Another Anomalous Anniversary.

On this date in 1974, logger Jack Cochran was working with a crew in Oregon's Hood River National Forest. During his 10 A.M. break, he looked across a clearing and saw "a big hairy thing" standing about 50 yards away. Cochran was an artist specializing in animal studies, so he was able to size it up in the brief moment he saw it--he felt it was six and a half feet tall, with massive shoulders and completely covered in thick black hair. It walked away with athletic grace, disappearing into the trees.

The next day Cochran kept his eyes peeled but saw nothing. Two of his co-workers, however, went onto the woods for shade during their morning break, disturbing an enormous creature of similar description who rose up and strode quickly away. One of the men chased it but never saw it again. The sightings were reported to the Bigfoot Information Center of The Dalles, who investigated and found tracks.

A New York Times writer was quoted as commenting, "Many people have said that hallucinations or hoaxes would be unlikely to yield so tame and dull a story." (Check out other, more exciting Oregon Bigfoot sightings here.)

It seems to me, in this age of cell phone cameras and YouTube, that there should be more of these sightings captured and broadcast, or at least reports of people attempting to photograph strange things and the cameras failing, as electronics seemingly tend to do in such cases (see the writings of John Keel for theories about electromagnetic disturbance associated with various paranormal phenomena). Of course, when you go to YouTube and search for anything like this, even the most interesting footage is trailed by three-hundred comments along the lines of "this loks toatly fake nice monky siut dood roflmfao."

Here's a "Best of Bigfoot" compilation at YouTube. Some cool shots in there, and some nice monkey suits. Dood.