WHAT SHALL I NAME THIS: A REPORT ON SASQUATCH, YETI, BIGFOOT, SKUNK APE, WILD MAN, I THINK I PREFER FRIENDS OR THE ILLUSIVE ONES.

In the last few days I have read two books; one on the Sasquatch and one on the Skunk Ape. Neither title seems to fit what the two persons experienced because they became friends to the "Illusive Ones".

The first book was "Enoch" by Autumn Williams. She has been interested in Sasquatch since she was small when Autumn and her mother encountered two on the path to the river to get water.

She was not afraid because she was just a child and didn't know to be scared. Since then she has pursued sightings and witnesses to learn all she can about the Illusive Ones."

The book is about a man that has made cautious friends with "Enoch". The reason he called him Enoch is because he would make the sound of "E" and then a knock. Over ten years he created trust with Enoch.

I loved this book and it brought great understanding to how the Sasquatch live, love, have babies and have the same emotions we do. In other words, it touched my heart.

One important thing I learned was that investigators say that there has never been a cadaver found in the wilds. Enoch allowed "Mike" to see why. One day Mike heard the loudest screaming he had ever heard in the wilds. He ran to see what had happened and in the clearing was a mother with her dead baby in her arms. Her mate came to her and took the baby and carried it into the forest. The whole clan followed. The men dug a deep hole and put fronds in the bottom, laid the baby down and covered it with more fronds and then dirt. Another "man" brought a tree with the boll on the bottom and planted it over the grave. They then smoothed the dirt out so you would never know that anything was buried under the tree. So there you have the answer. They are not taken into an alternative dimension when they die. The Illusive ones have a way to cover any contingency because they are human like us and have their own society. It is only that they fear what man can do to them that makes them stay hidden.

The other book was by Tom Burnette. He lives in North Carolina. His mother had property that led up to a mountain. He decided he would build his home halfway up the mountain. All around him was laurel, trees, boulders, etc. From the beginning he would see the shapes of the Illusive Ones hiding in the laurel and watching him. He started feeding them and they established a code so they would know he had brought food. Then when they were hungry they would send the same code to let him know to bring food!

The difference between Tom and Mike is that Tom wanted to get pictures to prove they were real. Mike tried to do that only once and paid the price for it. He felt terrible that he had ruined the trust that he had built up with Enoch. He threw all his cameras in the river. Tom kept trying to get pictures on the trail cams he set up. He would take the film to Ekhard's Drug to get developed. He kept getting back blank pictures. He finally surmised that someone was taking the pictures because one day he got one batch back with an adhesive bandage holding the negative strip together! So finally he changed where he got it developed and used a fake name. He then got the whole strip with animal pictures on it and a couple of unknowns.

The point of the books is that witnesses live with their knowledge and experiences of the Illusive Ones and want to protect them. They are not out to collect "poop", hair, footprints, pictures or anything that would say where they live. Witnesses realize that these illusive ones have feelings too and they wouldn't do anything to hurt them in any way. That makes me happy.

Now to compare what Tom and Mike have shared about the ones they care about to what an investigator believes here is a paragraph out of a recent write up of an interview by Brent Raynes with Don Keating, the director of the Eastern Ohio Bigfoot Investigation Center. You can read more about him at http://www.eobic.net.

(snip) Don Keating: I think that we're just dealing with an animal that has yet to be discovered by the scientific community. I don't think that we're dealing with anything sensational, although I would not rule anything out and I would not ridicule or criticize anybody for their opinion that might differ from mine. I just think that we're dealing with a physical flesh and blood creature at this point in time.

(snip) Well I think that a lot of the various groups (researchers!) that work against each other need to start working with each other. I think that they're all in it for the same reason, which is to discover whether or not this creature exists or not, or to prove it. I think they need to start working on common ground and comparing notes and see if we can come to a conclusion a little faster and prove its existence.

"I don't think that we're dealing with an animal that is dangerous towards humans. I think that it's curious, it's shy, it's elusive and I think that many of the encounters are just chance encounters. I'm pretty sure that it's out there. You've just got to use real good methods that you could use to draw one out. !!! Out of curiosity I just think you see them when they want you to and I think that the vast majority, if not all of the encounters, are just chance encounters. But I don't think that they're aggressive towards people."

Both Tom and Mike put food out for their friends. In Tom's case they reciprocated by putting perfect mushrooms in the path where he would find them after he fed them. Also green acorns. Green Acorns do not fall off of trees, yet he would find a lot of them in the path he trod on the mountain so he knew they were a gift. He always picked every one of them up.

As I have written in the past I had my own experience with Sasquatch. Our friend had a gold claim up the north fork of the John Day river in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. We had gone with him to camp out while the two men dug this big hole and ran the sand over mercury plates to extract the gold. One morning there was a huge footprint in the soft dirt that had been thrown out of the hole. In one step it crossed the hole and walked around our tents. We could also see where it had walked. We left that morning!

When I still lived in Seattle we interviewed an elderly gentleman in Elna, Washington that had his own experience with a lady Sasquatch. It began by rocks being thrown on his trailer from a little hill behind it. I imagine that was to get his attention. A typical Sasquatch behavior. This was a remote area and he lived by himself in a dilapidated trailer.

One night when he was in bed the lady Sasquatch came into his trailer. She let him know that she needed to be impregnated because there were no more males in her tribe that she could reproduce with. The old man was not afraid and even described her genitalia to us. About a year later she came back to present the offspring. He was very enthused about it all.

The point of this dissertation is that looking for hair, poop, footprints, and pictures will never tell you who the Illusive Ones are, or how they live, feel and love. Only through interaction over a period of time will reveal that and by then you want to protect them at any cost. In Tom's case he said he will interact with them until he dies. I am sure Mike feels that way about Enoch. He said he will protect him and his friends above any human. Most humans only want to shoot one to prove they exist. That is barbaric. I wish more persons felt like Tom and Mike.