Bigfoot in Half Moon Bay

Many years ago, Mysterious SF stopped by the offices of the Bigfoot Research Project. Founded by explorer, conservationist, and bigfoot investigator Peter Byrne, the BRP was based in Hood River, Oregon. They were probably the most professional of all the "research groups" that have attempted to work on the bigfoot mystery. The BRP shut down in 1999. 

The BRP, as it was called, was featured in newspaper articles worldwide. It collected sightings via walk-ins, field interviews, and a national 800 number, 1-800-BIGFOOT. The BRP probably got forty phone calls a day on this number. Predictably, most were crank calls by teenagers.

But some were not. For each claimed bigfoot sighting, the BRP filled out a standardized questionnaire booklet. The booklets were fascinating reading, and included many eyewitness sketches of Bigfoot. People with no artistic training drawing pictures + bigfoot = fun times. 

Mysterious SF rooted through the files and made note of sighting reports that intrigued him. This one in particular struck him. 

[Note: some details of this report have been redacted--in particular, the names and contact information of the eyewitnesses.]

Bigfoot Research Project

[witness #1]

Half Moon Bay, California Sighting

Category B Sighting Rating

[witness 1# name]

[witness 1# street address]

[witness 1# address city, state, zip]

E. Palo Alto, CA 94303

Sighting in Summer of 1976

Notes from Bigfoot Research Project Communications Log

Name: [witness 1#]

Reporting: Sighting

Date: 1976 (Summer)

Location: Half Moon Bay Airport, near the radar station, an open field

Notes taken 2/7/94 @ 1510 Hrs.

Incident #1043

2588- Mapped

Eyewitness was:

-In car

-Dog barking viciously.

-Bigfoot leaped/stepped over barbed fence; moved quickly; ran w/arms down—long strides down hill; 1 week after sighting area closed to everyone; well built but slender, larger upper shoulder, ape like, right on const. (?), swing arms.

Returned in day—could not find footprints; large holes (3’-4’) deep scattered around field where it had crossed. 

Comments (by interviewer) Mr. [witness #1] presented as a very honest and simple man, probably not capable of fabricating such detail. Recall of incident was very good.

How did you hear of us? Via Bigfoot Research Project #800 number.

What publication/contact? A & E Television Special "Bigfoot"

Interview BY PHONE

Initials: [phone interviewer].

Incident Report

Date: 2/7/94

Name: [witness 1# name]

Address: [witness 1# street address]

City/State/Zip: [witness 1# address city, state, zip]

Telephone #: [redacted]

Occupation: x-roofer, injured

Age: 40

Sex: Male

Additional witnesses: w/girlfriend, [witness 2# name], South City, CA

General oudoor experience: hunter, camp

Incident Date: Summer 1976

Time: 0100

Incident Location: Half Moon Bay Airport

Activity @ Time of Incident: parking, star gazing

Weather: Bright moon; hot

Temp: 70 degrees F.

Vegetation: fields; cabbage, spinach, fruit farms

Wind: 0 mph

Sighting Report

Duration: 10 minutes

Distance; 150’

# Creatures: 1

Gender: ?

Color: Dark brown/black

Hair Condition: straight 3”long all over

Body Shape: well built but slender

Head Shape: cone; gorilla-like, not as hair-covered

Face: Light color—no other features

Neck: Shoulder even w/ear—hunched

Stride: Walked over barb wired fence; long leaping stride w/arms and legs travelling very fast toward bush cover

Smell Report

Describe: Dirt-like smell; musty; left in woods too long

Duration: Simultaneous w/sighting

Source: Creature

Sensation: Mildly unpleasant. 

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: It's obvious to everyone why Bigfoot *shouldn't* be sighted around Half Moon Bay. But why would he be? Well, for one, there's plenty of food there in the fields, especially in the summertime. Further, it's only a short distance from the largely rocky shoreline of the Half Moon Bay area. It's much easier to forage for food in rocks and tidepools than it is at the beach. Third, there are isolated houses and ranches out in that area that are easier to approach with the intent of raiding garbage cans.

Privately, Mysterious SF says: Mysterious SF has a saying he invented himself. It is: "Bigfoot is seen everywhere Bigfoot has business." 

Big Bird May Have Buzzed East Bay

Mysterious SF here with another one from the archives, courtesy the San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, January 14th, 1976.

Big Bird May Have Buzzed East Bay

By George Murphy

Did Big Bird stop over in the East Bay on his way to terrorize Texas?

He might well have, said a Walnut Creek businessman yesterday.

The odds are there's no such thing as a Big Bird, said a San Francisco ornithologist.

Whether there is such a thing as Big Bird or not, along the Rio Grande valley in south Texas there have been numerous reported sightings of a bird with a reported wingspan of 15 feet, and with feet (three-toed) nine inches wide and twelve inches long.

The footprints were discovered by employees of Harlingen, Tex., TV station, the station said.

When yesterday's Chronicle reported the Big Bird story, Lloyd King, who lives in the Northgate section of Walnut Creek, was heartened to come forward.

"It was in early October," he recalled. "I never saw anything like it in my life."

"There's a eucalyptus tree, about 100-150 feet high in a box canyon near my house, and I happened to look up, and there was this huge bird sitting on top of the tree.

"He made the tree look like a bush. He was at least five feet high, and he just sat there. I called my children and the neighbors, and we looked at it through binoculars.

"The bird sat there for about five minutes, then it just sort of glided away, like you'd imagine something prehistoric doing. The wingspan was about 15 feet. It was enormous. It was sort of a motley gray in color."

At the California Academy of Sciences, Laurence Binford said "the hardest thing for an amateur to do is to estimate the wingspan of a bird in flight, because there are no reference points in the sky. there's nothing larger or smaller than the bird with which to compare size."

While California and Texas are bird flyways, they are different flyways, Binford said.

He suggested that what might have been seen in Walnut Creek was a blue heron, which is bluish white and has a wingspread of about five feet.

King said he and his family checked reference books and saw "a picture of a sand crane, which looks like the bird we saw."

Binford said: "I've never heard of a sand crane."

King's description of Big Bird was dispassionate compared with that given police of Brownsville, Tex., by Alverico Guajardo, who said it was "a strange animal, four feet tall, with eyes like silver dollars, wings like a bird, and a face like a bat."

King said Big Bird at first "looked like a condor, or a stork." He said the Texas descriptions--some of them at least--"fit exactly the description of the bird we saw."

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, January 14, 1976

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: this is the only known Bay Area sighting of what cryptozoologists refer to as "Thunderbirds". Most sightings take place in the Midwest. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: obviously the eyewitness, Mr. King, was referring to a "Sand Hill Crane". Sand Hill Cranes are quite well known. So it's kind of baffling that Binford, the ornithologist (who Google hints is still around and kicking) had never heard of a "Sand Crane". An early example of snark, perhaps?