Dave Carver states. “I’m a 150 percent believer.” Dave, a Huntsville resident, is serious. Bigfoot is here, in Utah, and maybe even in your zipcode. He says there are about 15 places in Ogden Valley where people have seen Bigfoot. “The momentum here for sightings is unbelievable.”
The presence of an undiscovered biped is a philosophical problem. Either an unknown creature exists, or it does not. If a massive, hairy, human-like being coexists with us, that yet-to-be-proven fact is an intriguing mystery. But, even more interesting is the question, if such a creature does not exist, what exactly is it that people are seeing?
Sightings in Utah are most common in the Uintas and in the mountainous area dividing Ogden from its high valley to the east. “This whole area is a corridor for Bigfoot movement,” Dave says as he tells about scores of reports from the mountains east of Logan continuing south to Ogden Valley.
Dave hosts Dave’s Bigfoot Show, a casual, fun event he created to bring people together to discuss Bigfoot phenomenon and allow the public to describe their encounters. “I’m not a field researcher. I’m interested in the stories of people who are just walking or driving along and they see Bigfoot. People tend not to say what they saw ‘cause it makes them look like they’re nuts, but in the spirit of the show people come out of the woodwork.”
And what is it that people see? First person stories in Ogden Valley date from the late 1960s to the night of this past August’s full moon when Sam, a 15-year-old Liberty youth, noticed a large, nearby shadow as he was en route to feed the chickens. “Usually my dog comes with me, but this night she just stopped at the edge of the garage and wouldn’t come any further. Right before I got to the coop I saw a big shadow. It merged with the small fir trees in the neighbor’s yard, and then the big shadow walked across the open and went behind a mound of dirt. I’m six-foot tall. It was about eight feet, with big, broad-shoulders, and man-like. I thought it was my neighbor or maybe some doorbell ditchers.” Then the neighbor’s motion lights came on and Sam saw a figure “head-to-toe in black. I couldn’t see any skin or any clothing.” A crash sounded behind him and Sam witnessed a similar creature moving towards the larger one. “It wasn’t sprinting, but it was moving fast,” Sam recounts. When the two figures met, the shorter one headed up the riparian gully that winds east to the mountains. “The creepy thing,” Sam says, “was that they didn’t say anything to each other before the one just took off. Then the big one just stood there staring me down. I was a little scared. I definitely picked up on a message from him, like he was saying, ‘Don’t follow us.’” Two days later Sam and his mother discovered garden tomato plants stripped of their fruit, and a large reclining imprint in the short ornamental grass on the hill beside their pond.
Sam’s story echoes other sightings. The primary theme in reports is that the encounters are unexpected. A hulking hairy creature on two legs crosses the road, or what looks like a bear suddenly stands and walks. The nocturnal humanoid is massive, fully covered in hair ranging in color from white to black, has a heavy, low-positioned neck, long arms and is extremely agile. Reported behaviors include tree-banging, rock-throwing, whooping, whistling and chattering. Similar unusual, shelter-like structures have been found in the mountains in what Dave has dubbed Bigfoot designs, the meaning of which, Dave says, could simply be, “I’m here, and I can break a four-inch tree limb ten feet off the ground.”
Interest in Bigfoot is divided into areas of scientific and spiritual inquiry. Those on the spiritual side explore esoteric theories such as purporting that Bigfoot travels interdimensionally through time-space portals. On the forefront of the scientific believers is Idaho State professor Dr. Jeff Meldrum, a well-respected academic expert on primate locomotion and bipedalism. Dr. Meldrum has studied hundreds of plaster-cast prints and has concluded, Dave says, “that there is some unknown biped out there.”
So why has nobody come across a carcass or bones? Dave simply says, “How many of you have seen a live wolverine in the wild? How many have seen a dead wolverine carcass or bones?” It is also commonly believed within Bigfoot circles that the creatures bury their dead.
In 2009, Dave and two colleagues embarked on a project to show Bigfoot to the world. “After we learned more, our attitude took a 180-degree turn. Now I’m more interested in protecting rather than exposing Bigfoot.” §
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