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ALIEN ISSUE SPLITS SASQUATCH BELIEVERS
By Allan Dowd

VANCOUVER (Reuters/September 27, 1999) -- For sasquatch fans gathered in
Vancouver this weekend, the debate is not over the reality of the large,
apelike animal but over its relation to UFOs.

"It's a huge divide," Stephen Harvey, organizer of the International
Sasquatch Symposium, said in describing the dispute between the
cryptozoology and paranormal wings of sasquatch studies.

Sasquatch -- aka Bigfoot -- is an ordinary flesh-and-blood creature that
just happens to have avoided capture, according to the cryptozoologists,
or students of hidden animals.

But to believers in the paranormal, or psychic phenomena, sasquatch is
also an "interdimensional" being with strange powers and ties to
extraterrestrials aboard UFOs.

Both camps tend to think there must be more than one specimen around.
And neither seems worried that no live or dead sasquatch has ever been
produced for study or that mainstream science considers the idea of such
an animal lurking in the forests of North America complete nonsense.

"How can you expect a creature that can't build a fire to fly a
spaceship?" grumbled Bill Miller of Illinois, one of about 150 people
who came in Vancouver to trade the latest reports of sightings and
accounts of their personal experiences.

Miller's own brush with sasquatch took place in northern Minnesota in
1980.  "Who'd have thought it would happen outside of the Pacific
Northwest?  But it turns out there are a lot of sightings in northern
Minnesota," he said.

ORIGIN IN INDIAN TALES

The legend of a large, hairy creature lurking in the mountains of
western Canada and the United States goes back to a time before
Europeans settled the continent.  The word "sasquatch" was derived in
the 1920s from tales of the Chehalis Indians in British Columbia.

Stories about sasquatch and his connection with flying saucers are also
staples of supermarket tabloids -- a fact that has the cryptozoologists
complaining that the paranormals give sasquatch research a bad name.

"I mean, if you call the police to report a murder and describe what
happened and say you saw little green men, how long before the police
officer stops taking notes?" Miller asked a reporter.

Members of the paranormal wing contend that their opponents' minds are
closed and say that is why the cryptozoologists have never been able to
produce more than circumstantial evidence -- such as alleged footprints
-- of the creature's existence.

"The way to go is to become more evolved ourselves," argued Jack
"Kewaunee" Lapseritis, the author of "Physic Sasquatch" and a member of
the Self-Mastery Earth Institute in Trout Lake, Washington.

Lapseritis, who reported having had five dealings with sasquatch in the
last seven weeks, contended that since the creature could travel between
dimensions of reality and space, it would not be found unless it wanted
to be.

So deep is the divide between the two schools of sasquatch thought that
Harvey ended up scheduling their discussion sessions on different days.

"I sort of had to segregate them," he said, alluding to problems at past
gatherings.

NOT TAKEN SERIOUSLY

If cryptos and paras have common ground, it is in complaining that
mainstream science and news media will not take sasquatch, or their
efforts to find him, seriously.

"Mainstream scientists think they have a monopoly on knowledge," said
Lapseritis, who described his research methods as being identical to
those used by primatologist Jane Goodall in studying chimpanzees in
Africa.

"Yes, the evidence (of sasquatch's existence) is circumstantial. ...
But if this were a murder trial, then sasquatch would have been
convicted long ago," Chad Deetken of Vancouver said.

Deetken, who also researches such puzzles as crop circles and was
initially reluctant to give his name, said scientists needed to show
"the same courage as Columbus" did in trying to prove the Earth was
round.

As for the future of the divided sasquatch research community, members
of each side were quick to say they had no "personal animosity" toward
the other but gave no hint of willingness to compromise.

"I also believe in extraterrestrials ... but there is simply no
connection (with sasquatch)," Miller said, shaking his head.

© 1999 Reuters Limited.  All rights reserved.

Cheers,
       __o          o__      o__      o__      o__     There's one
     _ \<,_        _.>/ _   _.>/ _   _.>/ _   _.>/ _   in every
    (@)/ (@)      (@) \(@) (@) \(@) (@) \(@) (@) \(@)  crowd....
...I C E-man.

... Here's some fun:  Walk into an antique shop and say, "What's new?!?"

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