranch. The rancher plants alfalfa in this field.
The field extends for a mile or so down this valley. He
allows the deer and elk to graze on the alfalfa when he
doesn't harvest it.
The first few participants to arrive at the ranch at night
counted 70-80 deer and 30-40 elk in this alfalfa field.
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On Sunday morning the early risers made breakfast and coffee then
started preparing for their departure. Steve C. mentioned hearing
wood knocks from the nearby hillside, at some point in the early
morning hours.
As other people began to wake up, more of them mentioned hearing
loud wood knocks as well, from a source that seemed to be moving
through the tree line.
The team that wanted to return to the Anasazi site, for a camcorder-and-bait
setup, got prepared and headed out. They set out a pile of apples
at the spot where the first daylight sighting happened on Friday.
An hour later they returned to retrieve the camcorder. The bait wasn't
touched, so they decided to focus elsewhere for the rest of the
day.
Another team headed in the same direction, toward the primary Anasazi
ruins site, to see the terrain beyond the site, deeper into the
canyons.
Lots of elk dung and tracks were found along the roads and game
trails near the Anasazi site. No sasquatch tracks were found, but
the entire area can be traversed without leaving tracks if one simply
stays on the sandstone rock.
Participants exploring one of several remote Anasazi canyons
in Northern New Mexico.
Smooth rock terrain is ideal for evading intruders, as the
Anasazi did for so long. No footprints are left behind --
a huge strategic advantage. A whole community could live
here invisibly.
There are thousands of places to hide that have a commanding
view of all approaches. These
canyons gave us the feeling of invulnerability. It would
have been attractive back then too.
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The entire expedition group was deeply impressed by the strategic
advantages of the terrain. Mazes of canyons snake for miles on the
flanks of mountains, and conceal thousands of caves and overhangs
of various shapes and sizes. Elusive inhabitants would be able to
detect and evade intruders with ease in these canyons.
There is an abundance of edible plants and wildlife throughout
the area. A hunter-gatherer community could survive here easily
without having to venture far from their isolated pockets of terrain.
The Anasazi were there for thousands of years. They abandoned the
area nearly 1,000 years ago. It is believed they abandoned th
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