`Bigfoot' believers attend US convention

Big believers in “Bigfoot” have ignored a history of hoaxes and misidentifications and gathered in the US to exchange stories and peruse books and items on the creature.

Around 120 people attended the fourth annual East Coast Bigfoot Conference and Expo yesterday in Jeanette, Pennsylvania. Sale items included plaster casts of footprints – some with five toes, some with three.

“There’s just too much evidence collected, too many sightings, too many reports for the creature not to exist,” said Eric Altman, director of the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society.

Mr Altman does not claim to have actually seen a Bigfoot, the American version of the tall, elusive hairy ape-man also known as the Yeti when it is sighted in the Himalayas. But while investigating a report in some woods two years ago, he and another researcher heard some sort of creature.

“We couldn’t see it, but we could hear it mumbling and growling – almost like speaking,” said Mr Altman, 32, a software installer. He said it crossed the trail about 100 yards ahead of them, just out of sight.

Over the past three years, the society has investigated more than 50 Bigfoot reports in Pennsylvania. Though the north west US is best identified with Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, Mr Altman said Pennsylvania ranks fourth among states with more than 500 sightings dating to the 1800s.

Christine Vinkler, 50, said she would have thought anyone claiming to see a Bigfoot was crazy, too – until June 2000, when she said she saw one while driving to work. “I was a sceptic, very much so,” she said.

Dave Grim, 32, a high school history teacher, said he came to the expo out of curiosity. “I’m open and would like to experience something I can’t explain,” he said.