Last Wednesday I went to a chat at the Mt. Vernon Library about Bigfoot. The speaker was Doug Waller, founder of the Southeastern Ohio Society for Bigfoot Investigations, or SOSBI. Doug has been interested in Bigfoot since he heard reports of the Missouri Monster, or MoMo, in the 1970s. In 2008 he founded SOSBI. Now, the group talks at libraries across the state and go on camping trips at Salt Fork State Park to look for Bigfoot several times a year. Recently, Doug wrote a book about the Ohio Bigfoot called Standing in the Shadows. It is full of reports he got from witnesses and investigated. He even helped the Finding Bigfoot cast when they were in Ohio filming the "Buckeye Bigfoot" episode.
If you like Bigfoot and live in Ohio, be sure to try to get your hands on a copy of Doug's book. I really liked it.
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Here's an article from the Chillicothe Gazette:
If you like Bigfoot and live in Ohio, be sure to try to get your hands on a copy of Doug's book. I really liked it.
Here's an article from the Chillicothe Gazette:
CHILLICOTHE — Bigfoot has a presence in Ohio.
At least, so thinks Doug Waller, who leads the Southeastern Ohio Society for Bigfoot Investigations. He spoke to a crowd Thursday evening at the Northside branch library about numerous sightings reported by people across the state.
The Cambridge-based organization was formed in 2008 by Waller and Shawna Parks, who shared their experiences about their work investigating claims that people have seen what they believed to have been Bigfoot across the state.
“I’m not here to try to admit to anybody that Bigfoot is real,” Waller said.
Waller’s group, which meets every other month in Cambridge, has attracted Bigfoot witnesses, researchers and investigators, he said, adding it remains unclear exactly what Bigfoot is. There is a great deal of speculation in some circles about whether Bigfoot is a person, caveman or something else.
“We’re not experts,” he said. “We don’t pretend to be.”
Waller told audience members — many of whom were young children — that to find out about Bigfoot, they should read books and not necessarily believe everything they read on the Internet.
Many witnesses have stepped forward, Waller said, adding that many people have been so traumatized by encounters with Bigfoot that “it rattled their world.” Waller described a Senecaville man identified as Thomas Priddy and his recent sighting of Bigfoot, claiming the creature was drinking water out of a creek bed on its hands and knees before venturing into tall grass and disappearing.
“People go into shock when they see these things,” said Waller, who has written one book about Bigfoot and is working on on a second. “It’s not really unusual for people who have encounters like Mr. Priddy to be shaken by it.”
Waller said three Bigfoot sightings have been reported in Ross County by a group known as the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. The entity founded in 1995 describes itself as “the only scientific research organization exploring the bigfoot/sasquatch mystery,” according to its website, which lists 248 possible Bigfoot sightings in Ohio.
One reported sighting of Bigfoot occurred in Clarksburg in 1980, while another was said to have occurred in Bainbridge near Ohio 772 in December 2002, according to the website.
Waller told the attendance “Bigfoot eats what it wants,” such as meat and plants, adding there have been reports of juvenile-like Bigfoots in New York based on accounts
of small tracks.
of small tracks.
“Bigfoot will find you if you really want to have an encounter,” Waller said.
For more information about the organization, call Waller at 740-624-5122.
Doug Waller giving a talk on Bigfoot