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“I Believe In Bigfoot---

---Where Ya’ From You Smelly Thing?”

by Tom Modern © 2003

Iwas basically minding my own business during the winter of 2002, running an internet conspiracy board called Para-Realities andparrying the odd, thinly-veiled threat from those who purported to be functionaries of “big brother,” and generally justtrying to scrape by. That’s when I happened upon an interesting website called The Bigfoot Casebook---based on an out-of-print book of the same name by Janet and Colin Bord---which lists bigfoot sightings by state from the 1800’s to the 1980’s. I was astonished to find out that there were actually sightings in Staten Island in the mid-1970’s.

“Bigfoot in New York City ?!” I thought. I’ve seen my share of bizarre

things in the “Big Gotham” ; giant rabbits (albeit costumed) ; mime-faced nut-jobs waltzing through traffic ; people making noises I swear weren’t human ; blood trails leading to hospitals etc.

But this one took the cake. But why not bigfoot in New York? They have big butt after all, which can be ogled on just about any given day on any city street, so who’s to say there can’t be a “big-foot?”

I just chalked it up to that there would’ve been more forestland on Staten Island in the 1970’s than there is today, so maybe the sightings could’ve been real? I also made a mental note to check out “Historic Richmond Town,” an area where the sightings seemed to be focused. Until then I had myopically written Richmond Town off as an Amish-

wanna-be, butter-churning sideshow.

There were a total of three, separate sightings: on December 7th, 1974, Frank

Piztolato (11) and Phillip Vivolo (12) had been walking in the woods near Richmond Town when they “Saw a black, upright bear which roared at them”; on January 21st, 1975, a Mrs. D. Daly was “Driving late at night, had to brake to avoid Bigfoot under 6 ft. tall crossing the road from church car park and heading for rubbish dump and swamp behind church.”; and on January 21st, 1975, a young couple “Saw bigfoot on church car park in early morning.”

The sightings sounded pretty credible to me since two of them occurred on the same day. The name “Mrs. D. Daly” doesn’t exactly give one the impression of a hoaxer either. What’s more is that part of Staten Island in January is cold—real cold. There’s no shelter; it wouldn’t be a scene very inviting to a joker running around in a monkey suit.

On the sighting by the two boys, it sounded more like a case of what adults told children they saw rather than what they may have actually seen. If it was a bear that escaped from a zoo or a circus, I could see that, but was it a bear? Bears we know about after all. They’re normal behavioral animals with limited capabilities and if they existed in the parklands of Staten Island, they would eventually be spotted meandering around like they owned the place.

I recall how big the bigfoot phenomenon was when I was a boy in the 1970’s. They even upstaged UFO’s then. Maybe they had a better agent? I don’t know. I recall what they used to say, that bigfoot was just “a really big black guy in a raccoon’s coat picking mushrooms…” (I don’t make these things up).

When I finally got out to the Richmond Town area in February ’02, I was awestruck by it’s picturesque beauty with Historic Richmond Town (founded 1670) and the baroque Church of St. Andrew (originally c. 1712) nestled snugly in a valley

in time and wrapped within a thick, dark cloak of forest-laden hills.

With the above-mentioned sightings in mind, the area was starting to make

sense: the church (The Church of St. Andrew) ; the car park (the lot across from St. Andrew) ; the swamp (behind St. Andrew) ; the dump (in those days, there were areas of landfill closer by)---it was all there. This had to be the place. So I first made little segue waysinto the safe, nearby woods; this was due to the fact that I was initially intimidated by the humongous LaTourette wooded tract which sits behind The Church of St. Andrew (LaTourette being named after the David LaTourette family who were among Richmond Town’s first settlers). LaTourette can a big, scary place when you’re back there all alone, nonetheless, I got my toes wet and gradually hiked deeper and deeper into LaTourette.

What I found there surprised me: heavily barricaded trails where the trees always seem to conveniently fall across the trails; large “lay areas” where all the vegetation’s matted down; strange rub markings high atop trees; strange prints with three or five toes etc. During one of several forays into the parklands in February of that year, I got another surprise.

“Hello?! Hello?! Anybody home?!” Seemed safe enough, I thought, as a walked towards a ramshackle hut that looked like something out of Robinson Crusoe or Gilligan’s Island at the very least. It was a simple wooden structure in a clearing atop a hill in LaTourette surrounded by heavy brush. I recognized some of the walls to be made of wooden poles—the same ones the Parks Department uses to prop up the saplings of indigenous species they’re reforesting the parklands with. The marooned castaway of the house appeared to be out, so I pulled open a crudely hinged door and peered inside the hovel.

“Yikes!” I was face to face with a large, black pentagram on a plywood wall with the words “Hail and Kill” and “Kill Everyone” scrawled around it. On another wall was a large candelabra, it’s wax congealed in thick droplets down the shack wall. On the floor sat an old school desk and a cane with a claw-foot base. It seemed to be more than a case of a few malignant-minded metal-heads or Goths with too much time on their hands. Whoever haunted this place seemed like a real sicko. I prepared to make myself scarce, but I did my best Peter Parker in snapping off a couple of quick photos first. On my way out, I noticed a large table with fresh scorch marks on it, giving me the impression that recent rituals had been performed. I hit the brush and got out of there pronto.

Cultists seem to be an old, dirty secret in many a community and Staten Island’s no exception. I ended up contacting the local police precinct about it and spoke with a detective. If anyone was taking a dirt napup there (after that little editorial concerning hailing and killing), I figured it’d be as good a place as any to take ten guys with shovels just to have a little “look-see” in the ground. Nada. The detective only studied me with perplexed curiosity then ran my birth date for my troubles (warrants are keyed on name and date of birth). He might’ve thought I was just some goofball who doubled-deuced on his meds again. But is it my fault that I’ve never been a big fan of missing people?

Anyway, come summer 2002 it was warm enough to spend some nights back in the forestland, so I began looking for a suitable site. This search took me deeper into the “Greenbelt”---as it’s officially called. I ended up deciding on a place a few miles from LaTourette along Rockland Avenue called “Buck’s Hollow.” This area is even creepier and more secluded than LaTourette. Much of the area is hundreds of feet above sea level too, like Mt. Moses for instance (named after Robert Moses, not the prophet). There isn’t many nearby residents, and the ones that are, I couldn’t ever imagine going to for help if I needed to: clawing down the front of their door just as a mythical monster closed in on me. They’d probably just laugh demonically and slam the door in my face.

On my first night in Spooky Hollow so-to-speak, all seemed normal. I could hear the welcoming sounds of small animals scurrying around searching for food, which is normal. I did hear the sound of something bashing a large stick against a tree repeatedly in the distance, but I didn’t think it to be anything strange, nothing to get alarmed about.

On the second night it was deathly silent. But still, having never been there before, I didn’t find it odd or anything. I had no frame of reference. As I lay in my tent, I detected the sound and sensation of something creeping up on me. It was the same feeling you get when someone’s standing behind you. Whatever it was, it was able to creep around with a minimum of ground noise too, which I found amazing in itself. I hadn’t come all that prepared, I had a small flashlight that barely worked, but I got it working and flashed it out of the tent opening off into the blackness. I couldn’t see anything, but whatever it was, I could hear it sauntering off.

I definitely felt like the Sasquatch were aware of my presence at that point as I lay awake listening. A short time later I heard the sound of something timbering a large tree uncomfortably close by. It was a windless night and the unmistakable sound of the tree’s roots snapping up as it fell convinced me that it was definitely pushed.

“Cool,” was all I said to myself at the time, but my reasoning was this: there wasn’t much I could do about the situation then, I was stuck up there and so there was no sense in whimpering about it. Running was out of the question. I never like to miss the end of anything, even if it could be bad. And whatever these things are, I’m sure they’re powerfully built and if they wanted to kill me, it’d be over so fast that I probably wouldn’t even feel it. But luckily, nothing else happened that night.

In hindsight, they could’ve done anything to me. I was the tourist there and I was in their element. And plus, I’m “day guy” (as the old Seinfeld gag goes)---they’re night guy. They seem to see in the dark as well as we see during the day.

The next night nothing much happened, except that I knew they were out there because I heard a peculiar growl at around 5 AM.

This brave face didn’t last long afterwards however. I decided never to go back up there again at night alone. I guess it just works on you after a while—gnawson you.

So goes the end of the great Staten Island Sasquatch story…not. Curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to return a couple of weeks later for a two-day stint. But make no mistake about it, I was “face-down” praying to God come nightfall. Daytime courage and curiosity has a way of catching the last train out of Dodge come twilight (making you feel like that ain’t such a bad idea to boot).

All was quiet on the first night, but on the morning of the second day at around 7:30 AM, I decided to take a short walk to some ruins of an old, colonial house nearby. As I returned to my camp, I sensed something amiss. The energy around me got “all weird” like something was going to happen, then it did, and all very fast.

“Kkrraaasshhh!…Ka-Kkkrraaaasshhhh!…Ka-Kkkrraaaassshh!!…”

I had surprised one of the creatures in my camp. It went crashing through the woods with such violence, it sounded as if someone were driving a box truck through the forest.

I gave chase.

“Kraaash!…Thump!, Thump!, Thump!…” I went galloping off into the forest after it like any gallant backwoodsman would. I’m no slouch when it comes to woods either. I practically grew up in them. And after all, I’m “day guy” I’m thinking at this point---the odds had switched in my favor. All that vaunted courage that seemed to turn-tail at the slightest glimpse of moonlight the night before was now back. But after about 200 feet though, I realized that whatever it was, it was too fast and I was too old and slow to catch it. And catch what anyway? My death? What was I going to do when I caught up with the thing?---mace it? The scene would’ve probably only turned into a ridiculous, violent slapstick routine with the creature then chasing me. Besides, I was really only trying to get a visual on the beast, see what the thing looked like.

I walked back towards the camp trying to catch my breath.

“Shhhkk!…Kkkrrraaassshhh!!….”

Another creature that was lingering nearby now took off into the forest. It must’ve been watching me.

“Here we go again…” I thought.

“Ba-drump! Ba-drump! Ba-drump!…” I galloped, giving chase in that direction, but grew quickly tired and nixed any hope of catching that leviathan even sooner than the first. This was no way to start a morning…

Whatever these things were, they were watching me, stalking me, and waiting until I broke camp so they could come in and raid it I guess. I had a habit of leaving tidbits of meat out for them (meat’s their favorite) from my evening meals, so they probably figured that there were leftovers somewhere to be had and were waiting until I left. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have chased them, but given that lumberjack stunt, maybe it was a good idea. I left for the day and returned that night.

That night, I was sure to gather together all the rocks from the surrounding area that I could find. I have three principle rules when in Sasquatch country: #1: Take the high country---just like the old adage. Let the bigfoot have to come to you; #2: If you’ve got them pissed off (and if you’re in the wrong you could be a dead duck), take away any obvious weapons. Sasqui like to throw rocks when they’re mad---big rocks; #3: Bring beer. You’re going through one of the biggest mind-f#@!s of your life so there’s no sense in doing this thing totally sober.

Nothing much happened that night except that I heard some rock crashes off into the distance. Some say that these “crashes” are a territorial sign, but they may have only been searching for small animals, I’m not sure.

I also spent a night or two near Historic Richmond Town. That was really scary. It’s so pitch black out there at night that it’s impossible to tell your hand from a tree. I heard something large moving through the bulrushes, but nothing terrorized me.

Since then I’ve hiked extensively in the Greenbelt and I’ve found: trees snapped in half; a small kill site with animal remains; “romp areas” in which all the trees and vegetation were been torn down; subterranean clues like small caves and old wells; large droppings precariously perched atop boulders; and an area that had what I would describe as a strong “horse-like” smell.

Another strange point is how super-elusive the whitetail deer are on the island. They are thought to have disappeared from the island entirely for twenty years. Evidence was finally snapped in the form of a picture along a highway in 1997. It’s been my experience that they seem to be “terrified” by bi-peds in general, and their population is by no means raging out of control like it is in other areas. In Long Island it seemed to me as if the deer were almost tame, like you could just go up and pet them. It’s been said that deer is a main staple for the Sasquatch, especially in the bleak winter months. Could this be the reason for the low deer population and their overall skittishness?

Recently, I met a man who spends a lot of time in the parks. I was telling him a story about another identified animal I had seen, when he told me that he was on a small mountain in the parks one night, when he saw what he thought looked like “Small bears standing on two legs walking by.”

“You weren’t stoned?” I asked.

“No,” he affirmed. I believe him.

I met another man recently in Richmond Town who informed me that after a recent blizzard, they noticed tracks leading along the water all the way back into---and disappearing into---the swamps.

You can’t tell me that any human would be out for a little walk-ee-poo in those conditions, in that terrain, in a blizzard that would’ve produced snowdrifts 5 feet high in some places.

This brings me to my primary message. Whatever these things are, they are obviously intelligent, feeling beings who raise young and are out there suffering in the elements just like any other creature. I feel that they need to be protected and so do the remaining parcels of Staten Island forestland. The last thing I want to see are hoards of Bigfoot investigators combing the woods. I don’t want these things to really start resenting people---hating people.

I don’t look for the Sasquatch mystery to be solved anytime soon. They’re smarter than us in their element. Furthermore, by no means just figure that this must all be some big, hysterical joke and go back there and F’ with them. You may be in great danger. People trying to hurt Sasquatches have been in return killed for their attempts periodically across the U.S. They just classify it as a bear mauling and it’s quickly forgotten about.

Upon returning from my wilderness stays, I can’t describe how consolatory it would be to be among well-lit streets, stores and people again. Civilization and its minor annoyances are a welcome relief to a man who has just perhaps encountered---a monster.