BIGFOOT IN SEDONA AREA

UFOs, ETs AND YOU
By Tom Dongo

This month I am going to talk about some of the Bigfoot evidence that has appeared in this area.

Bigfoot. The reason I am writing about Bigfoot is due to a rather bizarre discovery I made several months ago. It was in March, in between that recent series of snowstorms we had been having. It was a sunny, warm day, and I was out for a walk along Oak Creek above Chavez Ranch. On a sandbar I found four or five perfect, five-toed footprints deeply embedded in wet sand. Now, if I had seen these tracks deep in one of the canyons I would have been really excited, but they were in an area often frequented by people, so I at first discounted any real significance to the finding.

On the sandbar were two different sets of perfectly clear, bare footprints. My hiding boot is a size 11 and is exactly 12 inches long and 4 inches wide at the ball. My boot fit entirely inside the larger track without touching any part of the outside of it. The track itself was about fifteen inches long and at least six inches wide. Whoever -- or whatever -- made it must have weighed between 300 and 400 pounds. I weigh nearly 200, and my boot made only a slight impression on the surface of the sand. The 15-inch track was at least 1-1/2 inches deep in the sand. The other nearby track was very narrow and nearly as long as the 15-inch track and had an extremely long big toe. Judging by the depth of the track, the person must have weighed about the same as I do.

Even as suspicious as I am, I summarily attributed the tracks to a heavy guy taking a barefoot stroll with a tall girlfriend -- or another guy with an awfully long, narrow foot. Which may be the case -- but it is another one of those things that is very, very odd. I do wish I had made casts of the unusual footprints; in the future I will have handy just such equipment to do so.

Last fall a husband and wife visiting (Sedona) from Denmark photographed enormous human-like tracks near the mouth of Secret Canyon. I have little further information, as I was unable to locate the couple who have since returned to Denmark. However, I spoke to several people who talked to the Danish couple and viewed the photographs. The photos were clear and well-defined. The Danish couple explained how the tracks suddenly appeared in one spot -- traveled for a hundred yards and then disappeared. This is common regarding Bigfoot-track sightings. The creature seems to materialize, then dematerialize several minutes, hours or days later. (The most common BHM -- Big Hairy Monster -- tracks are those of a creature with only three toes. These are far more common around the world than the five-toed variety.) The Secret Canyon tracks were in the 10- to 20-inch range and were deeply embedded in dry, compacted soil, which would indicate a probably weight range of 600 to 1,000 pounds. These tracks were found in a remote area that is visited by very few people.

I have a friend who is an experienced woodsman and is extensively knowledgeable of the ways of the woods. He is not a day hiker from the Big City. About ten years ago he had a rather interesting Bigfoot-type experience. On a cool fall day he was hiking on the Mogollon Rim above Indian Gardens when he came upon an enormous 22-inch, five toed track deeply embedded in loose, dusty soil. He followed the tracks for a half mile. He remarked to me as how the stride of the creature varied from 6 to 10 feet. As he followed the tracks, he noticed that they began to be further and further apart -- the creature was running. He paced out the running tracks and he said the distance between tracks was now over 20 feet. The reason quickly became evident. The Bigfoot tracks merged with those of a herd of elk who were also running at full speed. The Bigfoot, or whatever, was obviously after the elk. My friend said he continued to follow the tracks for a short time after. He described how the ground was all chewed up by the wild flight of the herd. He exclaimed that at that point he was beginning to feel really spooked and took a fast route out of the area. Incidentally, this kind of thing has been reported in numerous incidents around the West -- Bigfoot tracks chasing deer or elk, etc.

I have an associate in this business who is a retired high-ranking military officer. He was at the time living in southern California and one night he and three others watched as a Bigfoot crossed in front of his car -- carrying a dead coyote under its arm. Bigfoot activity almost always coincides with UFO activity. Why? Nobody knows.

Bigfoot activity in this area is centered around the back of Sycamore Canyon, and Bill Williams Mountain. I have pinpointed a narrow, almost inaccessible zone where this occurs. Bloodcurdling, ear-piercing screams and unseen elephant-sized creatures crashing through the brush and trees have scared the wits out of a number of backpackers and hunters in that area. Many years ago Basque sheepherders would not venture into certain parts of upper sycamore Canyon as, so the stories go, several sheepherders went in there and never came out.

A number of people have asked me about the incident regarding Wes and Deanna Bateman. Briefly, here is the story. Wes, age 60, is a UFO contactee who has had direct alien contact on and off for over thirty years. He and his daughter Deanna, age 32, (at that time) made their living from Wes's lectures and the sale of contactee literature. It was a modes living but they were able to get by on the proceeds while living in the Sedona area.

Last September Wes and Deanna were being harassed by low-flying black helicopters. In one instance when Deanna went into a bank near their home in Rimrock, a large black helicopter appeared and hovered over the bank for nearly ten minutes. In another instance two black helicopters hovered around their trailer home, which was situated in a rather isolated area near Lake Montezuma. These black helicopters are nearly always the Vietnam Huey type and are very loud and powerful vehicles.

Deanna had been ill and was making a normal recovery until one evening she ate a meal and became deathly ill. She almost died. She has since made a full recovery. It was determined that something which was in the food she ate had caused an unusual bacterial imbalance in her stomach which was nearly fatal. About that time a coral snake was found in their bathtub -- which Wes dispatched with a shovel.

They consequently suffered great financial hardship and were forced to move to another area. It appears that someone wanted Wes out of the UFO business and did a pretty good job of it. This is more than circumstantial evidence, because highly suspicious accidents, sicknesses, deaths, etc. have been occurring to UFO lecturers and researchers since the late 1940s.

I personally know of many cases of harassment and sabotage to homes, vehicles and health of UFO researchers when the only motive possible was to intimidate the person or persons to back out of some particular UFO research or investigation they were at the time involved in. The big question, of course, is who is behind these malevolent acts of violence.

So there it is. People often ask me why I am so involved in this stuff. They ask why didn't I pick something safer like palm reading, astrology or selling real estate or lion taming or skydiving.

Several reasons: One is that it beats managing a vacuum cleaner store -- which was my last full-time job. The other reason is that I want to know what the hell is going on -- in a positive way, of course. And the only way to do it is to go after it.

There is something "out there" and I think it is more -- and different than any of us realize.
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Thank you Tom for the above article.

P. URIAL