The Man on the Trail of Bigfoot

Posted by: Craig Woolheater on August 14th, 2013

For Felton’s Michael Rugg, a life-long devotion to tracking California’s most famous non-human biped isn’t merely a personal quest, it’s a form of art.

Rugg, who owns and operates the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton, is no stranger to artistic projects. In fact, he considers his museum to be a work of art.

Rugg was a graphic artist for 36 years, a free-lance illustrator before teaching himself how to use the Macintosh to produce graphic art. At one point, as a freelance artist, he painted backgrounds for “Primal Rage,” an arcade fighting game developed by Atari.

As a member of a musical trio called Hubert’s Hotshots for four years, Rugg became part of the local folk scene. He was self-taught on the dulcimer, an instrument he and his brother built and sold.

Throughout those years, however, beginning in the early ’50s when he was a child, Rugg accumulating Bigfoot-related items including books and toys.

“It’s kind of like there was a little voice telling me, ‘Mike, someday you’re going to do something with this material. All these books you’re gathering, all this stuff you’re collecting is going to have a purpose and meaning, and the time will come when that is ready to happen.’”

The time came in July of 2004 when the Bigfoot Discovery Museum, located on Highway 9 near the entrance to Henry Cowell State Park, opened to the public.

“Putting the museum together was a culmination of 60 years of being an artist because the museum itself, to me, is a little piece of art that I’ve put together,” says Rugg.

His collection, which grew as more Bigfoot-related items were published or released, originated with a scrapbook of Bigfoot articles — from Life magazine, for example —that Rugg started at the age of 5.

It was the year before, however, when his interest in Bigfoot was first sparked. At 4 years old, Rugg says he caught sight of a Bigfoot. Walking by the Eel River near Laytonville in Mendocino County, Rugg, as he describes it, saw an extremely large being with human-like features — a nose, hands and feet similar to those of a human—yet “much, much hairier.”

“It looked like an overly large bodybuilder on steroids, but with a pleasant look on his face,” Rugg recalls. “The Bigfoot I saw wasn’t threatening in any way, despite its size.”

Still, he didn’t talk about it for years because of the stigma surrounding Bigfoot.

“You try to share that you saw it and then everybody tells jokes and they make fun of you, so most people stop talking about it and do no sharing of information about their own sightings,” Rugg says.

In part, it’s why Rugg created the Bigfoot museum — to provide comfort by establishing a nonjudgmental safe harbor for individuals who wish to speak or learn about the matter.

“A great deal of the eyewitnesses that I’ve talked to also had a tendency to put it out of their mind for a period of time, to not talk about it, and maybe even doubt their own sanity,” says Rugg.

Read the entire article here.

About Craig Woolheater
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005. I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films: OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.


2 Responses to “The Man on the Trail of Bigfoot”

  1. Goodfoot responds:

    Cool. A friend sent me a momento, and I think it was from this place.

  2. marcodufour responds:

    I was at Mike Rugg’s museum only two days ago and met him and his co worker there, a very polite nice and knowledgeable man who generously spent some time chatting to myself and my wife about Bigfoot and many other things. I bought a copy of Patty’s foot (something i had wanted for many years) and thoroughly enjoyed my visit.

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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