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John Hollenhorst ReportingBigfoot. Most people think it's a joke, or a hoax, or a delusion, but to hard-core, true believers, it's an obsession. They want to see one and the inner-circle of the hard-core arrived in Utah this week.
It's a Bigfoot expedition to Utah. Several dozen people are hunting the big guy with cameras and microphones. They were challenged by forest rangers for not having a proper permit, but they're determined to find something that will convince everyone else that Bigfoot is the real deal.
To be part of this camp-out, you've gotta believe.
John Andrews, a Washington state resident, says, "I've seen probably two dozen tracks."
You have to take seriously a beast that seldom shows himself, at least to the skeptical.
Jim Boudousquie says, "Well, they're very elusive. They're not stupid, and they own the woods."
Members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) are converging in the Uintas with night-vision cameras and highly sensitive long-range microphones. Their goal is to get evidence of the legend most people dismissed long ago: a big, tall, hairy, stinky critter allegedly seen all over the west.
BFRO's leader is a man named Matt Moneymaker. True believers pay a fee of $300 and then pay their own expenses on camping expeditions around the country.
Andrews told KSL, "One of our high points was getting a series of calls in a remote area." He is convinced a recording from Washington state captures the distant howl of a Bigfoot, followed by the nearby voice of a Bigfoot hunter.
The evidence they've found on previous expeditions hasn't exactly put them on the front page of any major newspapers, but they're not giving up hope.
Chuck Sykes says, "Some people would never be convinced, and some people don't really have to have evidence to be convinced."
At one point today the Forest Service considered kicking the group out of the National Forest. At last word they seemed to be looking for some sort of compromise that will keep them there, so they can keep the heat on Bigfoot.
