‘If anyone believes the US Government is keeping Bigfoot secret, then they are paranoid and need to ask themselves why. What would be the point or reason to keep an animal secret? I can understand if say someone was into alien conspiracy; but crypto-conspiracy, no.’

No discourteousness intended but either you live in a remote region without media access or you’re just not paying attention. I for one am not paranoid regarding anything and I continually ask myself ‘why’ regarding a myriad of topics, including this one.

One such ‘Why’ is because of money, greed and the governments self imposed proclivity for maintaining the status quo. For the record I am a pro-business, pro-capitalist conservative and I have no environmental axes to grind. From The EPA’s own agriculture website:

The United States has about 736.7 million acres of forest land. Of that land, approximately 249.1 million acres (33.8 percent) are owned by the Federal Government. The remaining 487.6 million acres are owned by nonfederal entities, such as State or local governments, private citizens, or companies.

The NFS (National Forest System) contains 191 million acres, or 77 percent, of Federal forest lands. The NFS is contained in 43 States and creates about 500,000 private sector jobs. Of the remaining nonfederal forests, privately held commercial forest lands make up the largest portion, accounting for 347 million acres (71 percent).

Two-thirds of U.S. forest lands, or almost 490 million acres, are classified as timberlands. Timberlands are defined as forest lands used for the production of commercial wood products. Commercial timberland can be used for repeated growing and harvesting of trees. Seventy percent of U.S. timberland is located in the East.
Of the 490 million acres of timberland, Federal, State, and local governments own 131 million acres (27 percent) and non-industrial private entities own 288 million acres (59 percent). Private timberlands are mostly on small tracts of forest land. Only 600,000 landowners have holdings larger than 100 acres. The forest products industry owns about 70 million acres (14 percent) of commercial timberland. One-third of the nation’s annual timber harvest is from these forests.

The United States is the world’s leading producer and consumer of forest products and accounts for about one-fourth of the world’s production and consumption. The United States is also the world’s largest producer of softwood and hardwood lumber. In 1996, total annual sales for commercial (nonfederal) timber and non-timber forest products was approximately $3.8 billion. Timber alone accounted for approximately 69 percent of those sales. Also in 1996, Federal lands combined to produce approximately $75 million in timber and non-timber forest products.

Please note that these are figures for 1996. Current economic figures are markedly higher in dollar per resource unit due to economic inflation and increased world demand. A huge part of this lumber industry would suddenly become “history”. (I’m not sure that this would’t end up in being a wonderful outcome at some far distant and future date, after all has recovered economically)

Paul78,
In my lifetime if I’ve learned anything it is that the answers to many of life’s mysteries can be found by “ following the money”
The question that makes more sense to me is “why” wouldn’t the Government cover up knowledge of the existence of sasquatch.

I do like that rangers style though.

“I don’t try to sell it to nobody, because they’re real. Just like ‘you’ know that camera is real, nobody can tell you any different.”

As far as the ruttin’ season, any musician who plays in bars every Saturday night, if they pay attention to people, can tell you even humans are more amorous in the fall.

The one thing that struck me about one Ranger I spoke with was in 2002, he told me he had seen a wolverine in the snow not too far from Lake Tahoe. Of course, at the time I did not believe that animal existed anywhere near that area. Until of course, years later, it was caught on trail cam.

That same Ranger had also said he had seen two sets of Bigfoot tracks in the snow off a remote dead end road.

These folks know more about what is out there in the woods than I ever will, so I will not be the one to question them as to what they believe to be out there. They can be wrong, or even lying like anyone else, just as they can be telling the truth.

“…New Mexico Park’s Department. During her term of employment there was a big “washout” in one of the Park regions and I’m assuming it was up in Pueblo country around Taos. The flash flood scoured out embankments and in doing so a large number of anomalous skeletons were exposed. Lisa and her colleagues were assigned the task of gathering up the remains and placing them into crates. Also in attendance at the site were Smithsonian Institute officials and FBI agents.

Each day as Lisa and the other Park’s Department employees went onto the site, they were searched for cameras. Similarly they were searched as they left the site each day to make sure they weren’t removing artifacts. They were also obliged to sign “secrecy documents” ensuring that they would never divulge details of their participation in this undertaking…”

Fair enough that is quite a convincing reason for them to cover it up, but i’m still sceptical of conspiracies.

If he hasn’t done the work first hand, then it’s just second hand info, therefore hearsay which isn’t definitive. If he’s done the work first hand, then present some evidence–show us the money!

But let’s assume a coverup is real. Then with such a well orchestrated and effective cover-up, it would be logical to assume there are serious penalties for spilling the beans. So what advantage is it to this guy to share his story with a local news crew?

The whole government conspiracy angle seems, to me at least, like a way for frustrated people to explain why there’s not too much definitive evidence. But if forestry rangers can gather evidence and collect high quality data, as he claims, then why can’t anyone else? Other researchers, private researchers, should be able to do the same thing and then present it to the public. So whether or not the government is hiding knowledge should be irrelevant.

So we have groups like the Erickson project which claim to have done just that. But they are not sharing the information. We are told to wait patiently. Ok, fine. But it does seem fishy, doesn’t it?