Pineville Bigfoot buff resumes search for elusive beast

By Andrew Griffin

Twice this year, Pineville resident Scott Kessler has made trips to the Sam Houston National Forest in east Texas, near the city of Conroe, in search of the elusive creature commonly called Bigfoot.

Yes, the same creature which reportedly made some appearances in Cenla in 2000 — first in the Cotton Island area of northeastern Rapides Parish and also near Zwolle in Sabine Parish.

Kessler, who works as a fireman in Pineville and is an active member of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization (BFRO), loves any opportunity to go out into the wild and seek the creature, which some speculate may be connected to the primate family — if, of course, it exists at all.

Kessler first made the trip to this area, which covers 163,000 acres in Walker, Montgomery and San Jacinto counties, with a dozen other Bigfoot researchers in January as part of Operation Primate Web II organized by the Dallas-based Texas Bigfoot Research Center.

The goals of the investigation, both in January and this month were: "To gain clear film footage and/or photographs of target species; To gain identifiable DNA evidence of target species; to identify areas of target species activity and/or habitation; to organize and conduct searches for evidence of all kinds; and to thoroughly document and preserve physical evidence including, but not limited to, tracks, hair, scat, wildlife kills and sounds," according to the group's Web site.

Kessler said that while there was a lot of waiting around during the trips last month and in January, there were some exciting instances when it was clear that something big was in the area near their camp.

Kessler said there was a strong indication something was circling their camp. There was an instance where a night vision camera used by the team picked up "an eye" at a height of six feet, watching them nearby. There were limb snaps, and an instance where something threw a tree limb at Kessler. Then there was the smell. Yes, the famous stench that many who have encountered Bigfoot report smelling.

The whole team, Kessler claims, got a strong whiff of something horrible one night while looking for the creature.

"This horrible stench rolled into the camp," Kessler said. "The best way to describe it was a skunk smell combined with a smell of something that had rolled in something dead and rolled in feces. It gagged one of the guys. Oh man, that smell was ungodly."

Kessler and the team were convinced something unusual was watching their camp. And while they never actually saw anything as a group, there was one event where a Bigfoot researcher and a skeptical newspaper reporter from the Houston area, did report something unusual during the January investigations.

A full account of this strange encounter is featured at the Web site. On it, TBRC field investigator Mike Hall and Observer newspaper reporter Cindy Parker, who was there to write a story about their investigations, report seeing something very unusual in the middle of the road.

Parker was the first to spot the creature. She described it as covered with longish black hair and estimated that it stood approximately 6 feet tall. It had an exceptionally broad body, estimated at about 4 feet in width. The observation that possibly impressed Parker the most was the smoothness of the creature's movement — "fluid ... like it was floating."

Interviewed separately, Hall estimated that the creature stood about 5 to 5 and one-half feet tall. The body was covered with hair ("almost shaggy") described as being very dark brown to black in color. Like Parker, Hall was also impressed with the creature's thick, powerful-looking body."

Parker even noted in her Observer newspaper article that she came away a believer.

"After my experiences in the field, I have reasons to believe that an unknown creature does reside in the Sam Houston National Forest," Parker wrote.

Kessler said he was impressed by their report.

So, this month, the team returned to the same general area in hopes of seeing something similar to what Hall and Parker reported seeing.

While there, the team found a very unusual track along a hiking trail. They put plaster cast in the track and waited for it to dry. It was nearly dry when it was compromised by a careless hiker from the city.

"We protected (the track) for three days," Kessler said. "Then a group came along and a woman stepped in it."

Kessler said it was clearly marked and that he and the others were sure the hiker stepped on it on purpose. And when they tried asking her if she did step on it on purpose she ignored them and continued hiking down the trail.

"I was hacked," Kessler said. "Everybody was too hacked off."

Asked if he and the team were going to return again soon, Kessler said they were going to wait a bit.

"Everybody's getting their batteries recharged," he said, adding that locally, Bigfoot reports have been rare.

From: The Town Talk, 24 March 2005.