Penn State Bigfoot club searches for the legend

By Leann Frola

He is estimated to be at least 8 feet tall and to have about 800 pounds on his hairy, upright frame. For centuries, people have reported seeing him, yet scientists are still unsure if he exists.

While members of the Penn State Bigfoot Society admit they have never seen Bigfoot, they agree it is fun continuing the legend.

"Whether someone believes in it or not, it's just a fun thing to talk about," club Vice President Kathleen Kelliher (sophomore-geography) said. "I think people like to believe in the unexplainable I guess."

President Dave Schmidt (graduate-geography) said the club does not discount the possibility there may be an unknown species out there, but most of the members are skeptical.

"I don't think there's anyone in the club that takes this too seriously," he said. "It's a group of friends that get together and talk about how people take this seriously. But, it's also a fun way to take a joke to its extremes."

That is the way club member Rob Neff (graduate-geography) said he felt when he dressed as the group's mascot in this year's Penn State homecoming parade.

"It sounded like it was an opportunity to have a lot of fun and be a little silly, and it sort of spiraled out of control from there," he said, laughing. "There's nothing like wearing a big furry costume in front of 30,000 people."

Ryan Stoyek (senior-geography) said the idea of the club came after he and a few other students spent the summer collecting data for the U.S. Forest Service. He said they spent most of their time in the woods of Northern California, where the legend is very much alive.

"That was kind of an area known for Bigfoot," he said. "One lady we worked with was a local out there and said she actually saw one. Just things like that caught our interest."

Stoyek said that after coming back from California, he found a Web site for the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society, which furthered his interest.

"There's actually quite a few sightings in Pennsylvania," he said. "I had just never known that — I always thought that it was out West. So, I thought that was just kind of different because it was close to home."

Club adviser and Penn State Geography Research Assistant John Sakulich said the group began in October with a few people, and it now has about 30 members.

The students turned their interest into creating the club, he said, because they felt it was such an interesting, universal legend.

"The fact that there's so many people out there that are obsessed with it is kind of interesting in itself from a social stand point," Sakulich said. "Most of the Bigfoot organizations that are online are not affiliated with any university. So, we thought that was kind of a piece that was lacking."

He said the club has several activities planned, including the use of geographical information systems to map out where Bigfoot might live.

"There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of work with those types of analyses, and we think there may be an interesting pattern there that no one's seen before," Sakulich said. "We're trying to take an objective stance ... and use more of a scientific method to investigate it."

Kelliher said the group also hopes to embark on a winter expedition in search of evidence.

"We're going to go out and just go camping," she said. "It's mostly just a fun idea to gather around."

Schmidt said that although the group has yet to find substantial evidence that Bigfoot exists, they will keep looking.

"I don't think the majority of the club believes there's a chance, but we're here to research the potential," he said. "It could be out there — who knows?"

From: The Collegian, 8 February 2005.